It's the core of every good recruiting effort...the single thing that can determine whether you get the prospect, or lose them to a competitor.

Questions.

Make that good questions.

Asking the right ones, the right way, at the right time.  When you get right down to it, questions drive successful recruiting efforts.  Everything else - all those "exciting" brochures, all those tantilizing one page letters - don't measure up to really effective questions. 

To help you kick off a successful year of recruiting, I wanted to give you a few of the right kinds of questions you can ask your prospects as you head into the busy Fall recruiting season.  See if you can incorporate these into your recruiting conversations: 

1. The Who Question

Never, ever assume that the prospect you are speaking with is the real decision-maker. It sounds strange, but it is true: Your prospect may be only one of a number of individuals who will figure into his or her final decision. Parents, coaches and others may have real influence over your prospect.  Know all the players in the game so you can prepare strategies and tactics to deal with them and how they may individually effect your prospect's decision. Your challenge is to find out if there are other participants in the decision without putting your recruit on the spot. If you're too blunt, the prospect might mislead you. Here is a simple question that you can't live without. Use it every time:

"Amanda, apart from yourself, who is going to be involved in your decision?"

Here's a variation: "Kevin, when a player like you has to make a big decision like this, there are usually several people involved. Apart from yourself, who else will help you make your decision?"

2. The When Question

I am amazed at how many coaches and recruiters ignore this powerful and insightful question:

"Kathy, when do you see the final decision being made?" Or, "Chad, if our offer was a go in your mind, when do you see it happening?"

The "when" question helps you to assess your prospect's urgency. A decision that will be made within a week has more urgency than a decision that will be made in three months. Knowing when the recruiting might conclude helps you set priorities, determines the time and effort you devote and dictates your follow up strategy with the prospect you're recruiting.

3. The Scenario Question

Discovering a prospect's needs can be challenging in the early stages of recruiting. When prospects don't know you, they tend to be much more reserved in the information they share. Many are not comfortable telling you about their "warts and blemishes" (i.e., their needs, challenges, weaknesses and concerns) until you've established some rapport. You've probably noticed that by now, right coach?  To get around this hesitancy, coaches should use a scenario question. As the name implies, the scenario question paints a scenario that addresses a problem or concern without putting the prospect on the spot. Here are a couple of examples:

"Eric, a lot of the prospects we're recruiting this year have said they're interested in committing as early as possible. Let me ask you, is that something you're thinking about also?"

"Jennifer, we are getting more and more feedback from our prospects that are part of our 2009 recruiting class about who they'll rely on to help them make their final decision.  Let me ask you, how would you answer that question?"

The scenario question is based on the premise that "misery loves company". You want the prospect to think, "Gee, if others are experiencing the same thing then it's okay for me to open up." Master the scenario question and you'll get to their needs and inner motivations more quickly, reduce your recruiting cycle and get more recruits committed in less time.

4. The Net Impact Question

Even if you use a scenario question and the recruit opens up to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that the their need for what you're offering at your college is strong enough for him to take positive action. One of the best questions you can ask to determine the depth and breadth of a need your athletic prospect has is the "net impact" question. Here are two versions:

"So what's the net impact of our offer to cover half of your total tuition costs?" Or, "What's the possible net impact of waiting until late March to give us your final decision?"

The net impact forces your prospect to think about the rippling effect of a problem. It gets your prospect to do some analysis. In effect, you want him to say, "You know, I never thought of it like that." Suddenly, seemingly minor problems become more significant. Or, you learn the net impact is minor in the mind of your teenage prospect. If so, avoid wasting your time. Move on. Because the question is opened-end it gets your client to expand and elaborate. You get information and information is power.

Those four questions will jump-start your recruiting conversations and get you past some of the common road-blocks coaches tell me that they're experiencing when they're dealing with today's prospects.

Want more help that is more personalized?  Let me recommend two ideas for you to take a look at:  Our popular On-Campus Workshop and the new Total Recruiting Solution plan.  Both offer you unparalleled advantages in getting you ready to win every recruiting situation you face. 

Posted by Dan Tudor at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

See if you can relate to this situation, Coach:  You were pretty sure that your recruit you had been recruiting for several months had finally made up their mind to sign with you school.  But you didn't want to "push" the athlete.  You didn't want to make your prospect think you were "desperate" to sign the prospect (which you probably were, of course).  Still, you probably really wanted to know.

What you need to learn how to do is to start asking effective trial close questions.  Specifically, questions that would give you insight into what your prospect was thinking, making it easier for you to know when it was time to ask for that final commitment.  "Trial close" questions are part of the arsenal of every business sales professional in today's world, and in our book, "Selling for Coaches", we train college coaches to use the same effective strategy to better guage their recruit's frame of mind.

Here's a sample of the strategy we outline in the book that you can use to interact more effectively with prospects that you are talking to: 

"Once you handle objections that are raised by your prospect and the family, you are a step closer to gaining their acceptance of you and your program as their college choice.  But you can’t stop there.  There are two more important steps in the selling process that need to take place.  One of those steps is to use a few effective “trial close” techniques with your prospect, or his or her parents.  What is a trial close?  Simply put, it’s a question that gauges the athlete’s interest level in your offer and your program by assuming the athlete has made a commitment by the type of question that you ask. 

An example of how that kind of a question may sound would be, “When you move on campus next fall, do you think you want to room with another athlete or with a regular student?”  Or, another one might be, “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, have you talked about how often you might be able to come see Jenny play at our school?”

Do you hear the tone of the question?  It already assumes that the athlete is coming to your school in the way that you ask the question.  The key to an effective trial close question is in the answer that’s given by your prospect or their parents.  Do they answer in such a way that tells you they’re assuming that they will be committed to your program next year?  Have they already pictured themselves at your college and on your team?  If the answer in your mind, as you’re listening to them, is “yes” then you’ve probably sold them on your offer.  Way to go!  If they answer your question with, “I don’t know…I’ve never really thought about that before” or “Man, I don’t know…that’s a tough one” or “we haven’t talked about that”, then you know that you have more work to do.

The value of trial close questions, as we go on to outline in this special recruiting guide for college coaches, is that it gives recruiters good indicators of what their prospect is thinking.  That allows smart coaches to do a few key things:

• Know when to ask for their commitment without the risk of appearing to be "pushy".
• Better understand the mindset of their prospect.
• Uncover what objections remain unresolved in the mind of their prospect.
• Keep control over the entire recruiting process.

Develop a list of effective trial close questions that you think you can incorporate on a regular basis during your closing recruiting conversations.  Doing so will give you an added degree of confidence in your recruiting efforts.

Posted by Dan Tudor at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you've seen the movie "Jerry McGuire," you'll remember this scene.

Jerry, a pro sports agent played by Tom Cruise, is at a crucial point in his "recruitment" of the star #1 draft pick that is being courted by a rival agency that fired Jerry earlier in the movie. Jerry is the hotel room of the star and his father. Jerry, through a phone call from the rival, finds out that his million-dollar superstar made a commitment with his rival even after the father promises Jerry that they'll sign with him earlier in the story.

If you've seen the movie, do you remember the pain on Jerry's face as he realizes that he's just been undercut by his rival and lied to by his would-be client? That was the only time in cinematic history that I've seen an actor smiling from ear-to-ear to keep a straight face, while the blood vessels in his forehead were bulging out under beads of sweat. It was a classic scene.

If you've been recruiting at the college level for a while, you've probably experienced a similarly frustrating incident: You've been working your rear end off trying to get a commitment from a prospect. Phone calls. E-mails. Maybe even a personal visit. In your heart, you think you've got the prospect. The prospect may have even told you that they were going to commit to your school. "It's a done deal" you think. And then it happens. You find out that your prospect that you've worked so hard for just committed to another school. 

You probably looked a lot like Jerry McGuire when that happened.

How do you prevent something like that from happening again? I mean, we're getting very close to commitment dates for a lot of sports...you, as a coach, have put a lot of work into your recruiting class. Months of hard work, perhaps. Is there anything that you can do that will guarantee that your prospect won't turn his or her back on you and sign on with your rival?

Well, nothing is "guaranteed." But there is a type of question that you can ask that will really cement a prospect's commitment with you and get you inside their head during this crucial time.

It's what I call a "super-qualifying question." It goes a little deeper than the basic "qualifying questions" that we've talked about in our book for recruiters, "Selling for Coaches". It basically is a question that assumes commitment, and then takes it a step further by asking the prospect to tell you how they're going to handle other schools that are recruiting them.

Here are some quick examples:

"How do you think the other coach will counter when they find out you have committed to us?"

"What will you do if the other programs try to counter with {fill-in-the-blank-offer}?"

"What will your parents do when the other program counters with {fill-in-the-blank-offer}?"

"Do you believe that the agreement you have with us is the best agreement that you can make for yourself and your college education / playing career?"

Powerful. Simple. Very, very effective.

Will it "guarantee" a commitment from your prospect? No. Nothing can do that short of a signed letter of intent. But these questions will force your prospect to do one of two things: Lie to your face (difficult to do in this instance, don't you think?), or be very honest with you.

Try it the next time you're feeling like you're in a "Jerry McGuire moment" with one of your prospects.

Posted by Dan Tudor at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of our SFC Premium Members had a quandry: They were pretty sure that a soccer recruit she had been recruiting for several months had finally made up her mind to sign with our Member's school.  But she didn't want to "push" the athlete.  She didn't want to make her prospect think she was "desperate" to sign her (which she was, by the way!).  Still, our coach really wanted to know.

What we trained her to do was to start asking effective trial close questions.  Specifically, questions that would give her insight into what her prospect was thinking, making it easier for her to know when it was time to ask for that final commitment.  "Trial close" questions are part of the arsenal of every business sales professional in today's world, and in our book, "Selling for Coaches", we train college coaches to use the same effective strategy to better guage their recruit's frame of mind.

Here's a sample of the strategy we outline in the book that you can use to interact more effectively with prospects that you are talking to: 

"Once you handle objections that are raised by your prospect and the family, you are a step closer to gaining their acceptance of you and your program as their college choice.  But you can’t stop there.  There are two more important steps in the selling process that need to take place.  One of those steps is to use a few effective “trial close” techniques with your prospect, or his or her parents.  What is a trial close?  Simply put, it’s a question that gauges the athlete’s interest level in your offer and your program by assuming the athlete has made a commitment by the type of question that you ask. 

An example of how that kind of a question may sound would be, “When you move on campus next fall, do you think you want to room with another athlete or with a regular student?”  Or, another one might be, “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, have you talked about how often you might be able to come see Jenny play at our school?”

Do you hear the tone of the question?  It already assumes that the athlete is coming to your school in the way that you ask the question.  The key to an effective trial close question is in the answer that’s given by your prospect or their parents.  Do they answer in such a way that tells you they’re assuming that they will be committed to your program next year?  Have they already pictured themselves at your college and on your team?  If the answer in your mind, as you’re listening to them, is “yes” then you’ve probably sold them on your offer.  Way to go!  If they answer your question with, “I don’t know…I’ve never really thought about that before” or “Man, I don’t know…that’s a tough one” or “we haven’t talked about that”, then you know that you have more work to do.

The value of trial close questions, as we go on to outline in this special recruiting guide for college coaches, is that it gives recruiters good indicators of what their prospect is thinking.  That allows smart coaches to do a few key things:

• Know when to ask for their commitment without the risk of appearing to be "pushy".
• Better understand the mindset of their prospect.
• Uncover what objections remain unresolved in the mind of their prospect.
• Keep control over the entire recruiting process.

Develop a list of effective trial close questions that you think you can incorporate on a regular basis during your closing recruiting conversations.  Doing so will give you an added degree of confidence in your recruiting efforts.

Posted by Dan Tudor at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the questions that coaches are quick to ask us here at SFC revolves around the issue of knowing how a prospect actually decides on a college that is recruiting him or her. In other words, if two or three schools are actively pursuing an athlete and each school is vying for his or her commitment, how do you know (as one of the coaches recruiting that athlete) how they will arrive at a decision?

There's no need to wonder about it. In fact, there's one simple question that can help erase all the mystery when it comes to the decision making process of a prospect. Here's the question: "How will you make your final decision?"

That's it??

Yes, that's it. Cut to the chase and ask the athlete up-front how they will be making their decision on which college to go to and which offer to accept. After the athlete answers, here's another important question to ask: "Then what?" And then they'll tell you more. And then you ask, "And then what?" And they'll tell you more. And on and on until you finally get to the real source of their decision - a school's major, the coach, their parents' input, their coach's input, or even what kind of uniforms you have compared to the competition. The bottom line is, you'll know what the decision rests on.

I can't stress how important this question is. It's a key question for business professionals to ask when they seek to understand how a sales decision is going to be made, and it's a great question to ask if you're a coach who finds yourself walking out of personal visit or long phone call with a prospect wondering what the prospect is thinking or where you rank with other colleges who are pitching their program. Try it. I think you'll like the results. And always remember to ask those follow-up questions until you get to the bottom line and you know how they will be making their decision.

By the way, if you have a particular question/problem/hurdle/recruiting issue that you want addressed and answered, don't hesitate to e-mail me at dan@sellingforcoaches.com. I answer all questions that are sent to me weekly by your fellow coaches, and I enjoy doing it. 

Posted by Dan Tudor at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)