We are finishing an important series of podcast here. So, if you’re arriving at the, this is the beginning for you just happen to arrive on the scene of my podcast and this is the one that cues up for you, this is actually episode four of a package, I guess what you call it where we’ve gone through kind of the perfect framework for a face-to-face meeting for a recruiting leader. So, we’re if you, if you’re showing up and this is number one for you go back, and I would encourage you to actually start with Episode one of this, and then and then go through episode 2, episode 3, now this is episode 4 because it will give you a lot of context around what we’re gonna talk about here today.
So, just to bring everybody from episode 1 to present, so we can pick up where we left off. I believe that there’s four stages of presenting, if done correctly. Now, in stage one what we do is we build relationships and that may sound very obvious because it is, but if you want really good, a really good understanding of how to build relationships go check out episode 1 of this because I promise you there’s something there that she will learn. There’s 25 years of experience in that podcast alone that will give you some that will generate some fresh ideas for you. In episode 2 were talked about stage 2 of the face to face meeting what we talked about is figuring out a candidate’s “WHY” figuring out a recruit’s why what motivates them most, and then an episode three we’re talking about now it’s our turn to present in this meeting, and this is what we’re gonna talk about our passion zone. We’re going to share why we do what we do. We’re going to talk about our core value system and then we’re going to share our vision. Where are we going and that brings us to stage four.
Now, let me start stage four with this you’re not always going to have a fourth stage of this face-to-face meeting, and when I say stages, I just mean like transition windows, like there’s one two three four there’s four different places here for four different topics or points that we need to you know move through in order to actually have a successful face-to-face meeting. So, when we get to this one it’s where we would create alignment.
Now, assuming that you want to create alignment look I’ve been on lots of face-to-face recruiting meetings and one of the things I know is that if I went through stage 1, 2, and 3, I was pretty clear after stage 1 & 2 whether this was someone that was aligned with me. And I’ve learned the hard way in my own recruiting career in hiring people just for a volume, just for units, just for production, just for sales, just to fill a position. I’ve learned the hard way but that’s the wrong way to recruit. You want to attract people that you’re going to enjoy doing business with you, right? We’ve talked about that framework before, like doing business that you love with the people you love while making a greater difference and if you’re not doing business with people that you love, it really makes it hard to love what you’re doing, and it makes it almost impossible to get to that larger meaning place. So, we want to attract talent and we want to recruit talent that’s aligned with our value system. So, when I get to this fourth component here I’m not always going to go through this because I’m gonna have already determined that someone is not the right fit for my team, and so when I get to this one I’ll in the meeting, and say “you know in my phone scripting, I said that I wasn’t going to recruit you and and so here I am and I’ve just said here’s my vision value and why I’m doing what I’m doing but I am going to end the meeting” in the meeting on that note without moving into this place where I would actually ultimately try to bring this conversation full circle, and make statements like “I see us as being aligned in our value system”. so in creating alignment you are actually going to use that word alignment. I had someone I’m coaching come into a coaching session one time, and they were laughing and they said you’re not gonna believe this. I’m walking through the four phases of this you know face to face meeting that you taught me and I got past stage three, and the person that I’m supposed to be recruiting says to me “man I see what we’re really aligned in our values” and it was like it was all I could do not to spit my coffee on the individual because they said that that was my line, I’m the one that’s supposed to be saying that, I got a good laugh out of that but the truth is that when we model this correctly and we get to this moment people will feel alignment. People will know whether you are a leader of interest as someone that they should have on their radar whether that’s now or in the future for when they are experiencing a trigger event, or interested in making a move. So, we get to creating alignment, here’s what this is centered around this is really connecting our values and our vision and our why with their values, their vision and their why, what motivates them most.
So, there’s a number of ways to do this one you just speak alignment, you know it’s like you’re in the first part of this meeting when you were talking about your family, you said this about your family and I see where we were extremely aligned because I believe this and this is what’s similar. What visioneers do well, is vision yours take people and project them into the future with them, that’s what visioneers do well. Most of us, most people are stuck in the moment, they’re stuck in the next decision they’re stuck in the immediate environment of what’s going on in their life. What vision ears do is they place people into the future with them they speak this to life. So, there’s a number of ways to do this but but the word alignment is something that’s very simple to grab on to, and it’s something to use. You’re going to use the information they gave you in stage one, or in the first part of this meeting, you’re going to use that information in this moment to say “we are like-minded that we are headed in the same direction, that we have the same value system” and I’ve got to actually have them see this, okay? Once, I’ve spoken alignment into being with them, now what I’m going to do is I’m going to gauge the temperature of the recruit. Now, remember with integrity we said we’re coming into this meeting and it’s a non recruit meeting if you have this meeting with me I’ve said that I’m not going to talk about my company and I’m not gonna try and recruit you, but it doesn’t mean that at the end of this meeting, I can’t make a statement, like look if you’re one person intrigued by this meeting today, I would love to host you at our local office and have you come by and grab a cup of coffee, okay? That would be a next step, they may have asked a question early on and it might have been around your comp model, or your pricing model, or your cell system, or whatever it is they asked a question about and because I’ve set the precedence before coming into this that I’m not going to talk about my company, I’m not going to try and recruit them. When they ask that question, that I’m going to politely decline answering that I’m gonna say “look one of the things I promise you is that I wouldn’t talk about my company so I’m gonna take a note of that question when we get the end of that at the end of this meeting I’d love to address that would keep I want to make sure I honor what I said I was going to do and not talk about my company”. So, when I get to the end of the meeting and I have those questions that may have been asked, and a lot of times they do get asked, even when you set the precedence that this is a non recruiting meeting. They’ll get asked I push those to the very end, if they asked a question that could be answered by someone on my operations team then that would be my next step. I would say early in this meeting, they asked a question about this I would love to get Nancy my head of operations in a meeting with you, what’s your scheduled next week, and she’ll not only be able to answer that question but give you a larger feel for how we handle our process and our system on the operation side. We’re going to put quotations around this “gain agreement” on my next step. I went to “gain agreement” on the next step. Here’s a huge mistake that I made for almost 11 years, 11 years into being a recruiting leader I had hired around best I can calculate somewhere between 42 and 45 salespeople okay that were currently on my team. So, we’re talking about hiring and retaining about four, you know somewhere around three, or four, or five people every year, consistently, for about a decade. A lot of people thought that those were big wins, like I had done something of significance was running three offices, through you know ten eleven years in. A lot of people were like he’s having a lot of success. Ultimately, what I found out in the next three years is that that success was really micro, compared to what I could accomplish when I was doing things correctly, or when I was doing things differently. One of the things that was really important that was different in those two seasons was in the first decade, when I got to this face-to-face meeting and I got to the end of the meeting, I would actually ask for an email address so that I could send my corporate presentation to them. Now, I know this entire audience is gasping for air right now because of that’s such an amazing tip, and they’re probably putting their hands over their mouth, going never thought of that, but you don’t need to think of that, and if you think that’s a good idea won’t you just to drop it right now because no one ever said that I joined your company because you sent that presentation. In fact, it was actually it actually took a street, that was a two-way street going you know going quickly in a direction and it made it a dead-end street, because now I just basically equipped them to say I have all the information that I need to make a decision, and I don’t need to build relationship with you anymore. I can honestly say “I never had anyone respond to that email I said” that had this beautiful corporate presentation by the way it was a beautiful corporate presentation the company that I was with it invested you know an enormous amount of money. I don’t know what that amount was but it was a beautiful presentation that was created by a marketing professional that was very specific, very intentional in how I presented, the story of the organization, but no one ever joined the organization because of that. So, what I did in this season where I transition 10 – 11 years in, was I said I’m not going to send that presentation anymore and what I’m going to do is get more people involved in the recruiting process. Now, what I know today is better information that out than what I knew in the 2013, what I know today, because we do a lot of recruiting audits for companies, is that the more people you get involved in recruiting, the more likely you are to actually recruit the individual. Let me make that statement again, the more people that you get involved in recruiting, the more likely you are to recruit that individual to your team. Why is that? Right? I think it’s important to know that that is true but why is that? One of the things that I have come to realize, over the last however long six seven years, that I’ve been doing that, is that when I get more people involved in the recruiting process, people have a better idea of what the organization looks like, right? Like they understand what we represent, our belief model are we unified, is there synergy, is there a connectedness going on here, are we having fun at work, they really get an idea of what most people you know I put in quotations called “culture”. That’s important, right? They need to understand what our culture looks like. So, when I introduce more people, they get a better feel of that. Now, I think there’s other things around this I call it the BAM zone the BAM zones, where we want to belong to something bigger than ourselves, and want to be a part of a try the people that are aligned with our value system, we want to be affirmed by a life-giving leader, and we do want more meaning, and part of that meaning is that were aligned with people who are like-minded headed in the same direction, right? All of those things are true. When you introduce more people that actually gives me the feel for that BAM zone. So, a best next step would be to have them into your office so they could meet the entire team, a best next step would be to get your head of marketing on the phone, or your CEO, or your CEO, or your president, or your executive leader, or whoever it is into this next step, and if you were to get someone at an executive level involved, it’s extremely affirming, right? To say like I was talking to my executive leader and that executive leader asked if they could have a conversation with you beyond this, because I’ve really pumped you up to them, and they asked if you’d be willing to do two fifteen minutes on the phone with them, after this meeting, that’s extremely affirming but remember this you want to gain agreement on this next step at the end of this meeting. Don’t make the mistake of saying “okay let’s leave this whatever this is cup of coffee office meeting” you know at a restaurant breaking bread whatever it is you do not want to leave that meeting without gaining agreement on our next step. And the reason why is that this is a bit like a game of tennis, okay? You show up at the meeting and if I hit a ball into your court for you to hit back to me then I’m just waiting for you to hit the ball back to me. So, I’m going to actually make sure while I’m setting in this meeting that when I hit the ball to you, like in this meeting, unfortunately to hit the ball back to me. So, the mistake that I made for a long time was hey love your email address we’d love to send you this 30 page corporate presentation, he’ll tell you a lot about the company. So, in essence I was hitting the ball into their court, and I was just hanging out waiting for them to actually hit the ball back to me.
Here’s a true story that happened with someone that I was coaching. So, I go through this exact presentation with someone the four phases the four stages of presenting. They go have an awesome meeting with the recruit the next week they come into the into a coaching session, and they said this to me they said would you be willing to review an email that I got from the recruit that I met with last week, and I said sure, I’ll review it but what are you wanting me to review, and he said I’m wanting you to kind of give me your input on whether this person is interested in moving forward, and in my opportunity, or if this is just a normal email where there’s just a conversation going back and forth, before I ever saw that email I made this statement, you didn’t gain agreement on next step, did you? And he was like “what do you mean”. I said what we talked about like in this meeting you would actually invite them into some big next step and you didn’t do that, and he said how did you know that it and do that and I said because you don’t know the temperature of the recruit, and and so when we ask for an agreement on a next step, we gauged the temperature of the recruit. Think about this if I was to invite we had a great meeting we’ll get to the end of this meeting, I’m now inviting you into visiting my local office, I’m going to get one of three responses from you, and one of those three responses is going to tell me exactly where you are. Are you thirty degrees, are you 72 degrees, or are you a hundred and four degrees, right? So, if I invite you into coming and visiting my local office and you can’t see me but my body language would shift, I would probably push back away from the table, and lean out, and go oh, no, no, I was only here to meet you, understanding this was non recruiting meeting, what with what does that tell us? That this individual is cold there 30 degrees, the person that then thoughtfully considers it, and says can I get back to you on that I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that, this is 72 degrees, and the person that leans forward, and says sure I’d love to do that, I’d love to come check you out, that is 104 degrees.Now, I made up the degrees, but you get the point you’re either cold warm or hot, and if I don’t ask for agreement on something that’s a powerful next step, then I have no clue. We leave this meeting, and it’s like what just happened? Like where are they at? Did I do good, are they thinking about, you know possibly taking the next steps, It’s like we have no clue, what’s, what, and where they are. So, by gaining agreement on this next step it is in essence hitting the ball to them in tennis and forcing that ball to be hit back. So, that whenever it comes back to me, I know or the individual is. And here’s why, we need to know if I don’t know this, I have no clue how to pursue you beyond this. Like what do I mean by that, well if you’re cold, do you think it would be a problem you know if I was I was aggressively pursuing you, yes, that would be a problem, right? It would be a problem because if I’m aggressively pursuing you and you’re cold then what I do is I position yourself to be ghosted. If you haven’t heard that word before, ghosted, means that like they don’t respond to the text, they won’t respond to your Linkedin messages, you can’t get them on the phone, you leave a voicemail they don’t respond. If I don’t figure out whether this person is cold warm or hot, then I have no clue how to pursue them because if they say oh, no, no, I was only here for the purpose of getting to know you, and it was a non recruiting meeting, then I know that they’re cold so what will I do well then I will pursue them through what I call passive communication. Passive communication being that I’m not going to ask you for coffee again next month. It means that I’m going to have a value equation, where I’m going to pursue you very thoughtfully when I’m bringing value to you. I’m not going to just stop in, through your phone, or through your text, or through your LinkedIn, or wherever it is saying are you saying “are you happy?” “Are you interested?” I’m not gonna do it, okay? Because now I realize I’ve got a build relationship with you and in order to get to a place where I can do that. So, you’ve got to have a strong ask in this otherwise you will not be able to figure out where they are.
So, the big takeaway for you here is this is like have a big ask, don’t be afraid to have a big ask, once you make that you’re going to extract some information, that information is going to tell you what category they fit in and from here, we then pursue accordingly, okay? So, there you have it for episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 talking about the four stages of presenting, and listen, this works, this works. It doesn’t matter if you are a dental practice trying to hire your next you know hygienist, it doesn’t matter whether you are a mortgage leader looking to hire your next top loan officer, or you’re a real estate agent looking to hire your next top real estate agent, whoever you are, this works, okay?
So get familiar with this, map this into your recruiting process, and then expect great things to come from this because when you leave this meeting, something great just happens. You know exactly where the recruit sets, you know exactly how to pursue them next, and because of that you have now moved yourself in a direction where you are much closer to getting the individual than before you actually started it, okay? And so now for us, the big thing is going to be having a value equation, where we’re consistently month in, a month out, showing up with some form of communication we’re bringing real value to the individual that will help them grow that will inspire them, that will help them in their career where they’re at and we’re gonna do all of that with no strings attached as we pursue the individual beyond this, got it? So, I’m sure this brought some value to you today, because I know it was a aha moment my career, that was a springboard that I was able to use to actually further my recruiting efforts and further growth and my team. So, hope you enjoyed it today gang, if there’s any way that we can help you, connecting some of the dots on this you’ve got access to my calendar, the outro will go right after this, and there my link to my calendar beyond that, it will be an honor and a pleasure to just even spend an hour with you if you feel like I can bring you value for an hour I spent probably 3 or 4 hours a week and in coaching sessions the people I’ve never met before, and just to give them value to high-five them along the journey because if you are recruiting leader, I really believe you had the most difficult job on planet Earth, which is you’re wearing 15 hats and then also trying to juggle this big role of recruiting. So I applaud you, I encourage you, stay the course keep doing the right things right this week, and until I see you again, or here or until I speak to you again, next time on recruiting conversations have a great week everybody.
