Forever Follow-Ups: What Planting Asparagus Taught Me About Recruiting Success

Adi Smith

March 16, 2023
6:57 pm

There was a time when if you asked me if I could ever keep a plant alive, I would laugh. To say I had a black thumb was an understatement.

But recently, I’ve gotten into plants and realized I actually have a green thumb!

Since I’ve been feeling (relatively) confident that I won’t kill my plants, I set out to start my own home garden. I went off to my local hardware store and purchased some asparagus crowns.

As it turns out, the asparagus loves my office/indoor garden and has thrived! It has grown to about 7 feet tall and has nearly taken over my office!

But it takes effort to keep it going. It has to have the right amount of light. It has to have the right amount of water, but not too much water, in order for it to have a good drainage system. It has to have nutrient-rich soil. And it has to have fertilizer.

But the kicker is - I can’t harvest it for three years!

Asparagus takes time to mature and grow a healthy root system. And if I try to harvest too early, it won’t be as fruitful when it is ready to be harvested.

All I can do is ensure I am giving it what it needs to thrive for three years before I see a return on that investment.

But once it is ready, I can harvest it for ten years!

So what does this have to do with recruiting?

Like the asparagus, recruiting takes time if you want to see the fruits of your labor. You have to pour into your recruits before you see the results, which can take years. But it will also have the same payoff for years to come.

So how can you pour into your recruits?

Enter the Forever Follow-Up.

In last month’s blog, I discussed how building relationships will lead to greater recruiting success. One of the tips was to become a person of value.

This month, I want to dive deeper into how you can position yourself as a person of value and stay in front of recruits forever.

Studies show that 80% of people employed right now are satisfied with their current roles.
The best way to attract that 80%? You have to invest in them. You have to build a relationship where they know they can turn to you when they’re ready to make a move.

At 4C, we have over 1,300 hours of coaching experience, and we have seen that the Recruiting Leaders who give away their best advice without asking for anything in return are the ones that have the best recruiting results.

One of our coaching clients recently reached out with this:

“Good morning; it’s funny I’ve wanted to drop you a note. My ‘Forever Follow-up’ is paying off. I think we will be bringing on about 20 LOs in the next few weeks. The only reason we are in the conversation is because of the existing relationship.”

Part of her strategy was sending all potential recruits something of value every month.

She poured her knowledge into them, and even though it’s a tough recruiting season, she still brings on new recruits.

So let’s dive into how you can do this!

First – identify things that have given you value that you either have shared or would share with your current team. (Hot tip: Sharing something of value with your team is also a bonus for retaining your current team!)

These could be:

Business/marketing tips
Articles
Books
Videos
Podcasts
Etc.

They don’t have to be in any particular format, but they do have to provide value. So the best place to start is with what has given you value.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas or want to know if something is valuable to somebody else, ask yourself these questions:

What have you personally found value in?
What has helped you improve your business?
What has helped you improve as a leader?
Where do you turn to for ideas to improve yourself?

You don’t have to make an exhaustive list; you just need to come up with enough ideas to get you going. Your challenge is finding one thing of value every month.

Need more help in developing your Forever Follow-Up Strategy?

In this 4C University exclusive, I break down how you can search for items of value and you’ll have access to my list of the top 100 items of value you can send to any recruit!