Your Outdated Facility: Where Do Prospects Rank It's Importance in the Recruiting Process?
Why what they think holds the key to overcoming a subpar athletic facility
As we’ve been talking about in the previous posts, the first key to getting past the outdated facility recruiting objection is centered around the right attitude on the part of you as a coach.
Once you’re approaching it with the right outlook, it’s actually fairly easy to re-direct those facility objections into recruiting selling points using this proven approach…not all of the time, of course, but much of the time.
The important underpinning to what makes this theory play out so positively so often is where it ranks on the scale of importance when it comes to how your recruits see your facility in the overall recruiting decision they’re making. In the research we’ve done - especially over the past seven recruiting cycles - we see an interesting majority opinion emerge when it comes to the topic of an old, outdated, or subpar facility:
Your old, outdated, or subpar facility will be the reason they could say no.
But, your eventual new, updated, best-in-the-conference facility will almost never be the driving reason they would say yes.
In other words, what we find repeatedly in the vast majority of recruiting decisions, is that your facility might be the reason they say no, but it won’t be the reason they say yes. And, much of the time, if they understand the alternative reasons to say “yes” to you despite a bad sports facility, they’ll do that more than 6 out of 10 times.
The three primary proven topics to focus on when it comes to getting your recruits to consider other factors besides your facility include:
Why you like them as a prospect, and what your (as detailed as possible) plan for them is during their freshman year once they’re a part of your program. Over and over, this is one of the strongest pulls for a prospect when it comes to what drives them towards a decision to say yes. And that’s the key…giving them reasons to say yes rather than defaulting to a cause for saying no.
The feeling like they belong with your team, and they’re feeling connected with your current student-athletes. As we’ve taught for years in our on-campus and virtual recruiting workshops, the majority of your recruits make their final decision based on a feeling. So did you, Coach. In fact, feelings are what’s fueling your uneasiness about the way your facility looks. And, feelings are initially what drives your recruit to pump their brakes when it comes to the idea of competing in your facility in college; it’s natural, because we are visual beings who react to things emotionally. Your job as a recruiter is to help manage those feelings on the part of your recruits…if they get a sense that they’re wanted by you and your team, they’ll be drawn towards the idea of committing to you and your college. If they get the sense that you’re embarrassed about your facilities, and if you don’t address their subpar-ness (just invented that word, thanks) they’ll assume their instinctual visual assessment of your facility is correct, and they’ll use it as a reason to not pursue you and your program. Another finding that goes along with that statement: Most prospects won’t say anything about it to you, not wanting to insult you or have you react negatively towards them.
Believing that your college is going to be the smartest choice in the long run, athletically and academically. This approach isn’t a quick fix. I’ve described it as a little bit like turning an aircraft carrier…it involves a lot of different factors working together, and takes a long time. But, it works. If you can make the case and tell the story of you and your program that gives them repeated reasons to choose you despite what their knee-jerk emotional reaction might be, you can win. Prove that getting coached by you, and getting a degree from your college, is going to be the best for them in the long run, and you’ll have a great chance of overcoming your facility’s weaknesses.
As a new recruiting school year gets underway, be aware of the mechanics of how this process works. You need to recognize when it’s happening, and then take action on moving your prospect past this hurdle. If you don’t, it could very well be the reason they never take you seriously…even though you and your program would be a perfect fit for them.