There are two types of coaches reading this today, and you fall into one of those two categories.

Either you're a coach who is still scrambling to scrape together the final tattered remnants of what was supposed to finally be a great recruiting class, or you have pretty much wrapped-up recruiting for the year and are evaluating how to do it better next year.

Today's article works for both groups.  Granted, it's better to be sitting in the second group, but even if you are sitting there in the frist group stressing about this year's class, you can put these principles to work right away.

They are four principles that are a great foundation for building a solid approach to recruiting.  Talk to a successful coach and recruiter in your sport, and I'll bet they have a few of these down cold and part of their annual recruiting plan.

Here they are:

Over-deliver on what your prospect gets from you.  By "getting", I'm not talking about a bigger media guide or longer letters.  That stuff plays virtually no role in getting an athlete interested in you and your program.  What does?  Being genuine in the way you communicate with them, and delivering more than what they are probably expecting: More focused on them, more focused on what they want out of their recruiting visit, and more personal interaction from your team when they get a chance to interact with them.  That's the stuff that matters...if you over-deliver and exceed their expectations in those areas, you'll win almost every time.

Focus on creating a bond with your recruits, not selling your program.  As I explained to this past weekend's group of coaches who came to one of our recruiting conferences, you need to resist selling your program too early.  Instead, focus on creating a solid bond with your prospect.  They aren't ready to listen to what you have to sell early on anyway, so spend that time making sure you've build the beginnings of a relationship.  Don't focus on selling too early...to do that effectively, you need to have developed a really solid communication basis with your teenage prospect.  Don't rush it, and don't worry about selling (there will be plenty of time for that later in the recruiting process).

Make sure you, your department, and your team go the extra mile in making prospects feel like family.  Two big words in that sentence: "Feel" and "family".  If you've read our study on how prospects make their final decision, you know how important their feelings are: About you, about your team, about your school...they are all big factors in how they make their final choice.  And, if they get the feeling like they are part of a family on the visit, you'll be at the top of their list.  "Feeling like part of the family" is always cited as a big reason for why coaches end up signing their recruit.  So here's the question for you, Coach: What kind of planning goes into your campus visits, and how are you ensuring that your prospects feel like famiy when they are around you and your team?  It's an important question...take it seriously.

Don't give up too easily on those top tier prospects.  Most of you do, and you shouldn't.  Persistence is a learned skill, and if you haven't learned to keep going after recruits even though they don't show immediate interest, you need to.  The more I visit campuses and conduct closed-door focus group sessions as a part of our On-Campus Workshops, the more I hear stories from athletes that said they came to the school because their coach didn't give up on them.  At the school I visited this past week, a few of their athletes specifically mentioned that the coach who was recruiting them at that school never, ever gave up.  Even after a few of them said that they had decided that they weren't interested, the coach kept at it.  They didn't take no for an answer.  And in quite a few cases, they are able to turn things around and get the prospect to change their mind.  At some point, recruiting a prospect comes to an end.  I just see too many coaches give up way too early.

Here's my promise: If you put these four principles to use, and make them a part of the foundation that you build your recruiting upon, you will really see a difference in your results.  And, you'll find that the recruiting process itself is less stressful and more productive earlier in the cycle.

These four principles are the foundation of our work with college coaches and athletic departments who have us helping them produce and manage their recruiting messages through our Total Recruiting Solution plan.  Want to learn more about exactly what happens when you bring the TRS plan to your program?  Email us at dan@sellingforcoaches.com and use the subject "Tell me about TRS", and feel free to include any particular questions you have about it.