Or a scholarship recruitment company…..Or Scholarship company……And this is coming from a scholarship agency!

There’s hundreds, probably thousands of Recruitment Companies around the world, and obviously there’s a few more popping up in Australia every year. We’ve been in operation since 2006, and since then, I’ve seen that number grow. I guess to the naked eye there’s no difference between these agencies/companies.

Here is what most people say

“I’m going to pay someone to get me to college”

We’re not here to say which one’s better or which one isn’t, it’s about why you shouldn’t actually use one, and that goes for us as well. Why you shouldn’t use NSR, why you shouldn’t use any other recruitment agency out there. They do vary in cost, some of them as little as free and some of them in the thousands of dollars.

“How you get there is going to be important”

All of these different college recruitment agencies, they’re all different in a sense, but the end result and really what they’re providing, it’s actually all the same….sort of……. How you get there is going to be important. The ease or the speed is part of it that may differ, but the end result is you’re trying to get your child or trying to get yourself to college.

Essentially, what will happen is … and this is always pretty much the first step…. once you sign onto a scholarship agency or recruitment agency, it’s about gathering information, and gathering footage. Some programs may edit footage for you, but it’s about gathering your athletic, academic information, pointing it to a centralized location, and using that to send to coaches. Some agencies send your information to coaches, some leave your information on a database and wait for coaches to access them themselves.

The free programs help you create your information yourself and distribute information yourself. With the help of our free 12 step-guide, which you can get on the website, you can actually follow the navigational process and create your own agency, in a lot of ways.

“If it was that easy, we wouldn’t exist, or no other recruitment agency would exist.”

Depending on the agency, again, your information may be put onto a database with athletes from your own country, or your region or it could be athletes all over the world. Depending on the agency, there may be some promotional service, they may push your information out to coaches or it could be, I guess coaches coming and accessing your information without anyone sending it to them, which is the database model, which is what we’ll get into as well.

I just want to clarify that we can make it sound really, really easy and we can make it sound really, really difficult. I think ultimately, the end user has to be the one who has enough information and research and has done enough research to understand whether or not that process is something that they want to go at alone, or whether they want to use somebody to do it. But if it was that easy, we wouldn’t exist, or no other recruitment agency would exist.

“if you are 100% serious about going to college”

If it was as easy as just contacting a coach or putting your information online and waiting for someone to access it and contact you, we wouldn’t exist. That’s something that you’ll want to look at when you’re in the initial stages of communication with a recruitment agent.

You’ll want to understand the services that they provide, if there is some promotional service or if it is putting your information online and waiting for coaches to bite the bait. Because that’s a really important component, if you are 100% serious about going to college, then those are the things you need to look at before actually signing the dotted line with a particular agency.

Because in reality, coaches aren’t out there scrolling through thousands of people on a database, trying to find a diamond in the rough.

Understanding whether or not it’s a push-via-pull scenario. Are they pushing your information or are they waiting to receive information from a school? Do you want your information on a public database as well? Do you not want it on a public database? Are you going to create the information yourself or are they creating it for you? Are you updating it yourself or are they updating it for you?

“We have a pricing page, we have a services page and we also have a list of all the other agencies”

When you’re going through the initial stages of communication with an agent or a scholarship agency, it’s about finding out the services that they provide, even if that means having a look through the terms and conditions.

Go to their website. Every agency should have a pricing page and services listed on their website homepage (IMO any  business that fails to do this is hiding something including those shonky car dealers) On our website, if you go to www.iam-360.com , we actually go one step further and list all the other scholarship agencies for you on the top of the navigational toolbar. Just click on the top toolbar and you’ll be able to see a heading called, “Other Scholarship Agencies.” It gives you a list.

We have a pricing page, we have a services page and we also have a list of all the other agencies. That’s something that you should be looking for in other agencies. Hopefully that gives you a basic understanding of how scholarship agencies or college recruitment agencies work.

“What are some of the things I should be asking the agent or the agency in the early stages?”

Alright, so let’s say I’ve contacted a few or a number of different scholarship or recruitment agencies, and I’m figuring out which service I want to use because I want to go to the US. I’m in the initial stages of communication, gathering information, I’m unfamiliar with the pathway, I’ve just done maybe a Google search. Maybe I’m a little bit vulnerable or naive to the pathway, I’m not too sure what’s happening. What are some of the things I should be asking the agent or the agency in these early stages?

It’s important for both the agency and the person helping you and yourself to understand what’s the end goal that you’re trying to achieve? I’ll say this to everybody who I meet with, “Paying us or paying an agency doesn’t mean that you’re paying for a specific result.” You’re paying for a result, but that result isn’t something that you actually tell the agency that you want, if that makes sense.

The agency or the person helping you, or the question that you need to be asking them is, “What do you see me achieving? What is the end result that I should be expecting based on my academics, based on my eligibility, based on the timing, based on my financial capability?” They’re the questions you should be asking.

“You need to know what are you trying to achieve? What do you want out of this opportunity?”

In reality, they’re the questions that they should be asking you as well, because no two athletes are the same. Simple as that, and so before you even continue with any process, you need to know what are you trying to achieve?

What do you want out of this opportunity? What do you want to study? Do you have any ideas of where you want to go? This will take time and a bit of research as well on your end. But some questions that you need to ask them is, “How are you going to find the right school for me?” That’s not just a simple yes or no answer.

It’s not simple features like, “I’m going to put your information on a website, and people are going to click on it and then I’m going to email them.” It has nothing to do with the features or the tools that they’re using.

It’s, how are you using my information to get the result and what results should that information … If I gave you all that information, what result should I be expecting from that?

“They should be educating you on the pathway”

And if you’re looking at a particular school, division, area of the country and you ask, “Can I go there or what’s my chances of going there?” If you receive an answer like, “Yes.” Just constant yeses or, “Yes I can do this, yes we can do that for you.” Don’t just take that as gospel. Ask them how they’re going to do that, how it works. As I said, “I’m vulnerable at this stage, I’m very naive, it’s in the early stages of communication.” They should be educating you on the pathway as well, not just saying, yes, yes.

I speak to families every day and I tell them specifically what the outcome should be, what the overall expenses are going to be. Because at the end of the day, it makes no sense for me to have somebody on my program or join our company if the end result that they want is something that I can’t actually get for them, because they’re going to be unhappy. What is it that you’re expecting? What is the end result? Are you looking for a full scholarship to UCLA to play gridiron and basketball at the same time?

Well, if someone says yes to that, that’s probably a question they could ask. Can you do that? If they say yes, forget about it. Definitely take a step back and have a look elsewhere, because that’s obviously a very difficult task to achieve. Other things that you’ll want to get from them in these early stages is testimonials. Well, I think the word testimonials is outdated- Success stories!

 

“They’re not going to give you the numbers of people that are unhappy, they’re not going to give you the numbers of people who they can’t trust to say awesome things about you.”

Yes, success stories or case studies, but I guess it needs to be real stories. It’s easy for anyone to gather five or six or ten case studies over a long period of time, and put them in a nice little bounded brochure. The reason I know it’s easy because I did that, NSR’s 13 years old now, so seven, eight years ago, I would get success stories and put them in a little folder and, “Fantastic, there you go.”

I think nowadays, 2018, it should be easier. It should be easy for them to connect, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, it should be an easier way for you to be connecting with them, and connecting with them at your own time and asking them whatever you want. Not asking someone, “Hey, can you give me the phone number of three success for three customers.” They’re not going to give you the numbers of people that are unhappy, they’re not going to give you the numbers of people who they can’t trust to say awesome things about you. One of the ways that we show the transparency in NSR, is we have a closed private group for parents and there’s about 1,700 moms and dads in there and that group has a mind of its own.

“Instead of looking at the testimonials or success stories from the past and only the positive ones, the parents in that group are posting live stories as they’re happening.”

People connect there, they go on private messages, and they set up their own private chats within the group. That allows you to actually communicate and do your own research on whatever questions you want to do. It saves me having to bound brochures as well, but also it allows you to communicate at your own time, ask the questions that you want. Instead of looking at the testimonials or success stories from the past and only the positive ones, the parents in that group are posting live stories as they’re happening.

My child got injured, my child has struggled to find on-campus work, my child lost a scholarship. It’s real up-to-date live things. I think that is going to be important. Please, please, if you’re asking any company, in any business, not just this one, but in any business, if you’re asking them, “Can you give me success stories, or can you give me some testimonials?” It’s like going for a job. The references mean nothing because no one puts down on their job references their old bosses who’d say negative things.

“don’t sign the dotted line just because they’re affordable”

They put the people … and sometimes they even put their friends, who then you ring up and say, “Hey, did Jacob work there?” Oh, yeah Jacob did work there. “He was the best worker here, and we’re sorry to have lost him.” It’s the exact same with business.

One thing especially in the initial stage’s is don’t sign the dotted line just because they’re affordable, or they’re cheap. I guess you want to gather enough information to where you’re comfortable to sign on the dotted line, but- Cheap or expensive doesn’t always differentiate the level of service, but it does differentiate the amount of time potentially that someone can spend with you.

If we only charged $1,500 for what we did at NSR, we wouldn’t survive. Simple as that. We are the most expensive agency out there. You’ll pay $589 a month over a 12 month period which is the maximum time required, there’s discounts obviously for people paying in full, but you’re paying $5,000, $6,000 for a specific level of care and service.

If I didn’t charge that, there is no way that I could afford to have staff back in the office now, calling my athletes and their parents that are in America every day. Three quarters of their day is spent speaking to the athletes that are already over there. “How you doing? What are you up to? Do you need to transfer?”

There’s different levels of service that you need to have a look at and say, “Do I actually want that?” If you’re just wanting to have a punt, I guess, and just see what actually happens, well don’t pay anybody. Simple as that! There’s no point.

Put your video on YouTube and hope for the best. Whether or not you get a result, is a different thing, but at least you’re having a punt.

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