I’m a big college basketball junkie; specifically a St. John’s fan. Otherwise I roll with the Big East. I’m not alone. Men’s college hoops is big business. Big squared. College recruiters start the ”watch and wait process” when kids are in eighth grade. The good news is at that age, the parents are training their future stars-to-be so the kids are fairly easily found. They play school ball but also can be found in AAU, police leagues and even church ball. You can’t teach tall, so that is one of the things recruiters look for. Also dribbling skills, fast twitch movement, hops, balance and let’s not forget shooting.

Over the weekend I was reading about how the best computer engineers at Stanford are often recruited and signed by corporations during the fall semester of their senior year. The fall semester. Of their senior year. Any college basketball recruiter will tell you anyone left unsigned at that time in high school isn’t worth too much. In the marketing business, some smart companies do a tour of college campuses with a card table, a sleeve of pamphlets and a PPT show. Our business could learn a thing from the college basketball recruiters. Home visits, texts, phone calls, nice letters to momma – a shmear every once in a blue moon.

If the marketing feeder system were run better, marketers and agencies would be a lot more effective and profitable. Peace.