Why the Story You Tell Insulates You From Outside Extremes

An interesting aspect to how smart coaches are learning to recruit.

Not a difficult concept to grasp, and yet it’s one that is seldom used with any kind of intention as it’s being executed by many college coaches:

The story - your recruiting and marketing message, the variety of message mediums you use, and the sequential linear timeline you do it in - can help balance any extremes that you might face in a recruiting a prospect.

I’m seeing that now: Programs who we serve as clients, and have maintained regular communication with prospects before and during this current crisis, really haven’t skipped a beat. In fact, many have actually had an easier time getting recruits.

(how cool is that?!)

How is it happening? It turns out, the longer and more consistent the messaging campaign to a prospect, the more it creates a ‘balance’ in the mind of your recruit. If a prospect knows what you’re all about as a coach, understands the culture on campus, is sold on why your degree is going to be an advantage for them after they leave college, etc., they’ll be less apt to second-guess themselves when a crisis comes along.

Whether that’s a global pandemic, or the announcement that your new field turf will be delayed two years, the story ends up mattering to them. A lot.

By comparison, if very little of your story has been told, it creates a vacuum…a void in the mind of prospects that has to be filled with something else.

What is that ‘something else’?

Their own fears. Their preconceived ideas. What their boyfriend is telling them. That the other college is offering them $2000 more than you are. Anything and everything, they’ll run to it if it gives them the feeling of knowing how to make this decision.

So doesn’t it make sense to be telling that consistent story well, every 6-9 days just like the recruits tell us they want us to? Because if you do, you’ll fill that void and insulate your program from the extremes that will otherwise turn the attention of your recruit during the storm - whatever that storm is.

Keep that in mind, Coach…what you’re doing now matters, and telling a compelling, consistent story, should be one of those things.