You've written great letters.  You've crafted amazing e-mails.  And the phone calls have been long and fruitful.

The only that's left is the campus visit.  A mere formality, right?  After all, they've basically been sold on your school through all of the stuff that you've sent them, right?

Think again, Coach.

In the vast majority of cases, the decision on whether to attend a school or not comes down to the campus visit.  We go into that in detail in our special report, "Inside the Mind of Your College Prospect", which details the decision making process of today's student-athlete that you are recruiting.

The topic was discussed in detail by Mandy Brettingen, a longtime college soccer coach and the resident sports psychology here at Selling for Coaches.  She helped us put together a list of eight key ingredients to planning and executing a successful campus visit at this past weekend's SFC Recruiting Kick-Off Conference.

1. The Atmosphere: Are You Thriving or Surviving?  In other words, when your prospect gets on to campus, are they going to see a program that is hanging on by a thread in terms of the team interpersonal relationships?  Or, is it a healthy, thriving team that has great team chemistry.  If the answer is anything other than "thriving", you need to begin building team relationships and doing things internally that will improve the atmosphere.
2. Get the Team's Insights.  Many coaches use their team for hosting and interacting with a recruit, but then don't use the team to help assess how well the recruit will mesh with the existing team.  Listening to your team in this way can help you avoid a bad mix of personalities that can damage team chemistry.  Remember...your team's opinion counts when it comes to adding the right new members to the team.
3. Going on the Campus Tour.  How long will the tour be?  Who will host it?  What's the schedule going to look like?  Coach, you need to plan out a campus visit in excrutiating detail.  Leave nothing to chance.  Since it all comes down to a great visit, you need to do whatever you can to ensure that they have a great experience.  And it all starts with a master plan that helps manage the experience your prospect has on campus.
4. Be Careful About the Class They Attend.  Part of a campus visit usually includes having your prospect attend a class at your college.  Here's an important tip: Make sure they go to a class that is discussion based, rather than lecture based.  Why?  Because discussion based classes are usually full of lively talk and opinion, which is something that they don't usually see in their high school.  Most come away with a positive impression with that kind of class, instead of sitting in something that looks and feels just like high school.
5. Let Other Athletes Know You Have a Visitor!  One thing that we discuss in our recruiting guides for coaches is how important it is to have your team, and the other athletes in the department, treat your prospect well.  That's the number one way they determine whether they get a good "feel" about the college.  Here's a suggestion: E-mail your athletes, and others in the department, that you will have a recruit on campus and if they see them with you or their host, that they should come up and say hello.  Sounds simple, i know, but the schools that do it report a really great response from their on-campus visits.
6. Make Sure There's Time to Just Hang Out.  When we interview student-athletes as a part of our On-Campus Workshops, they tell us that sometimes they feel really over-scheduled during trips to visit a campus.  Meeting after meeting, activity after activity...sometimes recruits report that they feel exhausted by the end, and still haven't had a chance to get a "feel" for the campus they are visiting.  What should you do?  Focus more time on just relaxing.  Let them hang out in your host's room.  Let them play games, watch movies, and just be a kid.  That's what they want.

There are actually three or four more tips for hosting incredible campus visits, but we'll save those for a future discussion (and if you're on the list of upcoming On-Campus Workshops we have, we'll go over them in detail with you).

Campus visits are vitally important to a great recruiting plan, and it takes planning and precise execution to pull off a really great experience for the prospects.  If you need help with planning your on-campus visit, just let us know.