We recently connected with Zach Crosno and have shared our conversation below.

Zach, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

My job as a College Recruiting Advisor is to help players get offers to play baseball in college.

Recently there’s been a major shift in college baseball recruiting that’s made it harder than ever for high school players to get to the next level. The NCAA passed a rule last year that now allows players the opportunity to transfer from one 4-year program to another, without sitting out a year. Because of this, college coaches are now opting to recruit college transfers instead of high school prospects.

Another major trend that has disrupted not only college baseball, but also professional baseball is the passing of the new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rule. This rule allows players to make money from their personal brand. Since this rule has been passed, college players now have the opportunity to make more money playing college baseball than they would have if they signed to play professionally (in the minor leagues or independent ball).

This has caused more of the top level talent to remain in, or go to, college instead of signing during the MLB draft. This has created the most talent we’ve ever seen in college baseball, at every level. The top Division 1 teams in the country are now made up of even more ‘pro-ready’ players. This has created a trickle down effect to the rest of college baseball as well. We now see extremely talented players at every level (D2, D3, NAIA, Junior College, etc.).

This is great for the business of college baseball, but tough for high school players. It’s causing a lot of the high school players we work with to take alternative routes to get to the highest level of college baseball. I’ve seen players that would have been Division 1 players 4-5 years ago, that are now having to go to Junior College or lower divisions in order to play. This has helped some of these smaller programs bring more talented players into their school and allow them to be extremely competitive.

It is giving an amazing opportunity to players who went to a smaller college out of high school. As a baseball player can basically go anywhere and as long as you perform well, you’ll have an opportunity to transfer to a bigger school/program in the future. The negative side of this is that there is really no more loyalty to the college that gave you the opportunity to play. If a player gets the opportunity to transfer to a powerhouse D1 program, they’re usually taking it. The new statistic is that ~70% of college baseball players will transfer at least one time during their college career.

I’ve worked with several players that have had to transfer 3-4 times in order to get the opportunity to play Division 1 baseball.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m the founder and CEO of CrosBros Recruits. We’re a College Baseball Recruiting Agency that helps baseball players receive offers to play in college.

I started CrosBros Recruits back in 2015 with my brother Jesse. We were both college baseball players at the time and one of our best friends, Will Kennedy, asked us if we could help him play college baseball. We ended up filming a recruiting video for him and reaching out college coaches across the nation. Will ended up getting 5 offers to play and committed to play after only a few weeks. This led to more players from our local area, Fort Lauderdale, asking us to help them with the college recruiting process as well. Before we knew it we had a full blown business. While Jesse is no longer in the business, I still actively run CrosBros with my new business partner, and childhood friend, Joseph Libio. We now have clients in 23 states and internationally.

At CrosBros Recruits we provide college recruiting advising services and create baseball recruiting videos for players. We have been able to build a reputable name for ourselves in the college baseball community, over the past 9 years, and earned the trust of hundreds of college coaches. Because of this we are able to use our platform and connections to help get our athletes scholarship offers.

We provide three major things for our clients, connections, education and guidance. Most of our clients haven’t been educated on what they need to do to actually get recruited. Building our connections has come with time. We’ve been communicating with college coaches almost every day for the past 9 years and through that we’ve built connections that the average player or coach just doesn’t have. We use these connections to get our players opportunities at the next level. After going through this process almost 1,000 times, we’ve been able to educate our clients, using the information we’ve gathered, to make sure they take all the necessary steps. We also try to educate the public using our social media platforms. On there we share recruiting tips, interview former players and more. We guide our clients through every part of this process: recruiting videos, talking to college coaches, creating their online presence, scholarship information, and much more. We’re also able to help them choose the school that fits their needs not only athletically but also academically, financially and geographically, based on what they’re looking for.

The thing that sets us apart from others in the industry is the care and diligence we put in to each client’s recruiting process. Joe and I work directly with every player that signs up with us so we are very connected to our player’s and their families. We know this is a life-changing decision that they will be making (where to go to college) so we try to go above and beyond to make sure they are getting everything they can out of this process. The best feeling for us is getting to see a player that has worked so hard finally achieve their dream of playing college baseball.

We’re extremely proud of the fact that we’ve been able to help every single player, that has come through our program, receive an offer to play college baseball. We’ve had over 900 players move on to play at the collegiate level and we look forward to continuing to make an impact on the lives of even more athletes!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like I mentioned before I started the business while I was still in college so there were a few times I had to pivot in my business. When I started I was helping players for free, just trying to build the brand and honestly give myself some more experience going through this process. Eventually I got to a point where I felt comfortable asking for payment for my services. I split my focus between college and the business throughout the next 3 years, basically dedicating any free time I had to building the business. Even driving down from school (3 hours each way) every other weekend to work with clients.

When I graduated college I took a sales job at another company, but after only three days working there I decided to bet on myself and try to pursue CrosBros Recruits full-time. I realized I had never really been able to give it 100% of my focus. Once I did, I was able to double our revenue within the first year.

After that first year I hit a little bit of a stand still revenue wise. At this point I had really started to build a name for myself in the industry and made the pivot to start charging slightly more premium prices and work with select clients, which helped me double my revenue again.

Then COVID hit and while that was definitely a tough period financially, I was able to really focus on the services I provided and improve my branding. During this time I was almost forced to move everything to online. This was actually the pivot that allowed me grow my business exponentially. I was now able to serve clients outside just my local area. That’s something I have really focused on these past few years. Over the last 4 years we’ve gone from only working with clients in Florida to working with clients in 23 different states and multiple countries! I have also started creating content and posting it throughout our social media platforms which has helped grow our following and get our name out to more potential clients as well.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Throughout the first 4-5 years of the business, we mainly relied on word of mouth to get new clients. While that’s still a huge part of our sales, over the past year we’ve really started using social media, email marketing and even AI to land more clients. In January of this year we began posting short form video content across our social media platforms. Typically about 2-3 videos per week along with our regularly scheduled content. Before this we had never really shown our faces on the business’ social media. This has lead to us growing our following across all platforms by almost 10,000 in just 2 and a half months. It’s always a risk putting yourself out there to be critiqued by the public, but it was the best decision we’ve made. We’re now able to educate the public and impact the lives of even more baseball players. It’s also lead to a huge increase in Q1 sales which is incredible!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.crosbrosrecruits.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crosbros_recruits/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrosBrosRecruits/?rc=p
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachcrosno
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/crosbrosrecruit?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGamw8VGfxn_Dtt_2nQTVNQ