Hey everybody Richard Milligan here with 4c recruiting and recruiting conversations we are back, we’re back with a really good idea today that I’m gonna share. I’m all about sharing ideas spreading the love, right? That’s what it’s all about, thank you to social media for changing the game in some of the space well we can go find some great ideas that we can activate on that will propel our business forward, key word being activate. So I’m going to give you some context that most of you need around events, if you’re recruiting leader, then you probably do events, you’re doing charity events, you’re doing you’re sponsoring golf tournaments, might be blood drives, could be a networking event, you know you could be sponsoring some sort of conference, it could be a small round table type conference or some sort of large venue type conference, but few people have a specific strategy of how they’re going to actually use that event and move their recruiting efforts forward.
So that’s what this is about today, I’m gonna give you a strategy for this so I like to look at these events now for the sake of what we’re gonna talk about here today, let’s just talk about a golfing event see a lot of these golf events that are industry specific events that go down, and a lot of times we sign up we register to play at the golf event, or we we’re part of the quote unquote sponsors of the golf event, and so we know we’re going to get exposure there, and all of our a lot of this is centered around we want exposure with the industry or specific people in the industry that we would love to have on our team, okay? So if you’ve got you know we’re in spring right now and summer is coming up, there’ll be a lot of these things that go off here over the next month, two months, three months. So if you’ve got a golf event coming up, start leaning in, because this is going to help you. Now I would tell you, for when as I did these as a recruiting leader I never had a specific strategy and last may be 25% of my career, most of these events that I hosted the first 10 or 11 years they were simply there to get the exposure, I’d see people say hi I would shake some hands as I saw some faces but I was not extremely intentional about how I was going to follow up beyond the event, gain exposure inside the event, and even maximize this opportunity of 4 to 6 hours 8 hours I had with the event, ok? So here I want you to think about, this golf hypothetical golf event we’re talking about, if you’re on the golf course around a golf takes what, may be four to five and a half hours depending on the golf course and the speed of play, to actually play, right? A lot of fun things go on, at the beginning of the event, If you’ve ever been to one of these, a lot of fun things go off at the end of the event, where you’re doing drawings, and giveaways, and best score prizes, and and so because of that this event is not just the four to five and half hours that golf takes place but it ends up being maybe an eight to ten hour window of time, where we have an opportunity gain exposure a lot of us just look at it as a sign on a tee box, or a banner outside the clubhouse in this type of situation, and I would say that’s great exposure, but it is not what we’re looking for it’s not what again one of the things that you hear me say over and over again is that there’s a difference between visibility and relevancy. The banner is visibility, the sign on the tee box is visibility, what you need is relevancy. Relevancy means that you’re engaging in a specific conversation with a specific intent to move someone to a next step, so, where you’ve got this eight to ten hours you really need to look at this is not an opportunity to become visible and not even opportunity for just playing if you’re gonna actually play on a team to play and a wave of people from a distance. You need to look at this as though you’re actually grooming a top recruits list, so I’m I want to know everyone that’s registered prior, I want to know the starting positions of those people. Like I’m literally gonna treat this, I’m gonna treat this like this is a NCAA amateur golf tournament that I am actually able to recruit at and I’m a golf coach. Now you can’t do that, I think that’s pretty illegal the NCAA would frown on that, because you can’t do it okay so if you if you happen to be a coach you’re listening to this you know that that’s taboo, but inside in an industry play where you’re now in business, not sports, you look at it like this, okay? You identify your top recruit, your top talent, I want to know where they’re at on the golf course, so I can be intentional about meeting up with them at specific halls, what holes are going to join them up. when I’m gonna plan my day out, the clubhouse prior to the event, the clubhouse after the event, you know the drink tickets that I might have, that I’m gonna give away. The, I might even host my own post golf tournament barbecue in the parking lot, and see if I can actually pay and the Gulf the clubhouse allow me to actually pay to have a barbecue a traveling barbecue truck in the parking lot that I’m gonna sponsor with my tables set up with my drinks where I can shake hands and hold babies, although there won’t be any babies, at the golf event so I can build relationship more intentionally there, okay? I want you to think creatively around all of these events because these are micro opportunities for you to actually go further with every single one of these recruits in an environment where great conversation can take place, and I’m simply acting like a farmer where I’m toiling the soil, because immediately following this event I’m going to create a micro sprint of sorts that over a 10 to 14 day period of time, I’m going to create seven touches for every single one of these people, got it? This means that I might actually pay $300 have a photographer out in the golf course that’s taking great photos, so that I can get access to those photos myself and make sure that I have a reason to follow up with people afterwards. it’s that statement that everyone ends up somewhere, few people end up somewhere on purpose, okay? We’re talking about being extremely intentional, I use the word extremely because one of you can build a system around every one of these events. and one of the things that you’ve heard me say, if you listen to my podcast from time to time is that extreme structure, or extreme systems, equals extreme success. Think system and structure when it comes to these events where get a lineup, where is everyone going to be at specific times what can I do to maximize the pre-event, what can I do to maximize the post-event, what am i I’m gonna go out of my way to intentionally meet people, get things of value that I can deliver beyond the event to people, okay? And then afterwards, I’m going to go all out in a short wind of time to try and build relationship and create face to faces, got it? So, let’s just talk about that beyond the event now, because beyond the event, I would call I called this a micro sprint, so here’s what a micro sprint looks like. Typically recruiting comes in seasons, we go, you know some seasons like three to four months and we’ll try to build a relationship over a three to four-month window, or sometime over a season of years, right? A longer wind of time, well I’m trying to do is to maximize that face time that I have there, where now I have relevancy, I got visibility and I’m relevant to move that into some momentum. So, I’m going to lay out seven very specific steps, now is there a perfect seven steps? I don’t know. But I’m just most interested in creating these seven steps, now, why seven steps? Because the average law in sales in conversions we’re all about conversion here right I’ve got to recruit people to my brand if I I’m gonna grow and achieve my goals so if we’re gonna get the conversion you’ve got it the average law of sales is the number seven it takes seven touches to typically make a conversion inside sales. So I’m simply taking this number seven treating it if it’s an arbitrary number, it’s an arbitrary number, but what I do know is that when I focus on a specific number, specific things come from this, and that’s what I want I want, to be extremely intentional, okay? So let’s just kind of walk this through, I’m just kind of conjuring up an idea how to photographer on the golf course taking great pictures, that person then gives me access to those pictures, I’m gonna develop those pictures for these specific individual leaders, that want to get in front of, or these specific recruits that I want to get in front of, okay? And so then immediately beyond the event, that evening I’m gonna shoot a text, I’m gonna say hey I don’t know if you notice my photographer was out on the golf course got some really great shots of you, you know taking swings and having a good time what’s the best way to get these to get these photos to you, right? So there’s one step, I’m moving towards a face to face, I want to face to face, okay so as I’m thinking face to face, I’m gonna stage these specific next steps around that, how do I get someone into a face-to-face meeting, okay? So I’m gonna use text, I might use video text, I’m going to use if I need to use social media, could be LinkedIn, could be Facebook messenger, might be Instagram, I’m going to hand write notes to these individuals as well and I look there’s nothing wrong with like you know mailing the coolest photo that you have inside a cool frame and sending it to them, okay? So I’m going to use handwritten notes, text messages, even back to a voicemail because some of this has to be past it I can’t be just all in your face seven times and so a back door voicemail using a tool like slide owl is a great way to do this. Back to voicemail, you know anything that I can do to get to a place where I’m moving to this ask, which is hey let’s get together and break bread together, get together and grab a cup of coffee, grab lunch and I enjoyed you know the time that we spent together the golf course I’ve enjoyed our conversations here over the past week and a half, two weeks we’d love to do a face-to-face with you what’s your schedule like on Thursday, that I’m gonna use this event to create a micro sprint to gain some momentum to put people into a face-to-face, okay? And there’s your idea that you can go now insert as a play sheet in your larger recruiting playbook because you have these events that come out, that come up throughout the year, be intentional, okay? You could create a checklist around this, the things that you need to do before, things that you need to do Deering, and the things that you need to do after. It’s that simple okay and then every single time you’re done ask yourself three questions and here are the three questions, what worked well? what didn’t work well? and what am I going to work to improve on? Okay? give it to you again, what worked well? what didn’t work well? and what am I going to work to improve on? when you ask those three questions of yourself, then you will have every single time that you do these, specific takeaways that you can now implement in the next event, and it will get better, and it will get better, and will get better, and so the intentionality of having a plan around this means that you will put every single one of your competitors at a distinct disadvantage, got it? Okay there you have it, there’s a great idea go activate on the idea, and you now have a better way to get momentum from these events where it’s no longer just about visibility and branding it’s about being relevant in a specific conversation, there you have it. So happy to provide this idea to you because it brought me value as a recruiting leader myself, remember I’m a practitioner, I’m not about theories about the practicality of an idea and inserting that into what you’re doing to actually go win a scale.
So until next time I’ll be setting around here trying to figure out what great idea I can share with you, it to help you grow your business, and if I can help you in any way you gotta find me there are no strings attached though to these to these podcasts, I love one of the most fulfilling things I get to do is to bring these things of value to you, because I empathize with your struggle and that is the truth. I empathize with your struggle having been in your position for 15 years well longer than 15 years almost 15 years in one industry, and so I think all set was over 20 years I was recruiting leader, so my heart goes out to you, making it an awesome week, activate on this idea until I see again, or hear you or you hear my voice again on a future recruiting conversation podcast have a great week everyone, I look forward to it, all the best.
