A few years ago, my wife and I excitedly watched the cement being poured for the foundation of our new home.  You don't really realize just how much cement it takes to pour a foundation, not to mention a patio and a driveway.

After that task was completed, we came back a little later after the cement had hardened to check on the finished work. 

And that's when we saw something unexpected...

The same men that had been carefully pouring and smoothing the cement for our new home were now etching deep lines at various points in the foundation, and even cracking it in certain places!

"What are they doing!?!?" I thought to myself.  I wanted our foundation to be perfect.  I was looking for smooth and beautiful, not cracked and etched.  The control freak in me couldn't resist pointing out this apparant problem to one of the men overseeing the operation.  The answer he gave me was enlightening.

"We do that because we want to be the ones to determine where the cracks are in the foundation", he explained.  "It's going to crack over time anyway.  But if we establish the main crack lines now, and etching those deep lines in the driveway as we're laying the concrete, we can make sure that no cracks show up later in places we don't want them."

All of a sudden, the cracks weren't a bad thing.  I understood their purpose, and the benefit to the overall structure.

And that's where the lesson for college coaches and recruiters comes in...

You need to show the cracks in your program early on for your prospects.

To achieve that, you have to understand what many coaches want to do first.  I have found, as we go to campuses to work personally with coaches and athletic departments, that many recruiters want to paint to "smooth" of a picture to their prospects.

"If you come to my program, we're going to build everything around you.  You're going to be the star for the next four years."

"Here at our school, they you'll get all the extra academic help that you need.  We make sure that you won't struggle with academics at all."

"The weather here is amazing all year long.  Yes, it gets a little cold during the winter, but our kids love it."

You get the point, right?  Do some of these sound familiar, Coach?  If you worry too much about presenting the "perfect" college situation for your prospect in everything you show them and tell them, you probably run the risk of making the prospect question whether they are getting the real story from you.  Kids today are smart, and they know that nothing is perfect at any college they visit.

So, its best to show them your cracks before they show up in unexpected places, at unexpected times.

As we outline in great detail in our two recruiting workbooks for college coaches, most prospects are actively searching for the seedy underbelly of your college and program: They're looking for what's wrong with your program, why they wouldn't like the other players, and other reasons to cross you off the list.  Choosing a college program is a process of elimination for most prospects.  The point I'm trying to make?  They're looking for your cracks.

Here are two big benefits to doing it, and one idea on how to do it:

•  Benefit #1: You become believable.  Presenting a picture of perfection to your recruit runs the risk of leaving them wondering what they're missing.  Whether large or small, there are always problems or imperfections at a college or in a coach's program.  By taking the initiative and exposing your own faults, you becoming more trustworthy: After all, if you're open and honest in what's wrong with your program or college, why shouldn't the prospect assume that you're telling the truth with regards to what you're presenting as the selling points of your program?  Of course.  And that's why its smart to reveal your own cracks before your competitors do it for you.
• Benefit #2:  You can turn your negatives into positives.  Presented correctly, your negatives can actually become selling points for you.  For example, you could present a negative about your campus' remote location by saying, "We're glad we aren't located in the middle of a big city because it really helps build a community feeling on campus, and our players develop some great long term friendships because of it."  When you define that negative yourself, you can build in the corresponding benefits of it as well (something your competition probably won't do!)
• How to do it:  What we do when we sit down with a new Total Recruiting Solution college client is the same thing you should do, which is make a list of the objections that you will most likely hear from one of your prospects.  Then, list the biggest ways the disadvantages of that objection would help highlight the benefits of the objection...or, the "upside" of the negative.  Using the example of the college with the remote, rural location, there are definite benefits to being an isolated campus.  Are there negatives?  Sure, potentially...especially if you have a prospect who loves city life and a more metropolitan setting.  However, they could probably be persuaded to see the upside to a more close-knit, isolated college community if that "crack" was presented in a positive way.

Coaches who highlight and reveal their negatives don't risk losing the interest of a prospect.  On the contrary, those that do it creatively and sincerely will stand-out among those colleges that are recruiting them.

So get busy this week, coach, and start figuring out where you can start "cracking"!

Need help figuring out how to get started?  Think about attending one of our special recruiting conferences, or look into our Total Recruiting Solution plan for your program.  It's affordable, and very effective...it's like having a team of recruiting experts in your office ready to create messages and strategies that get you noticed and get better recruits on campus.

Contact Dan Tudor with questions by email at dan@sellingforcoaches.com.