Matt Wheeler co-founded SportsRecruits in 2008, and has been a driving force behind the company’s success. As Co-CEO, Matt oversees all aspects of Technology Development and Customer Support. Matt takes great pride in leveraging his experience to provide real value to athletes and their families.
 
The goal of the Customer Success Management (CSM) team at SportsRecruits is to make sure each and every club is getting value from the platform. If you are a club on SportsRecruits, you have a living, breathing person to talk to as much as you would like about how to empower your kids to pursue their dreams. When you sign a contract with SportsRecruits, you end your relationship with the Sales team, and begin your relationship with the Customer Success Management team!

 

A Strategy for Success

As CSMs, our goal is simple: your players are logging in, filling out their profile, building a target list of schools and sending messages. We want your players to be doing the things that are in their best interest as they chase their dream of playing college sports. Of course, CSMs also want to see club staff logging in, tagging schools that are good fits for players, and sending college coaches messages that identify which players the club would like the college coach to look at.

Just like we believe it is impossible for a club to stay on top of the recruiting efforts of tens or hundreds of kids without technology, it would be absurd for the Customer Success Management team to not use technology to help you identify the proven steps for success.

To illustrate, I am going to walk you through a series of strategic suggestions I would make to a club that I manage – a real club with real numbers and real graphs.

 

% of Players Who Have Logged In

 

 

This club has had 96% of its players log into the platform. Well done!

Within a few clicks, I inform this club which players have yet to interact with SportsRecruits. Together, we send these players a message on SportsRecruits instructing them to log in and fill out their profile.

 

% of Players With Profile Photo

 

 

I am a stickler for the details. 94% of players have a photo on their profile.

Within a few clicks, we instruct those players without photos to upload a photo to their profile. Look good, play good!

 

Total Player Log-Ins

 

 

The college search and recruiting process is not something that just happens. It takes sustained effort over a period of time.

This graph shows a CSM that players are consistently logging into the platform and engaging with their college search and recruiting process.

This club’s players are doing a great job. Players have logged in over 7,000 times (!) and are chasing their dreams on a daily basis.

We like to think about the college search and recruiting process as an extra class players are taking. These players are doing their homework.

 

Total Number of Favorites

 

 

The most important step a player can take in their college search and recruiting process is to build a target list of schools. For whatever reason, families often skip this step. Before players begin the pursuit of playing collegiate sports, they must put some thought into where they want to go to school.

In this case, players have about 2,700 schools on their favorites list. For a club with about 100 kids, this is a good number.

Through looking at this graph, we identify players who have yet to build a target list of schools. Within a few clicks, we contact these players and encourage them to build their list.

Next, I encourage the club to use our tagging feature to help players focus their efforts on the right schools.

Having a target list of schools is good. Having a target list of realistic schools is great. Ideally, every player has that hard conversation with the club, and comes away with a list of realistic targets.

 

Total Messages Sent To College Coaches

 

 

As they say, talk is cheap.

If you are a player and want to play in college, you better be communicating with your target list of schools early and often.

This club’s players have sent over 7,500 (!) messages to college coaches. Each of those messages represents a player chasing a dream.

Just like logins, these messages have been consistent. Commitment does not just happen after you send twenty messages and call it a day. These players continually keep their target schools updated on their progress.

I work with this club to identify players who might not have sent messages. Together, we set a date for them to send X number of messages.

 

Total Number of Profile Views

 

 

Players on this club have had their profiles viewed by college coaches over 3,000 times.

When I see these big numbers, I like to think about how much time and money players spend to go to recruiting events where college coaches have to split their time between 4, 5, 6, 10, 20 fields.

These players filled out their player profile with all pertinent information. Over 3,000 times, college coaches evaluated them on their own time, from the comfort of their couch or office. Technology is a beautiful thing.

 

Conclusion

 

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it. When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.”
―William Thompson

 

As CSMs at SportsRecruits, what we enjoy most is working with club directors, club coaches, recruiting coordinators and coaches to achieve very specific goals. While providing players SportsRecruits with the goal of placing them in a position to succeed is a noble action, we like to go one layer deeper. By choosing specific metrics we would like to hit, we can identify which actions the club and players must take to drive results.

What are your goals for your players?