Trenton Luera, a former college quarterback who runs "Your First Scholarship," explains red flags families should watch for when hiring recruiting services. He warns against forceful sales tactics that present a single route, guarantees (e.g., promises of D1 offers) or lack of clear timelines, outdated strategies or local connections that no longer work, and consultants who fail to deliver on basic tasks. He emphasizes seeking honest, upfront advisors and notes that his public content (principle-level advice) has helped some athletes secure offers.
Questions this video answers
Anywhere between 10 to 20 views (he says viewers are therefore in the top 1%).
Chapters
If you're trying to get recruited and you're looking for help, if you hear this one thing, just run away instantly. And if you don't know who I am, I'm Trent Lora. I'm a former college quarterback. And now I run your first scholarship where you help families get their first scholarship and more. And so I talked to a lot of families because we help families. And one of the things I've heard is just how forceful some other services are and some of these red flags that pop up. And luckily some of these families realize these things, but other of them have been kind of sold on these lies and these hopes and dreams, and we're kind of pushing the direction to work with these people. And I totally get that they did that. And I'm definitely not putting them at fault. I just feel bad often because there were there been plenty of families that have on calls with them. They're like, I wish I would have known about you before I knew about them. They just made it seem like essentially they were going to do what we normally do for families, even actually worse than what we do, but then they didn't do anything at all. And so I just. I feel so much for those families out there. If you're a family out there that's worked with someone in the past, they just haven't delivered the results that you were expecting or the. Even the things that you were expecting because, you know, results, sometimes they don't happen the way that you're expecting. But if the person isn't even delivering on the things that they're supposed to do, that's frustrating as well. And so I just want to talk about some of those red flags. Whether you're looking for help to work with someone, or maybe you already did and you're looking for someone else, whatever the situation might be. Just want to talk about that a little bit more. And it's going to be an interesting video because I help people with recruiting. You're going to be like, what? These are red flags. Trenton's telling us that, you know, you don't need to work with anyone or whatever. So it's going to be a fun one. I was thinking about it yesterday and I was already getting amped up. I probably should record it then. But, yeah, let's dive into it. And the first thing I want to talk about is, like, first off, I'm recording this video. Probably our YouTube videos get anywhere between 10 to like 20 views. So if you're watching this, you're of the top 1%. I think that's the first thing you have to realize if you're watching this video. If you're at this point, we're probably two and a half minutes in, you're of that top 1%. And so I guess don't feel like you're held hostage because you have the power of work ethic and knowledge on your side. I will say this till the day I die, is that you don't really like my content. If you truly understand my content. I totally understand if someone's like, I don't have time to understand your content or whatever it might be. But if you truly understand my content, which I talk about principle level stuff that you can apply to any situation and you don't just take away the tactical stuff, you will absolutely crush the recruiting process. We've had guys get D1 offers off of the content alone. They messaged me, they're like, dude, I just got an offer because we did X, Y and Z. Like you mentioned in your tweets, in your emails and your YouTube videos and your Instagram reels. So this stuff works. Whether, whether you work with me or not. You're still gonna get pretty damn good results just by listening to stuff. And especially if you're listening to this, because this is like basically coaching sessions, one on one stuff that I only talk about with families that hop on calls with me. This is like the real nitty gritty. I'm cool with sharing all that. Cause I know not seeing it. And I wanna salute you guys that are actually watching this. So first off, just with that mindset alone, you shouldn't feel held hostage by anybody on a call and be like, I have to do this. The second thing is if anybody says, like, you have to get help or you have to, like, if they're giving you like, you know, a binary decision. Well, not even a binary decision. If they're essentially saying that this is the only route you can take. That if you don't take this route, then you're not going to get to the way that you want. Like, you have to, you have to recognize that as a very big red flag. I don't think I ever have. And if anybody's ever hopped on a call with me and it's like, oh, Trenton was saying that I have to work with them or being forceful about it. I hope not. My goal of our conversations that we have with families is not like, of course I would love to work with everybody that we possibly can, but I know our stuff isn't for everybody. And that's Totally fine. Really. My goal and my calls is like, okay, how can I. I do believe that we can help families. So, like, first off, can we actually help this family? If we can, then I want to make sure that I present it the best way that I can, so that way we can work with this family. And. And then from there, after I present it, if. If it doesn't make sense, cool. I just want to make sure that they make the best decision for them. If the best decision for them is working with us, awesome. I'm all stoked. If the best decision is, you know, hey, we go our separate ways and, you know, they work with someone else, so they just do it by their own, that's totally fine. And so anybody that you get on a call with and it feels very clear that they don't necessarily feel that way, and they're. They're more so trying to, you know, essentially sell you and push you in the direction that helps them rather than helps you, that's when you should be very wary, because there are a lot of people like that in this industry. Just because, I mean, it's so easy for parents and kids to feel like, man, we're so lost, we don't have any offers, or whatever might be the situation. And, I mean, it's just crazy to me that I see kids in the eighth grade, like, I'll talk to families that are sophomores, juniors, and they're like, yeah, we signed up for XYZ program couple years ago. And I'm like, you're talking about in the seventh or eighth grade, you signed up for that? And, like, yeah, like, I just. I don't truly understand that. That they're. They're doing that, and they feel like that's the right decision. But regardless of. Say, if anybody's saying that you have to do something and they're giving you, like, shoulds and haves, then usually they're. They're trying to push you in a certain direction that might not be in your best interest. And so definitely, definitely take a moment to reflect on that when you hear that kind of stuff and be like, whoa, what do you mean by that? Especially if they're saying you have to do X, Y, and Z and work with us or whatever it might be. Yeah, that's probably the biggest one I can definitely reference to. I'd say if someone can't give you a clear timeline, and especially if they're giving you guarantees, if they're saying, hey, this is what I know we can do, hey, you can definitely get D1 offers or hey, we can definitely do this. When I say definitely, I'm like, yeah, we can. Usually the only time I say definitely is like, we can, we can definitely help you. Because I do believe that, like, we can definitely help. But I would always be hesitant to say we can definitely get you D1 offers. There's definitely situations where, yeah, we can definitely get you a scholarship offer. Like, you're talented, I think you're FCS guy right now. But you know, even if that didn't work out, you're a D2 guy 100%. And there's definitely situations that make sense. But if someone is giving you your dreams and they're saying definitely we can get you there, that's always a little bit of hesitation. Especially if they're not giving you their fullest explanation, if they're not giving you examples, stories, case studies of people that they worked with, then not exactly a good sign there. And yeah, and especially if they're not. Not just not really aligned with all that. So, yeah, always want to be. Be very hesitant with guarantees as well. Any, any essentially uber confidence. You have to kind of hit on the head and ask, okay, why? What's going on here? Not only to yourself, but to them as well. Be open, have those conversations. That way you can dig deeper into their thoughts and their game plan as well. I think the last one to me is like, really a strategy, like a modern strategy. Again, if you're watching this, you're probably up to date on everything as far as like the roster spot stuff, of course, transfer portal, everybody knows about that. But you want to attack that on the head and ask them like, what is their game plan and strategy in this modern, modern age. Because I think just a lot of the stuff that people put out nowadays, I won't even say put out because not that many put out, not that many people put out advice. But the guys that work in more of a local market or they work with a little smaller client base often have outdated stuff. Whether it's just connections that just don't really work anymore or just their thoughts behind some of the things are a little bit outdated. I mean they should know the better general basics of hey, Twitter is the main place to focus on. You can email coaches, have to go to camps, etc. But definitely should be more ahead of the curve than just the general basics, especially if you're looking to get the best possible results. So those are some of the things. Hopefully they gave you a little bit of a thought of mind if you are planning to Hop on calls, especially if you're a freshman or sophomore. Listening to this right now, or parent of a freshman or sophomore, and you're like, yeah, we're thinking about working with someone. Hopefully you can just kind of jot some of these down and be like, okay, cool. Well, these are things that we'll look out for on a call, because I think the thing you want to do is make sure that you evaluate the person that you're on that call with, how honest they are and how upfront they are. I feel like that's another thing. I know I said the best families that we worked with are action takers, and they definitely are. But also the best families that I've worked with are just people that really wanted honesty. Honestly, all the families that we work with, like, probably half of them hopped on the call with me and they're like, hey, Trent, look, we're just looking for someone to be honest with us. Like, tell us when we're messing up, tell us when we're wrong, because we just don't know. You know, I think if you're. If you're someone like that, I think a lot of people are, because it's just so hard to get honesty nowadays, especially in this. Because people want to inflate your ego, so that way you work with them, everything like that. Try to find someone that's honest, and we'll keep it 100% with you. That way you know what's going on each step of the way. And so those are some of the things I look for. You're going to have to ramble on too long, but hopefully you enjoyed this. If you got something from this, be sure to subscribe like, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.
