WEbinar Notes & Links

Happy Grasshopper Website - https://happygrasshopper.com

Recruitment Success Summit - https://happygrasshopper.com/recruit/

Join the What To Say Now Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow

Book a Call with Dan Stewart - https://happygrasshopper.com/Dan/

Show Transcript

Dan Stewart (00:00:12): Hey everybody. Welcome to today's session. My name's Dan Stewart. I'm the founder of Happy Grasshopper. And I am absolutely blessed that you're here with me today. I really appreciate your investment of time. So welcome, welcome, welcome. I see the participant list climbing up here. Go ahead and say what's up in the chat. Tell me where you are logging in from. I would love to see your comments in the chat here. Let's make sure you guys can hear me and see me. Hi Jennifer from Prescott, Arizona. Wow, you live in a beautiful place. You do indeed. Hello Maya, glad to see you here. This is awesome. So we're going to watch this participant counter tick up but guess what? You folks are on time. That means you do not have to wait. We are going to get rolling right away. Let me go ahead and share my screen here with you. You're about to see a beautiful desert landscape courtesy of the Apple cooperation. So there we go. Let me go ahead and share my slides. And Jennifer, Maya, Brian, Kathleen. Hey Kathleen. Glad to see you here. Go ahead and let me know that you can see my slide deck over there. I want to make sure that popped up.
Dan Stewart (00:01:24): All right yes, yes, yes, yes. Awesome. So here's how today is going to go. Webinar sessions like this are always much more productive if they're interactive. I figure if I'm investing some time in my life to help you, I want to provide as much help as possible. That comes through feedback. So today I am totally and completely prepared. I have a ton of things that we're going to cover and I want to prime the pump here a little bit. So if you're at all interested in the attraction model, if you're at all interested in recruitment, attracting people to you, you must, must, must have a way to get them to stop and actually hear you. We live in a super crowded noisy world right now when it comes to recruitment. So go ahead and say yes in the chat if you're having trouble getting your message heard. We're going to solve that problem for you today. I'd also like you to know that we're going to be working very much on positioning. Positioning is actually the reason your message can't be heard. That's a big issue and we need to solve that. So we're going to work together to overcome that challenge today by learning to properly position you to get your message heard in the noisy recruitment marketplace.
Dan Stewart (00:02:43): So we're going to talk about where to find people of course and then I'm going to show you exactly what you need to do to get started with this. So for those of you who may not know me, I'll give you a little introduction. My name is Dan Stewart. I am the founder of Happy Grasshopper. I love my little company and we are celebrating our 10th anniversary this year so we're 10 years old. That's crazy. And in that time we've had the privilege of serving some of the very best, the largest, the most successful, the brand new fledglings. We have served clients from all walks of life. Whether it's recruitment to a traditional brokerage, whether it's attraction to a profit or revenue share model. We've developed a lot of expertise that can help you solve these hurdles today. So that's what we're practicing today. Hey Jake, glad to see that you're here my man. Good to see you.
Dan Stewart (00:03:37): So I do have an announcement. A little later on this month we are hosting the Recruitment Success Summit. So if you're ready to really take your recruitment and attraction efforts to the next level, that's where you need to be. So just a tiny little promo here to go to happygrasshopper.com/recruit. There are a limited number of spots available so if that is interesting to you, go ahead and jump over there now and grab your seat. I'm also going to let you know that the crowd that we've attracted to this webinar today is very intentional. So this is not a selly sell kind of webinar. This is a hey, I really want to get to know you. I really want to build a relationship with you. I want to hear about your ambitions and your goals so that I can help you achieve them.
Dan Stewart (00:04:32): So what you see on the screen right now is a link to my personal calendar. If you would like to schedule a call where I can work with you directly to help you with your recruitment issues, that's your best first step. All right. So thank you Brian for popping that in the chat. I do appreciate that.
Dan Stewart (00:04:52): Now let's have just an open and honest conversation right now. I'd love your feedback here in the chat for the next few minutes. Why are you here? Why are you focused on attraction? What is the opportunity that exists in your life through mastering the ability to attract, empower, retain talent over time? What is it that you're really trying to create? I want to know. Go ahead and tell me in the chat.
Dan Stewart (00:05:34): Jim, that's good. Lasting relationships. That's a good one. Let's see what other stuff comes in here. Is Jim the only one who's going to comment here? Because that would be ridiculous. If you're here you should have a good reason. Maybe I'll prime the pump here for you a little bit. Jenifer, thank you. We want to build our team ... Excuse me. There's more coming in now. It's hard to keep up. We want to build our team with people that share our values that we can pour into. That's a great reason. Jake says, "I want to have my passive income from revenue share surpass my income from sales." That's awesome.
Dan Stewart (00:06:21): I mentioned that I've been doing this for a decade now. And in that time I've heard lots of reasons why people want to focus on recruitment. Yes, there's an obvious financial incentive of course. And depending which brand you're with, that's going to vary. And of course regardless which brand you're in, you have to have the ability for your message to be heard. Some of the most common reasons ... And thank you Jim. We're getting another comment here. Kathleen wants all of the above. Jim says, "I want to help others get to where they want to go in their business." That is a contribution value. That's important. So here are the main five that I've seen in my experience. Financial reward. That's usually first. Many people will join an organization specifically because of what's possible for them by leveraging the attraction model. There are a lot of people at an organization you may have heard of that begins with the letter E, ends with the letter P, where people are specifically joining because they want to attract people and benefit in that profit share. So financial reward is very common. Security is the second most common.
Dan Stewart (00:07:39): That rollercoaster of a life in real estate. Wouldn't it be nice if we had some dependable income that we didn't always have to go hunt, kill and eat for every month? That would be great. So having that security is important. Retirement's important. Yeah, that's a good thing. Retirement is a very important thing. Wealth building. Number four on my list. And then number five, which is something that personally resonates for me, is legacy. Legacy. Like what are we going to leave behind? Many people pursuing a career in real estate are not going to have a business to sell at the end of their career. And yet their profit share, their revenue share, their referral income, the stock bonuses they've earned, whatever it might be depending on which organization you're with, that can really pave the way for a very nice retirement. So I'll share with you a little bit of my personal story.
Dan Stewart (00:08:38): There are a lot of people on the internet sharing a lot of things. And for those of you who are just getting to know me, I want you to know that I'm a credible source who's actually been successful doing the things I'm trying to teach you today. So this is my horse farm in Tampa, Florida. And I'm actually broadcasting to you now from this little out building here. So prior to COVID that was my man cave/toy garage. And now it's Happy Grasshopper world headquarters so thank you COVID. My 100 foot commune to my backdoor is kind of nice. I'm definitely saving on gas. And the reason that I'm sharing this with you ... It's very intentional. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I could care less about that. I really want to communicate to you that whatever dreams you may have for yourself, our dreams are always achieved through the direct connection of our beliefs. So if you don't believe that you can actually be successful with the attraction model, you never will be. You just won't. So that's the first thing we've got to understand is no matter where you're starting from and no matter where it is that you want to go, you can empower yourself by adopting the right belief structure.
Dan Stewart (00:10:00): And I'm going to share with you some things I believe. Hopefully some of you will decide to model this for yourselves. I personally believe that everything we want to achieve in life is possible through the relationships we build along the way. I know that's been true for me. Like a lot of people, I was not raised in an environment I liked. I didn't have the best start in life. I was mothered by a lot of mothers who were not my own. In many ways, I get to be the person I am today because of the relationships that have existed for me along the way. So if you have a big goal, it's going to be a lot easier to achieve it through building authentic relationships than through marketing hacks and tricks and tie down closes and manipulative efforts. That's not what gets it done. It's relationships. And further I would say that relationships live inside conversation. That's where they are. So if you're not engaging in regular conversation with people, you're not in relationship with them. And this is a very important thing. It seems very small. I challenge you to think about this for me.
Dan Stewart (00:11:17): Probably a lot of us are married. I am 26 years. Can't even believe it. Probably a lot of us are parents. I am. I have three kids. Consider for me that almost everything you've learned in your life you've learned inside conversation. Consider that the way you raise your children, the way they learn and grow and become these spectacular adults you can be proud of someday is through all those many conversations that you have along the way. Consider that if you're married that relationship depends on having open communication. Like you absolutely need to expect to have conversations with people if you want to have the great results. There is no separating that. It takes that kind of understanding and commitment to really succeed with the attraction model.
Dan Stewart (00:12:11): So final belief I'll share is that conversation leads to contracts. Think about your transactional real estate business. The more conversations you have with people, the more opportunity you have to be referred. The more opportunity they have to think of you when someone in their life is ready to talk about buying or selling or investing in real estate. Now when it comes to recruitment and when it comes to attraction, if you're not regularly engaging people who are available to be recruited, you're missing a lot of opportunity. Because agents will decide to leave one brokerage and join another. That happens every single say. They may not even be aware that you would be interested in talking with them about joining you and joining yours. So having the right approach to always be starting these conversations is a very powerful strategy that you can adopt on the way to achieving your goals.
Dan Stewart (00:13:15): Now, let's talk about goals. I want to hear some goals. So tell me right now in the chat how many people you want to attract this year. I want some numbers. Let's see them in the chat. Zelda, recruit 25. We can do that Zelda. Jason, 25. I like this number of 25. It's good. What else we got? 25. Three 25s in a row. What are the chances of that? This is interesting. I want to see some more numbers come in. And I will say, you know what, I have some members who are talking about if I could add five or 10 that would be great. Others are like, we need 200 per month. So whatever that goal is, the strategies I'm going to teach you today can help you achieve these things. And now we have a whole bunch of numbers coming in. So let's see here. Cindy, I love it. She wants to recruit 21 top producers. Love it. Zelda wants to keep hers. Absolutely. Jake, 10. Jim, 30. Jason, two per month seems very achievable. Yeah. It is very achievable. Rick Gomez, big number. First big number. He's 100. Kathleen says 30. Shelly says 15. Rick, I love it. He's editing. 25 per quarter is what Rick is up to now.
Dan Stewart (00:14:49): So this is good guys because if you do not have a goal, your chance of achieving it evaporates. You have to have a destination in mind or you're never going to get there. You just aren't. So I'll share with you that I have a goal for our time together today. And my goal is to empower you to attract great people. I want to empower you to attract great people now, in the future, in every market condition on demand. So the idea is that you need to have so many lines in the water that whenever you're hungry you know for sure you can catch a fish. Now some of you are going to be using lines. You're catching them one at a time. Others of you have nets. Like you have these fishing trollers with these giant commercial nets and you're not recruiting and attracting single agents, you're bringing in entire teams. In some cases, entire brokerages. Those are the things that you want to attract. And all of these things, no matter how large these goals are, they're all achievable with the right framework. And the slide says new framework for a reason. Because look around at the recruitment marketplace. Look at all the noise that's out there right now.
Dan Stewart (00:16:14): Those of you with brands like EXP and Keller Williams, well guess what? Everybody's heard of your model. You're not breaking news to anyone. They all have heard about these things. And worse, they've had it explained to them in a way that's been confusing and unattractive and not helpful for your ambition. So to really cut through that noise, to overcome that clutter in the marketplace, you must, must, must have a rethinking of what recruitment actually is. So that's step one for us today. We've got to establish what recruitment really is. So I'd like you to think of recruitment, not as what your preconceived notions are. It's not, well I need to cold call hundreds of people until I get a recruitment appointment. It's not, oh I want to find agents who hate where they are and bring them in. Recruitment when we boil it down to it's most essential parts, it really is just two things. It's exit and arrival. That's it. It's that simple.
Dan Stewart (00:17:31): So think about it. Right now in your market, maybe in your building today, maybe you just had a closing with an agent who would be perfectly happy with you. They're life would be better. They'd have more opportunity. They'd feel better about themselves as a human being. They'd be able to provide more for their family. All of these things are true and yet they're completely not susceptible to that recruitment message. They'll never leave where they are until they receive a signal that it's time for change in their life. So successful recruitment strategies understand this paradigm of exit and arrival. And they're doing two things simultaneously. They're planting these seeds of change and they're harvesting people who've already received a signal. So let's think about some common scenarios. Many of you, before you were with the brand you are with now, you were somewhere else and you were happy there. You were fine right up until that moment in time when you weren't fine. There was a moment where you said, "Hmm. Something's got to change." Where our journey really understands is by understanding that moment. Everybody is going to have that for a variety of different reasons at some point in time.
Dan Stewart (00:19:08): Maybe an agent walked into their brokerage today and there was a sign up that said, "Copy cost has gone up." Or, "If you want to have coffee you have to contribute to the coffee fund." These are the most ridiculous reasons anyone would leave an organization that they're part of and yet that kind of thing happens. So when you're recruiting and attracting to your brand, do you really want to bring in the kind of people who would leave over a copy fee or a cup of coffee? No. Absolutely not. You wan to attract the right people who really click, stick and stay over time. And to do that you have to adopt a new framework. So today I'm going to teach you some higher level points and I'm going to show you a pathway that's already carved in everyone's brain. My brain and your brain included. We're going to leverage those pathways that already exist to create more effective recruitment results.
Dan Stewart (00:20:13): Let's think about this. Neuroscience is just this amazing field of study. There's something called an FMRI. It's a functional magnetic resonance image. And what happens is somebody goes in the MRI machine, the MRI machine is measuring what's going on in their brain as they're exposed to different stimuli. So you can show people different colors and see the different sides of their brain light up. And what's interesting is based on stimuli that people are exposed to neuroscience can accurately predict which areas of the brain are going to be stimulated by that. There's this whole brand new science that's really trying to figure out the connection between things we're continually exposed to and how we can leverage those things effectively in sales and marketing. So if that is creepy to you as it is for me, go ahead and say creepy in the chat. It's a little scary. It is a little scary to know that we're now living in a world where people accurately understand the way we think about things before we really even understand it ourselves.
Dan Stewart (00:21:32): Now the reason for this is because we're exposed to so much of the same things over time. I'll give you an example. If you recognize ... Whoops. If you recognize that font, go ahead and name the movie in the chat. And I think I just gave that away. I skipped ahead a couple of slides here. I want you to understand that there's this pathway that's been carved into all of our brains because of the fiction that we've been exposed to during our lifetime. And this goes all the way back to Aristotle and Plato. There's this concept that there's only seven real stories and they get told in thousands of different ways. But one of them is called the hero's journey. And we're going to use this as an archetype to really understand how you can increase your recruitment impact. So the hero's journey is something that you see in literally every film, every piece of fiction you've ever read. And whether we're talking about Star Wars or The Sound of Music or Mary Poppins or Harry Potter, there's always a hero who wants something that they can't get access to until they meet the right person in their life.
Dan Stewart (00:22:52): So for Luke, Luke is living on Tatooine. He's farming moisture. He lives with is uncle and aunt and he kind of hates life. He's imagining this more vibrant future where he's a pilot. He's traveling around the galaxy and he just doesn't have access to any of that until he has this one very important occurrence. And that's the meeting with the mentor. So in the process of recruitment one mistake that we see people make is they're positioning their brand as the hero or themselves as the hero when really they'd be much better off to position themselves as the guide. So within the role of guide you're going to see ...
Dan Stewart (00:23:42): And I see your comment Steve. This is awesome. Steve is familiar with Donald Miller. He has really popularized this over the past few years. He wrote a book called Story Brand which is a great book. Donald Miller is a great guy. I have not been through his workshop. I have listened to his podcast. I'll tell you that my undergraduate degree is in theater. At one point I wanted to be a playwright and that's where I was first exposed to this. In 2013, I taught my very first class to brokers about recruitment and that's where I introduced these concepts of positioning the recruiting party as the guide rather than the hero. So everything that I'm teaching you today is well honed and tested. It's things that our clients have had success with for a long time.
Dan Stewart (00:24:32): Let's go a little further here. Because within the role of guide, there's more than one type of guide. I'd like each of you to think about this because you're going to more like one or the other of these guides. Luke is a very traditional guide. He's attracting people and then he's staying on mission with those people over time. So if you're recruiting for your own team, if you're a managing broker at an independent that you own, you're very much like Luke. You absolutely would follow that profile. If you're recruiting more on the attraction model side, that can change a little bit. We've had a lot of members over the years who recruit people to an organization, but they don't really have an ongoing day to day involvement with that person that they recruited. Now, I'm not here to say one is better than the other. That's not the case. The case is that you need to know which you are so that you could follow the right strategies. So I want to see it in the chat. Give me a Luke or Obi Wan based on the type of recruiter that you are. So Luke or Obi Wan. Please enter that in the chat for me.
Dan Stewart (00:25:47): Here we go. Jenifer's Luke. Maya's Obi Wan. That makes sense. Jim is Luke. Sam is Luke. Hey Sam. Good to see you here. Let's see who else we've got. Kathleen says Luke. Yeah. It's very likely we'll see a lot of Luke's here. That is the most common model. And Cindy I see you're saying Obi Wan. A lot of people who are in that Obi Wan model, they might have a role where they're, say, a corporate recruiter at a large brokerage. We support a brand called C21 Redwood in the Washington DC area. They're actually DC, Maryland and Virginia. And they have a whole team of people who are in charge of recruitment. Now of course once somebody is added to the brokerage, well they don't have that day to day responsibly of managing that person. So again, there's no right or wrong here. It's just an understanding of which of these type of profiles you really fit into. Once you know which profile you fit into we have to talk about the nuts and bolts of recruitment.
Dan Stewart (00:27:01): So the first thing we're going to talk about is terrain. And there are three important components here to terrain. One is the geographical footprint from within which you can recruit people to your brand. So if you're a managing broker at a local firm, it's probably confined to the one or two MLSs you might participate in. If you're in a national brand or an international brand, this could encompass the whole planet, potentially. So you just want to have a defined terrain that your recruitment activities are going to take place in. So the first level of terrain is geographical. The second is digital. Where and how do you need to show up digitally so that you're discovered by people who are susceptible to recruitment? And then finally and perhaps most importantly is the psychobiological terrain. So right now in every market, in every brokerage across the world, there are some agents who can't sleep tonight. There will be some people who go to bed and they say things like, "When is this market going to change? How am I going to continue? I'm a buyer's agent. I'm working my butt of. I'm showing so many houses. I'm writing so many offers and almost nothing's getting accepted." That is real present pain that they're feeling.
Dan Stewart (00:28:36): If you're a listing agent in a market like today, well gosh your past clients and sphere have probably been your best source of listings and now everybody is targeting those people. That might be something that's worrying you. So whatever it is, if you can understand the pain that's being experienced by people do to the market conditions and then you can offer them a resource related to that. What you're really doing is you're rescuing them from a situation they'd rather not be in. This is called offering leadership into the void. Let's recognize that not everybody is as dedicated to the success of the people they recruit as they should be. It's very likely that the broker, your recruits, your future best agents are currently working with isn't giving them any insight, isn't helping them feel better about the present situation. So if you can enter that conversation that these potential recruits are already having with themselves, you really have a huge leg up. Because that's where you're making the transition from being just another person who wants to recruit to being a person of value that can really help this person achieve their goals. And remember, that's the core responsibility of the guide. That's what they're helping people do.
Dan Stewart (00:30:07): So it's just as simple as examine the present pain that people are feeling in the market and talk about it. Offer some leadership into that void that they're feeling and you're instantly repositioned as someone who can help them. It's that simple. Now, simple doesn't always mean easy. You're great real estate people. You might not be great writers. You might not be great at pulling out the pain. That's why Happy Grasshopper says those are the things that we can help you with. When it comes to terrain there's really these three things. I'll recap. We've got the geography, the digital geography, then we've got the psychology. So those three things are necessary components before you have the right to talk with them about where they get to go once they're aligned with you.
Dan Stewart (00:31:07): Sorry the slides keep jumping back and forth here. This is where most people are making the mistake. They show up someplace, they get to talk to another agent, and they're like, "You know what? You should join our brand. Because we've got a better model and here's what you'll be able to do." When these are the first things out of their mouths, it doesn't leave a very good impression and it doesn't tell anyone that you're really interested in them. It tells them that you're interested in what kind of income you can earn because of them. It communicates the wrong thing. And we've got to do things in sequence to get the best results. Those of us who are married ... I always knew growing up I would want to be a dad, I would want to have a family. But I didn't go buy a ring and just start bending my knee to every person who walked by. I built a relationship first. That's what you did too. And it's the same thing here. You must, must, must have the strategy of building relationships with people before you talk to them about recruitment. And then that requires you adopt a strategy we call first contact. First contact is really all about how the conversation starts. It's that simple.
Dan Stewart (00:32:31): Now I'm going to switch metaphors here. We're coming out of Star Wars, we're going to talk Star Trek for a moment. A lot of conversations in Star Wars started with a blaster going off. Not so in Star Trek. This was all about doing no harm. The prime directive. You can't interfere. You have to make contact and be friends. So there's lots and lots of ways that you get to make contact with people during the course of building your real estate career. You're co-broking deals with other agents. Some of you are advertising. There's all sorts of ways you can attract people. These are some common places clients outside of real estate would advertise. Most of our real estate members do not need to advertise that they're hiring because our industry has done such a great job of providing lists. Your local MLS is a great resource. Tools like BrokerMetrics. The broker tools from ShowingTime. There's lots and lots of sources.
Dan Stewart (00:33:38): Your title company in fact is likely able to provide you with an accurate list of agents in the markets that you'd like to recruit within and it includes more than just their contact information. It includes their performance data. How great is that? When you know something about the person you're reaching out to you can really tailor the message that you're reaching out to them with. For example ... I'll use C21 Redwood as an example. They've asked us to help them recruit agents who are doing between about $3 million and $5 million in volume annually. And the reason for that is they know there's great upside potential there. This is someone who's transacted enough to really be in the business. And then with their systems, their training, their coaching, their model, their leads program, all these other things that that brand happens to provide, they can almost instantly help that agent go from three to five million so say seven to 10 million. How much loyalty do you think that breeds among that agent when they've been hitting that growth plateau, they've been struggling. Like, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to get beyond three to five million? I just can't seem to do it." And then they make this change and all of a sudden they're breaking through that plateau.
Dan Stewart (00:35:07): That's where we transition from no, we've done more than just attract them. We've empowered them. We've helped them succeed longterm. That's how you get that loyalty. You build that relationship through providing value and having regular communication with the people that you recruit.
Dan Stewart (00:35:26): So I'll review a few strategies here for you to tackle. And go ahead, enter in the chat for me. If you're using a tool like BrokerMetrics or ShowingTime or something else to get lists of these agents, go ahead and enter that in the chat for me. I'm curious what you're using. And while you're entering that, I'm going to go ahead and knock through some strategies here. So the very first one we're going to talk about is that leadership into the void concept I mentioned earlier. Industry change is such a hot button. It really truly is. Whatever change is happening in life, most people are uncomfortable with that. There's actually a psychographic category called the belonger that 80% of the US population falls within. Now that profile is known to resist change. And if you're going to recruit someone in an environment of change and ask them to change the brokerage they're associated with, you have to have strategies to make that change easier for them. In fact, you have to show them how that change is coming and what you can do to protect them from that change. That's the key right there.
Dan Stewart (00:36:47): So there's lots of content strategies that can be deployed to achieve that and those are very market dependent. That's why we take the time to interview our members and really understand the pain that exists in the market that they're recruiting clients from. And I say clients intentionally there because once you're really invested in the attraction model these agents you're recruiting are your clients. It's really important to serve them well. So industry change is reliably a strong producer that leads to recruitment appointments. So that's why it's first on the list. Second would be using their performance in the marketplace as a conversation starter. So Jake, I see you've entered ShowingTime and Co-Op Agent. That's great. If you've just closed a deal, you've got this co-op agent on the other side of the table, if you do something really small like toss a $5 Starbucks gift card in a card and mail it to them and say, "Hey, you were really awesome to work with. I'd love to keep in touch." Wow. You have just made a huge impact on them. That has really cut through the noise for them. If you're sending a personal performance message to agents throughout the market that you don't know, accurately complementing them on their performance is a really great thing to be able to do.
Dan Stewart (00:38:22): If I got a message from a recruiting party that said, "Hey Dan, I was just reviewing the market data. Looks like you had a great April. Way to go. Congrats. All my best, whomever." That stands out to me. I may not even be hearing those congratulations from my managing broker. I might be on a team and I didn't get congratulated because it wasn't that great compared to what other people do. There's always the possibility that a simple hey, congrats, you're doing some special, you made me take notice, that kind of approach is really effective for these first contact strategies.
Dan Stewart (00:39:03): The third one, and this is something I'll ask you to rip off and implement immediately. You can do this today. You have an agent in your organization right now who's doing something great. Whatever that thing is, write a Facebook post about it. "Congratulations Maya, you had an amazing April. So proud to see that you pended six transactions." Whatever it is. "So proud you got your first deal under contract. We're all so proud." Whatever that is, put it in your own words. Post it on Facebook. Tag that person your complementing and then tag everybody else you're connected to that's in real estate. Let's get the congratulations, the comments, the likes. Let's get all that rolling on the post. And then grab a link to that post and pop it in an email to send out to everybody that you might like to recruit, wherever they are. So that message that goes out to all these people is really simple. It says, "Please joining me in giving a digital high five to Maya. We're all so proud." And there's the link right there in the email where they can see it. It's an exposed link. Facebook.com/whatever. They know that they're not going into a spam trap or some download virus thing. They feel confident in that link.
Dan Stewart (00:40:26): So now all those people get exposed to the fact that this agent is doing something special as part of your organization. That's a good thing. That communicates to them that you provide something that allows people to be successful. And at the same time what's it do for Maya? It makes her feel fantastic because she's just been recognized now in front of her peers. And that actually reminds me of something I learned two and a half decades ago. I had a great mentor who taught me. He said, "If you're going to recruit people, if you're going build a community of people ..." I'm hearing his voice in my head. He says, "You got to feed them air, Dan. They got to breathe air. You got to feed them air." And I'm like, "Yeah. Duh. Of course." He goes, "You don't get it. Air. A. A." He's breaking it down. "A-I-R is air. It's awards, incentives, and recognition." Each of those things is critical. It's as critical as the next breath. Real estate generally does a very good job of issuing rewards. If you're not doing that I'd be surprised. If you need some tips or strategies for that join our Facebook group. Facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow. On Tuesday next week I'm doing a whole session just about awards. How to celebrate people. So that'll be fun.
Dan Stewart (00:42:00): So awards, incentives, and recognition. If you can meaningfully congratulate someone, if you can give them recognition in front of their peers, in front of their spouse, in front of their children, that's almost as good as more GCI. Like it feels almost just as good. So keep that in mind as you're working to build this strategy. You want to have a plan to give your people AIR. In our process when we're working with a member what we're really doing is understanding what's unique and special about them and then we're building out a recruitment blueprint for them. So a recruitment blueprint is a map. It's nothing different than a house plan. If we're going to build something we have to know what it looks like. How big is it? Where are the bathrooms? We got to figure all that stuff out. So you'll see here consistent things like you're data source. And I see here we've got ShowingTime and Co-Op is what I heard from Jake. I don't know. Maybe the rest of you aren't using BrokerMetrics or another tool. There is some data that's available for you through your MLS. You can sort and select agents based on their performance. You may have a connection to a real estate school or your area's department or board of professional regulation the DBPR. They usually have this list of new licencees that's accessible.
Dan Stewart (00:43:34): And of course you could aways connect with people via Facebook, LinkedIn, other social media sites. There's all sorts of places you can continually be feeding your database new lists of people that are likely susceptible to recruitment. Once you've got those people in there, that's where we have to have the first touch strategy. Then we have to position you appropriately and over time. And then we have to nurture them way on into the distant future. Because you know what? Just like in all of sales, we're always selling 24/7/365. We are always ready to sell something. But people buy on their own timeframes. And it's no different when it comes to recruitment. So if your strategy shifts from, "Oh, I need to sell this model," to, "I need to build a relationship with people such that when they're ready to join us, they see me as their first option.", that is about the best possible place that you can be. I'll show you several examples where we've seen that.
Dan Stewart (00:44:39): Allison Gaddy. I think she's agent number 600 and something at EXP. Very much an Obi Wan style recruiter in her early days and now every much a Luke style. She's got this community of people, the Epic community that she's regularly communicating with and providing value to. Now her mission right from the start was freedom and I'm really proud of her. Wow, so impressive. She and Don Hobbs now spend six months and a day in Puerto Rico. Like they're doing so well with the model their tax strategy says they got to leave the US. That's kind of a cool place to be. They set out for freedom and they've achieved it. That is a fantastic thing. So proud of their success.
Dan Stewart (00:45:29): And now we'll shift to the complete other side of the spectrum. Let me introduce you to my friend Sara and Sheldon. They're at Liv Real Estate up in Edmonton, Canada. I tell you guys, I'm a Floridian. I like the heat but these people are so awesome I would move to Canada just to hang out with them more. They have a super high producing group of people in their brokerage. Like the per agent productivity here is high. You cannot come there and just hang your license and hang out. That's not their culture. They are very, very much a Luke style recruitment effort. Like that's their mantra. They are work hard, play hard. They want to take great people under their wings and go into battle and let everybody be successful. Their goal when they started with us was 25 agents. And you see here they met that goal in two months. So all you people at the beginning of the call who talked about yeah, maybe I'd like 25 year, you need to understand that it's possible to get there a lot more quickly when you have the right strategy and you have the right assets in place. This is why we take the time to interview our members.
Dan Stewart (00:46:43): The reason we were able to achieve this goal for them is we understood what was really unique and special about them and we positioned it the right way in the message. So we started out just like I've suggested. That first touch group of messaging we're building rapport, we're establishing expectations of ongoing messaging, and then we’re transitioning into, "Hey, by the way, I need to hire people. Maybe you." So that transition when it comes needs to be based on what your unique strengths are. So we want to have communicated that to create the results.
Dan Stewart (00:47:22): Next I'm going to show you a case study. I absolutely love this story of Pearson Smith because Eric Pearson here, he was our client when he was a solo agent at Keller Williams. Here we are all these years later. He started with us. When he left and started his own brokerage he wanted our help. Today every single Pearson Smith agent gets a Happy Grasshopper account as part of what he provides when they join his brokerage. So absolutely love that story. And again, I'm so proud of the success that many of our members are having. It's a really cool thing to see. Now, you guys remember back at the beginning we talked about reasons to recruit. One of them was legacy. And that's the story here with Steve and Andy Kloetsch. They're in Bellevue, Washington and Steve's been a broker for a long time. He's built a brand and he's passing it along to his son. The next generation is coming in and taking over. It's just such an exciting thing to be part of that. You guys might not know this but I had the privilege of working with my son here at Happy Grasshopper. It's one of the great joys of my life to know that not only have I raised somebody I'm sincerely proud of but someone who's sincerely dedicated to helping people have better results in their life.
Dan Stewart (00:48:54): Let's transition here a little bit. I'm going to remind you again that the Recruitment Success Summit is May 19th and 20th. This is an online event. Runs for approximately half a day as you see on the screen from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Now this event is a little different than a webinar. It's not me just teach, teach, teach. We're actually all going to have our Zoom cameras on. So we're all going to be able to see each other. We're going to have some live conversations. We're going to do the work together of getting you through this phase of creating the right positioning that you need for your market. So go there to the website. You can check it out. You can definitely do that. And I will certainly encourage you to head over to my calendar. Happygrasshopper.com/dan. Book a call with me there personally and I will help you with your recruitment challenges. So I did this pretty well I think. I'm going to pat myself on the back. Almost on the back. We've got nine minutes left. I actually left a little time for questions. So anyone who has questions, you're more than welcome to fire away. I will make sure to get those answered for you. I am going to go ahead and exit the PowerPoint here in just a moment. So grab those links, happygrasshopper.com/dan and happygrassopper.com/recruit. Those are your best paths for being part of the summit.
Dan Stewart (00:50:27): So I'm going to go ahead and stop that share. Make sure you guys can all see me here. And I will look for any questions coming in in the chat. I do want to comment. I see a lot of people here today who are already members of Happy Grasshopper. So if you're working with us on recruitment, if you have a white label instance of Happy Grasshopper, you are more than welcome to attend the Recruitment Success Summit at no charge. That's our gift to you. We want to just provide you with as much value as possible. You will not need to buy a ticket for that if you're already our recruitment client. Just go ahead and let us know here in the chat. We'll make sure to send you your registration information.
Dan Stewart (00:51:15): All right. So we have covered quite a lot here in this time. Again, I want to sincerely thank everybody for attending. I'm treading water right now looking for questions to pop in. If you have any, I'm happy to answer them. Otherwise just pop on my schedule and I'll help you personally one on one. Ah, Cindy, great question. A white label recruitment client. So maybe I'll turn my screen share back on here. I think I'll do that. Because it's easier to show you than it is to tell you. So I'll put that dessert back on there. Now I'll find the right slide to share with you. Okay. So can you see that Cindy? I want to make sure that's available there for you. We have a version of our service where we take our branding off and we apply the branding of our members. So what this looks like is this. Our branding comes off, your branding goes on. And what that allows to happen is that when you're recruiting agents you have something of value to provide them that actually helps them succeed. Many of our members who are parts of EXP for example, the goal is to get to 40 FLQAs ASAP. That's the mission. We want to get there quickly.
Dan Stewart (00:52:48): So having those agents have a tool that can help them generate listings and get referred buyers and make sure that their past clients and sphere are being touched appropriately throughout the year, that's a huge way to go about doing that. So I hope that helps Cindy.
Dan Stewart (00:53:05): Steve, thank you. Would love to send you that information. Steve is at BrokerNation down in Miami. I got to talk about BrokerNation for a moment because what a cool model they have. I have not seen anything like this come across real estate. I think BrokerNation is going to be huge. I really do. Steve, thank you for being here today and give Armando a high five for me. So yeah, you guys can definitely come to that recruitment summit.
Dan Stewart (00:53:37): And Cindy, yes, a recruitment client is different than just a regular HG member. I'd suggest you just book a call with me on my calendar and we'll have a chat about whether or not you should become a recruitment member. And mahalo. I love the maholos always. I've been to Maui and I've been to Honolulu. I live in Tampa so it's a long flight to be in a different version of paradise. It's really cool.
Dan Stewart (00:54:09): All right, looking for more questions. So Cindy, does that answer your questions about white label? Anything else you need? Brian's volunteering to come see you personally. That's fun. All right. Well, I will look forward to having one on one chats with you here over the next few days. And we do have another four minutes technically on the clock so I'll hang out and answer those if I can. Oh, come on people. All the Hawaiian in the chat. Man, Maya. Crazy. So let's see if we got other questions coming in.
Dan Stewart (00:55:00): All right guys. Well, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up here. Just tread here a little bit. Ah, okay. Kathleen's got a question. What is cost for recruit? It really depends. We have two different models. One is based on whether we need to create just recruitment content for you or whether we need to create recruitment content for you and provide the white label service. So I would definitely love to have a chat with you about that Kathleen. On our website, you'll see we have a pro plan. Okay, recruitment for you. I see that popping up. So if you just go to happygrasshopper.com and click on plans and pricing, the recruitment campaign content, that gets created specifically for you as part of the pro account setup. That's a one time investment of $1,895 and then it's $119 per month. So that would be the right plan if we're just working on recruitment for you.
Dan Stewart (00:56:05): Does make me curious Kathleen. How do you approach agents with this? Okay. I want to answer your questions. Chat is a little bit slow. There's a tiny little lag here and we're a little short on time so let's dig into this Kathleen. I need to know some specifics. Are you recruiting for your own brokerage or are you recruiting to a brand to participate in an attraction model.
Dan Stewart (00:56:35): For EXP. Okay. So do you have a team of agents at EXP or would it be specifically just to build your family tree?
Dan Stewart (00:56:44): Okay. No team. Great. So in this case, it's about building as many relationships with agents as you can. You want to be seen as someone who knows everybody. Everybody's thinking about you. We'll get a sequence of messages delivered first. Building that rapport, establishing expectations of ongoing communication. And then we shift the conversation. So in your positioning content we can actually tell your story. Think about the power of story. It's why people tune into things. It's so compelling. It can really change the way people act, the way they behave, and even what they believe. So during our interview process, we would come to understand your story. Why is it you're doing what you're doing? Presumably you were somewhere else before you were with EXP. We need to understand those things so that we can start conversations about them with the right people.
Dan Stewart (00:57:46): And you're asking is it a blind approach to agents? Again, there is no one size fits all answer here. It's going to depend on what your current database looks like. For all I know, you've been in business 30 years and you regularly communicate with 1,000 agents. So that would certainly not be a blind reach out. If you have no database at all and you reach out to a bunch of strangers with a recruitment message, you should not expect to win. That's the equivalent of having that engagement ring where you just bend your knee to everybody who walks by. It's far more effective to have a reason to reach out, something to have a conversation with them about, build that relationship before there's any discussion of recruitment.
Dan Stewart (00:58:36): I will say one of the strategies that can be effective here if you are in that scenario where you don't have an existing database, send messaging over time to build a relationship, as we've talked about. Those first contact strategies are very good for doing that. And then ask them questions about real estate related topics. As you're doing this you're actually elevating them. You're elevating them by requiring them to be the kind of person from whom you would solicit an opinion. So if I were an agent that you might want to recruit and I got a message from you that said, "Hey Dan, a lot of us over here have been talking about the crazy, unprecedented market conditions. I'm just real curious, what is the most offers you've seen on one of your listings?" Well, that's an engaging question that people know the answer to. That's the kind of thing that gets a reply. And no, that's not a sales pitch for why they should join EXP. It's intentionally not that. It gives you a chance to have some exchange with them, to pick up the phone and have a conversation with them about what they're seeing in their market.
Dan Stewart (00:59:48): So that would be the strategy. Never forget, it's conversation that leads to the conversion. Leads to the contracts. So our job is not to convince them to join EXP. It's to have enough conversations happen so that you have the opportunity to convince them to make that transition.
Dan Stewart (01:00:07): All right. Very good. Thanks everybody for your time today. I definitely appreciate it. I'm going to go ahead and stop that screen share again. And I will wish you all a great afternoon. And I hope to see you at the Recruitment Success Summit. You definitely want to be there. Have a great afternoon. Bye now.