The importance of the services offered by scouting companies. - This is by far the most critical area when you are evaluating a private scouting company. It’s where you separate the men from the boys and it’s where you can really tell if a scouting company is a legitimate factor in the college recruiting process or are they just “smoke and mirrors” out to make a quick buck. Some scouting companies offer extensive exposure services while others – probably most – do very little, but instead, rely on a lot of rhetoric to attract customers. Recruiting is a fairly complex process. It involves several stages of evaluating large numbers of prospective student-athletes. It’s an ongoing evaluation process that usually starts when the prospect is a freshman or sophomore in high school. Many college coaches say that recruiting is the hardest part of their job. It requires a lot of personal time and important decisions. Most prospects, and certainly most parents, don’t really understand the college recruiting process. Therefore, they are often misled by the claims of some scouting companies who profess to be experts. Some scouting companies offer almost no services that truly help college recruiters evaluate the prospects on their program. These companies will often mislead the prospects into believing that they will be recruited just because the scouting company sends out a personal information profile to certain selected colleges. In most cases that’s all the company does that is of any real value to either the prospect or the college coach. This, of course, is only a small part of the whole recruiting process. Any worthwhile scouting company will provide a wide range of services that will indeed help the prospect get recruited. These services will always include a full-length video of the prospect showcasing his or her skills, regular statistical updates and scouting reports, references and academic data. Even personal Web sites and private prospect e-mail address are being offered. All the good scouting companies will also have their prospect database on their Web site so that college recruiters can access a prospect’s basic information over the Internet at any time. Of course, all these services are expensive to perform and maintain, and therefore the scouting company must adjust its fee accordingly. However, prospects don’t always get what they pay for – or at least what they think they are paying for. Some, if not most, scouting companies charge relatively large fees. Unfortunately, for the prospect, many of the scouting companies provide mostly watered-down services, and therefore, the prospect gets only a second-rate program that in most cases produces absolutely no positive results. Any prospect who is considering hiring a private scouting company to promote them to colleges so that they can have their best chance for a scholarship offer should carefully examine the services offered by the scouting company. You may want to compare the different companies. Block out the slogans, sales pitches, and unsubstantiated – and often false claims that most companies feature in their company promotions. Instead, list the services provided by each and compare them side by side. Of course, some programs are more expensive than others and therefore you will have to decide how much it’s worth to you. Choose the company that you feel will produce the best results for you personally, regardless of the cost. Since recruiting opportunities come around only once during your lifetime, you can’t afford to make a mistake by choosing the wrong scouting company to promote your abilities.
