Part 3 of Face to Face Meetings

Welcome back to another recruiting conversations your host Richard Milligan and it is our 50th podcast. Let me give myself, there’s nobody else in this studio, giving myself a arousing applause. Look, like I’ve got to do this, like if someone is said when you start with the with the first podcast you’re gonna make it to number 50, I would have said yes I believe that I’m going to be able to cross that line but like now we fast forward a little over a year. It’s been what, 15 months since we’ve been doing this, this is episode 50 and we already have beyond this, other ones recorded that we haven’t played yet, so we know, that um we know that we’re gonna make it we’re gonna survive. This was crazy, I realized this I started looking when I started looking at this podcast. I think this is relevant to recruiting, so I’m gonna give it to you.

When I was looking at the podcast I launched, the numbers were staggering. They were absolutely staggering for how many people start a podcast and don’t get beyond episode 10. How many people start a podcast and never do anything and it was one of those things when I was looking and thinking about starting this podcast, I started searching probably like a lot of you in iTunes, where I was just searching the word recruiting and I came across three or four podcasts, I remember this I came across three or four podcast I was like that is awesome I would listen to an episode or two and there wouldn’t be anything more than three or four, and a we began to realize that gosh we we all have these great intentions but few of us actually see these intentions all the way through, and so in the beginning one of the things we have to do is we have to count the cost. What’s gonna be the cost of this, because there’s a limited number of hours in a day, there’s a limited amount of resource that energy that I can actually expand them produce. So, understanding that like where am I going to invest my time. I think too many people think of time as time management instead of time allocation, and that’s an appetite podcast and it’s in itself and we’ll probably come back and do something around that, but think about that time management versus time allocation this is important to us as recruiters, right? Most try to manage their time instead of allocating their time and if I’m gonna allocate my time I need to determine where do I want to spin that and who are the people in my organization that I’m gonna report to and have meetings with and open my email up to, and more specific behaviors inside recruiting am I going to actually map out in the day to day that I’m gonna allocate my time to most people show up I found this to be true, most people show up in the day to day and it’s like taadaah! and I pause goes like what’s next it’s like whoever can get my attention the most and that’s why email has become the enemy of the recruiting leader because that recruiting leader wears multiple hats, and because you were multiple Hat super hats you’re at you are exposed to lots of people inside the organization the people above you that are in upper management the people that are really under your leadership underneath your umbrella and those are the people that are feeding communication up to you and you’re funneling all that back and forth, and back and forth and most recruiting leaders get stuck in the in the middle of email, and phone calls, and voicemail, and text messages, and ultimately those things can literally absorb your entire day, you know this they can absorb your tired day and you can get absolutely nothing done.

So, we’re gonna transition from that I’m off my high horse yes episode 50 but we are in episode 50 talking about one of the most important things in all of these three these four sessions where we’re talking about meetings. If you will go back to podcasts two episodes ago, we were talking about the building relationship part. Which I think is the first phase of the meeting, and then in the past episode which was episode two of four we’re talking about what I think is one of the most critical things in recruiting which is getting to, what is the largest motivator for my recruit, and so I’m asking questions around that “what is your why, what is it that motivates you most, and that brings us to the stage three or four. And so, at the end of getting someone’s why, we transition from getting that information with you have some simple statements, a simple statement can literally be “I have, I enjoyed hearing a little bit about you or and I would love to tell you a little bit about myself. And so, I’ll start with kind of what I think are my core values, and then I want to share what my vision is. So, we’re going to now talk about our core values and our vision. Are you ready? because a lot of people aren’t ready, that becomes the larger problem with this, is that remember on the phone, if I said to you what you should be saying is that “if you’re willing to meet with me I promise not to recruit you this will be a relationship building only meeting”,  someone shows up and when people people get stage 1, right? Let that let them talk about themselves and you build relationship with them by asking good questions and they get to some degree stage 2 which is I need to figure out what motivates the most, and then we get to stage 3 and we’re like now’s your time to share your vision and your values and what motivates you most, what is your why, and it’s like now I’m not equipped to move through the third stage of this, because most people would insert company value proposition in this moment. That’s what they would do. They would insert their company value proposition. Let me tell you about how awesome our company is, right? It’s like our, our support is phenomenal, our leadership is great our technology is amazing, you know all these things our culture which is the most overused word on the planet for a recruiter. You wouldn’t believe what our culture is like, there’s another podcast in itself, how do we break down that word culture what does that even mean, I mean I like to use different framework for words like that because then people automatically assume that they know what it is, and everyone’s culture is a little bit different, and everyone’s culture is a little unique, right? But we come back to this thing, right? Here it’s like we can’t talk about those things now it exposes us in this area of not being clear and able to communicate our core values, it exposes us the fact that we don’t have a vision for where we’re going, we’ve never really articulated our larger why, why we do what we do, right? And that’s not for money if it is you’re gonna be a very shallow recruiter. It’s not for success, it’s not for a better title, if those are the things that you’re promoting I put quotations around “better opportunity” if that’s how you’re recruiting in this moment, then you get here to this, this third session of these four that were recruiting, and it says you got work to do. You have a lot of work to do.

Let me tell you why vision, core values, and why matter picture three circles, right? And the three circles are those things, what’s my vision, what’s my largest motivators, what’s my why, and then what is the top three or four core values. Picture those three circles, there’s an overlap, take those three circles and overlap them slightly, there’s a, there’s an overlap with those three things where there’s a bull’s-eye, the person who’s clear on those three things is operating in what I call the passion zone. That person has that it factor, that we can’t root, we can’t quite articulate what it is, there’s like they’re extremely compassionate, they love what they do, they’re really excited about, what they’re doing right but there’s something unique and there’s something different about that, and one of the key things in recruiting is that we’re able to transfer our passion that’s what recruiting is, I’m trans, a transference of energy, I’m transferring my passion about my opportunity to you. You don’t have to be discontent, if I’m more passionate about what I’m doing and I’m able to articulate to you, why I’m doing it and the value system I’m doing it, in and the vision of where I’m going, if I can articulate that to you in this in this little narrow zone where it all overlaps. There’s a little bit of transference of that it, whatever it is, and someone says there’s something different about Richard, there’s something different about his opportunity, there’s something unique about what’s going on over there, and what we primarily lack as recruiting leaders is our ability to communicate this. This is really when we get to this third stage of where great recruiters differentiate themselves from average recruiters. There’s someone in my coaching this last year that hired over a hundred people inside their area, and a lot of people would say that’s a successful career, and they’ve done this in a year. How’d they do that? how they did that, was that this person is living in their passion zone. This person has it, if you spent some time with them you would know they had it, and so we come back to this moment and we say I have to have clarity around my vision. I got to know where I’m going. I’ve got to be able to articulate this to people I’ve got to have clarity around my core value system and I and it can’t be 20 different values it needs to be clearly articulated in three or four things that are memorable and transportable because those are things people will take with them. And then it comes back to me as an individual recruiting leader and being able to answer this question, “why do I do what do I do?” why do I do this what’s important to me what am I trying to accomplish in the larger scheme of things and I think most people operate in like five different arenas with this it’s like like we want to do what we love with the people we love, while making a greater difference, while being fairly compensated, and then able to spend time with the people that we love and adore most, outside the walls of business. Now, I’m to my family, and to my friends, and to get to do these things that mattered to me, outside of the walls of business, and I think most people operate in a similar framework. I think you’re probably not in your head right now, right? you’ve got to be able to articulate these things to people, or you will simply fall in the opportunity improvement offering. We’re a little bit better. And it might be that you’re old you think you’re a lot better but you’re still in the opportunity improvement offer the leader who shows up that can communicate vision and values and why they’re doing what they’re doing they’re operating in their own category. That’s a new opportunity, that opportunity doesn’t exist any place else.

So, we’re not selling this as much as we’re storytelling this. I’m not showing up and saying this is why you come join my winning team. You like my secondary voice, I use right there, like this is why you come join my winning team is something that a lot framework a lot of people use that’s not the framework that’s best used if you want to motivate people that are ultimately aligned with you. I can take someone that’s perfectly happy where they are, and I can move them to my team because perfectly happy in context for most people means that they put a little check mark in the box, on the surface as I’m satisfied, I’m satisfied where I’m at. What does that mean, means I’ve got the tools I need right means I’m pretty content in terms of my paycheck it means things are going smoothly for the most part, things are going smoothly, but there is a defining word in the Latin that’s used around status quo, and I would dare say most people follow that category that status quo. I’m content I’m satisfied that status quo, how in Latin it defines the term status quo is “mess we’re in” and I would dare say that people that are operating without being in this these three circles that we’re talking about here with vision, and value, clarity and why they’re doing what they’re doing clarity those people are settling for something that’s less than what’s available. When a leader shows up that’s operating in this area, right? We all want to spend time around that leader now for me that leader was a guy by the name of Greg Gunn, and Greg Gunn is the founder of an organization called family ID, and I remember hearing Greg speak for the first time and when he spoke that passion zone he was operating in, it just splashed all off all over me. So, here I am running a busy life, I’ve got four kids running at the time I think I was running five teams, Greg shows up at an event he speaks there was something about Greg that was different I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Greg was operating with this it factor all over him, and he was clear on why he was doing what he was doing was clear on his vision for where he was going, it was clear on the value system he was operating in, and I wanted to p-pop I want to be a part of that he’s wanted to be around that. so I look up three years later and not only have I been serving alongside him at events, he’s nonprofit events, but I’m on the board for his nonprofit organization family ID, and I’m buying cases of his books and I’m handing them out, because Greg was operating in his passion zone. This is what every leader needs to work towards. If you ultimately want to operate in the five areas that I mentioned, doing what you love with people you love, while making a difference, while being fairly compensated, while having time to just spend time with those people that are most important to you, if that’s a framework that you’re nodding your head and saying yes, then this is a place you gotta put your head down and do work, and this is work.

Look when I originally got clear on my core values when I originally got clear on why I was doing what I was doing in my vision. I had to go get to a place where my brain was quiet, where I wasn’t looking at emails where my phone was off, where I wasn’t in the middle of running the kids to basketball practice, and my daughter to a horse riding lessons or whatever it is for you. I had to get to place a white space, and I started asking myself some really hard questions. So, here’s what I would like to do for the audience here now. I’ve got a document that will help you a lot of you can’t even answer what the term “WHY” actually means and that’s okay. I couldn’t do it, up until 2014, a lot of you aren’t even clear what’s the framework for core values, and how would you even define core values, and that’s okay I couldn’t do that until you get 2014, and most of you aren’t clear on the vision, like my market, my team, where are we going what’s the finish line that we want across, outside of it maybe being a number, which is ultimately not vision it’s a goal, outside of it being a number you can’t communicate that and again that’s okay because that’s where I was up until the beginning of 2014. If you get clarity around this and you work towards this. It’s gonna take work then you’re gonna be able to get to this third stage of this face-to-face meeting and not only are you going to be able to share your vision and share your core values and share why you’re doing what you’re doing, you’re going to be able to actually story tell them. So, I’m introducing storytelling now as part of this, right? Because the context is this, if I share with you my “why”, how I convince you that that’s authentic if I share with you my values and how I convinced that that is authentically me, as I I share the story of my life. I shared the story of why those things are important to me. You weren’t born with clarity around your “WHY” you weren’t born with the core value system, okay? You’ve been taught those things, you have experience in life that’s actually led you to a place where you’ve gotten clarity around these things, where you’ve been able to identify them, some of those experiences are good experiences, honestly some of those experiences of my life are bad experiences. I could share with you some very detailed stories about the poor leadership that I’ve been under, over the course of my career, as much as I could share with you the amazing leaders I’ve had like a Greg Gun in my life, and we all had those stories. It would be very rare for someone to actually just have one amazing leader and they go through their entire career underneath that amazing leader that would be rare, that’s just not the story of life in general. The story of life comes through the lens of conflict and struggle and perseverance and fighting for things that are of value, that’s why they’re of value to us. If somebody just gave them to us we don’t have to fight through the difficult seasons to get clarity on these they would have no value to us, why I am passionate about this topic which you can probably hear in my voice, because I had to fight to a place to get clarity around these things in my own life, and when I did I was able to actually give those things to other people that were of meaning to me, and have people adopt those things and make them of meaning to them as well. So, it’s a long journey to get to this place, most the people listening to this podcast are mature leaders, okay? If you set down and spend some time getting clarity around your values, around your vision, around why you’re doing what you’re doing, and you had that and you could story tell it like I can’t one of the stories I share with people there’s a story of being of 2007 being in the mortgage industry and failing miserably, waking up in my bed mid 2007, knowing I’ve got lots of pain coming up maybe because I got to recreate myself lots of hard conversations to have because I’m failing in this moment, having already exhausted all my financial resources and the only thing I’m looking at is obligations financially, not resources anymore, and realizing in that moment, like what am I really living for, it’s not for money, it’s not for success, it’s not for a larger beautiful office, with beautiful furniture in it, it’s not for an awesome car, it’s not for these sayings and those moments I’m waking up in my bed and I’m realizing I got a newborn, and I’ve got a five-year-old, I’ve got a wife of seven years or eight years, and in those moments my clarity was I’m doing this for them. I can’t even do this for myself because I’m so discouraged and I’m so afraid of feeling further in these moments the only things that got me out of bed was clarity that I don’t want to go back to being 19 years of age, and leaving home where I spent 19 years in a broken poverty-stricken place, I said I wouldn’t create this in my own family and Here I am staring it dead straight in the face. And in those moments that story I could share that story with someone and say I’m clear today on family being more important than work, and I encouraged my employees in fact I’m coming out of a meeting yesterday, with one of my employees where I’m saying take time away, right? Go spend time with your family because something’s going on there, like that is those are my larger motivators when I share that story with someone what I’m ultimately doing is convincing them that, that value is true about me, this isn’t a sales pitch, this is the authentic me, and I think the number one characteristic of a good story is the vulnerability of the storyteller. So, this means that you’re going to have to be vulnerable in these stories. I think great stories come through some unique framework and most people have never connected the dots on that unique framework, that unique framework is there’s always a beginning, I just kind of at a high level articulated that to you my story, right? At the beginning is 19 years of age and leaving home, kind of planting my flag in the sand and saying “in the future this is who I will be and I already am clear on who I won’t be” I’ve given you the other component of a good story which is conflict and struggle, that’s necessary we make a huge mistake when we recruit and we only tell highlight-real stories. It’s a massive mistake, because those stories are not trustworthy, it’s not, we would never go watch a movie, that’s nothing more than a highlight real story. It’s while we watch SportsCenter, but we would never go watch a go watch a movie. I could tell you today, the context of a movie I’ve watched, I don’t know how old the movie I hope floats is, but for those of you that have seen it. I mean that’s an old movie, I mean it’s like what is it 20 years old, right? Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick jr. it’s like I mean for those of you that haven’t seen it you probably should go see because there’s a good framework, for story there’s a beginning there’s conflict there struggle, yes the happy ending exists, but that’s not the story, that’s the part of the framework of the story. So, when I share my story around my failure and a which was conflict and struggling, I shared the story of going back to the beginning and then I shared like where I am today and how I lead today what I’m doing is I’m convincing you that that is the authentic real me, and if you are aligned with that. If that’s something that you’re looking for, then if you’re looking for it now and don’t have it, then there’s an immediate next step. If you don’t have that now but you’re not looking for that because you’re quote-and-quote happy where you’re at I’m planting a seed in good soil. I’m planting a seed of Who I am as a leader that you will not forget, last year I got a LinkedIn message from someone that was not that I had retired recruiting nine years prior. No, no doubt, 2019, I actually to go back and look and see and what season was I in and where were they and where did we engage to figure out that nine year priors I met with them and I had shared a story with him and they are showing up my LinkedIn inbox saying something you posted a triggered a thought, and I remembered back then. Stories are memorable stories make impact leave impact, stories are transportable, they can take them with him. So, yes vision, yes values, yes why, and then we want to connect those two stories. This is one of the things I’m most passionate about, you want to convince people to join your team, as a leader you have no shot against me if you can’t articulate these things. If there’s someone in your market that can more clearly frame these over you, you, don’t stand a chance, because this is how we’ve been wired as humans. Like this is how intrinsically we’re wired, like think about this for a moment just pause here, pull out a sticky note, pull out a paper piece of paper, pull out your pin. I just clicked my pen and wrote down the places and the timelines of your career, go through this process and then what I want you to do is transport yourself back to those moments, that’s space that little bit of space of where you were, and where you were headed. Like, I’m at one company but I’m leaving I’m going to another company. What I know is true is that if you sat there and you evaluated that long enough, it would be your core value system that would be moving you from one place to another place. I’ll go back in my own career, why was I leaving one place and going to another place, it was because of misalignment in some way with my value system and realigning it with something that I thought was a line with my value system it was leaving one vision and it was moving to a larger vision. It was being motivated by a leader who was not clear on what they were doing, or why they were doing it, or had actually articulated to me, and then wasn’t in alignment with that and I was then moving towards another leader, who I thought was clear, that was an alignment with that, and when we look at our careers and we start stacking these opportunities of where we’ve left and where we’ve gone, most times not always but most times what’s motivating us to move from one place the next place is this intrinsic design that we have to be more motivated by values, to be more motivated by aligning with leaders, who are clear and what they’re doing and why they’re doing it which is part of the vision, part of the why, we’re motivated through that lens so a lot of times when we go back and when I work individually with a leader which we map some of these things out. Where people get stuck, and say why did that take place why did you move, why did you get in the into an industry to begin what sometimes can be a value system that’s pushing in a direction, you have to be able to articulate these things, and if you can, then you are a next level recruiter.

So behind the scenes here, we call them tier 1 tier 2 tier 3 leaders. We just it’s an easy simple framework for us when we meet a leader and we’re working with a leader. We do a lot of leadership branding here. So, in our leadership branding which is part of a channel we’ve got 13 people here that help leaders to develop their brands and be able to articulate those create content around those as we’re doing that when we say tier 1 tier 2 tier 3. A tier one leader clear on their vision their values and why they’re doing, what they’re doing, clear. 2 tier leaders understand those who have identified those but has not created ultimate clarity around those. tier 3 leader has no clue the hardest leader to represent in this area on social media is the tier 3 leader, because they don’t know what their contents are gonna be, right? we’ve kind of we call it the the fab or the fave stage we there’s three three letters there FAV, you know one is they’re fearful and what they’re posting, you know in and there they’re not real sure in like whether this is right and whether someone’s gonna receive it, or if I’m gonna get rejection in this and if I’m gonna have to defend it, I’m not really there’s a fear, starts to come from that, right? The a stands for Ambiguous they’re just real they’re real vague, in what they’re going to post and you read things and you’re like well that’s kind of an abstract thought, right so so so they’re ambiguous and how they’re representing themselves and the V stands for they vacillate, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this then I’m gonna do this, I’m going to do this, and that becomes the tier 3 leader that’s very difficult just to follow or to to understand what they’re talking about, or where they’re going with their social brand, right? So, this plays a part in every aspect of your leadership and the reason why is because we as human beings are drawn to people, that are confident and clear in these areas. So, here’s the big challenge for you, go spend some time getting clear in this I’ve got another podcast on vision values and why I’ve got a YouTube channel that’s got some resources there. Go pick up Simon Sinek’s book on why, go just to your audible, and search it, go to youtube and search it John Maxwell’s got great content on this. I bought already brought up simon Sinek who’s got a lot of great content on this, go find people that are talking about this Andy Andrews, I’m sorry Andy Stanley, has some incredible framework for this, And I’ll conclude a link below this podcast where you can go look at his course on vision, and why it’s important, there’s some amazing gems there that you could go grab and I’ll make a point to include that, yeah below the framework of where this is in iTunes, and Google Play, and Spotify and stitcher. Where we’re posting these, so that’s your homework from this if you’re going to do this face-to-face meeting right, you’re gonna be able to present this, you’re gonna be able to story tell this, and if you can do that you as a leader will become a Tier one leader, and I think the tier one leader is what I would define as a visioneer, this is someone that everybody wants to work for there’s something special about them like a Greg Gun that what at wherever you are whatever you’re doing you want to be around them because you realize they will make you better.

So that’s part three, you can probably tell I’m pretty fired up I’m pretty passionate about this, but I think this is one of the most critical things to you becoming that next level recruiting leader, and I’m all about helping you on the journey along this way.

So, thank you for being a part of this, for being a part of this tribe, thank you so much for tuning into this, that there’s something of value here and you’re thinking of someone else inside your organization or on your team that would also find value in this, I would be honored if you would share it, thanks again for listening until episode 4 of face to face meetings, have a great week everybody and we’ll talk to you again next time.

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