What to Say Now: The Recruitment Edition
with Dan Stewart and Daniel Ramsey of MyOutDesk

Are you looking to grow your team?

Do you need to hire administrative staff for your brokerage?

Do you hate the thought of going through a long, boring interview and hiring process, just to find out that you hired the WRONG person for the job and have to do it all over again? 

Don't worry - You aren't alone! 

Watch Happy Grasshopper CEO and cofounder Dan Stewart and MyOutDesk CEO Daniel Ramsey as they discuss:

• Leveraging recruitment strategies - What you need to know to attract instead of recruit.

• Nurture & break the cycle - Break the "churn and burn" cycle and nurture productivity with your current team.

• Scale business & improve processes - Learn how to build an engine to efficiently process recruits and new hires.

• Use VIRTUAL best practices - Metrics, tools, and filters, oh my! Learn how to recruit remotely.

Show Notes/Links

Webinar Transcript

Daniel Ramsey (00:00):
Okay, so we got Brian, it's 94 degrees in good old Texas. It's always hot in Texas with big bugs, right Brian? Dan. Let's talk. Why did we start this? Why are we having this conversation? Why is this so important in your world? Let's give everybody a little sense of your background so that they know why they should be listening to the stuff that you're about to share with us.

Dan Stewart (00:24):
Yeah. Okay, great. First of all, wherever it is, you are right now, like in your individual personal business, if you're not striving for something, if you're not trying to progress, it's not a great place to be. Those of us who work in the real estate space, we tend to go from being, a solo agent, at some point, then you think about, well, "I've got more opportunity than I can handle, I need a team," right?

Daniel Ramsey (00:54):
Yep.

Dan Stewart (00:54):
Then you go through the fits and starts to building a team. Then some people say, "You know what? I really like helping people succeed. I'm going to open a brokerage," or they find themselves managing a brokerage. All of a sudden they have a responsibility to attract even more people. All of a sudden, their number one job becomes making sure that they've got enough people joining the brokerage for the brokerage to achieve its goals. In my career as an entrepreneur, recruitment has been responsible for literally all the success we've ever had. Because none of us succeed alone, right? That's one of my core beliefs. If you're going to have a team, you may as well have the best team possible.

Daniel Ramsey (01:38):
Love it.

Dan Stewart (01:38):
To do that you have to have a strategic methodology for finding the right people, attracting them to your business, and then keeping them over the long term. How simple is that framework? You've got to identify, attract and retain pretty straightforward stuff.

Daniel Ramsey (01:56):
I love it. We've got a Matt O'Neill here from Charleston, South Carolina. What's up, Matt?

Dan Stewart (02:02):
Hey, are you Matt?

Daniel Ramsey (02:03):
He actually was voted the number one agent in his town. Like the four years in a row. I just saw that on Facebook. A client, a good friend of ours. Thanks for joining guys. Dan, we were just talking, so it's about identifying, attracting and retaining. But there's a new curve ball in there, now we're all virtual working from home, right? I'm here in my home, you're at home. The world is shifting.

Dan Stewart (02:31):
Hey, for 10 years Daniel, for 10 years we've had offices, right?

Daniel Ramsey (02:36):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (02:37):
Welcome to my man cave. This is the detached garage at my horse farm. Right?

Daniel Ramsey (02:42):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (02:43):
It's a new normal for a lot of us who are working virtually for the first time. For others, it's, "Oh my gosh, this is so comfortable," because they've been doing it and they've been doing it well for a long period of time. If you are a broker now and you've got a traditional brick and mortar establishment, you're seeing even less agents attend that facility. They're not coming to the office like they used to. You have to have a strategy for engaging them in ongoing regular conversation or they're going to drift. They're going to all of a sudden recognize that maybe they need to be somewhere else.

Dan Stewart (03:21):
You've got to make your agents invisible to your competition. We'll talk a little bit about how to do that as well.

Daniel Ramsey (03:29):
Well, and I think-

Dan Stewart (03:29):
To answer your question, this is the reason why. It's this time of change. We've got to respond to it.

Daniel Ramsey (03:35):
Well, and I think in the absence of value, price becomes the only thing. Today, the value that we're going to bring is like, how to recruit in a remote environment. We're going to talk about a lot of different things. Dan, you've got a slide deck, let's dive in. We've given them enough background. Your business specifically helps people do what? Let's talk through that real quick and then jump into your slides.

Dan Stewart (04:03):
Okay, well at Happy Grasshopper we help people who are real estate win. If you're a solo agent, we can help you generate new leads now and an ongoing basis from the people who are already in your database. If you're a broker, we can help you attract and retain the right clients. If you're the owner of say, an independent brokerage, we can actually provide white label versions of our technology that is branded with your name, your colors, it looks like your product and that's a great strategy to help retain and hold on to those agents.

Daniel Ramsey (04:39):
Your guys's sweet spot is actually crafting the message. That's what's important here, is that ... and I think the reason we had you here is that a lot of us know how to sell our service or our product. But when you're talking about a ta lent conversation, those conversations are different.

Dan Stewart (04:59):
Yeah [crosstalk 00:05:00].

Daniel Ramsey (04:59):
Yeah, so talk about-

Dan Stewart (05:00):
[crosstalk 00:05:00] Okay, so I think the right lead into that is let's just, let's take a deep breath. Can everybody do that right now? Just one giant big deep breath. Okay?

Daniel Ramsey (05:11):
I just did.

Dan Stewart (05:12):
All right, now let it out. Okay, we've got to get comfortable with the fact that no matter who we are, and no matter what we do, there's always someone else that our clients can choose to do that thing with. If you were in my business, if you own Happy Grasshopper, you have to now recognize that Samsung makes a refrigerator that will send you a text and let you know you're out of milk. Sending a message in 2020 is not a challenge for anyone. It's not. The challenge is figuring out what to say. That's the real hard part. That's what the session is really all about. We're going to go through a process together over the next half an hour or so that's going to give you the answers to all those questions, so you know what to say to attract the right People specifically for you.

Dan Stewart (06:03):
That being said, let's go ahead. I'm going to open my screen share here now, and-

Daniel Ramsey (06:07):
Lets roll.

Dan Stewart (06:08):
... Daniel, if you don't mind, I'm going to drive here for a bit, my man. How's that sound?

Daniel Ramsey (06:13):
I love it. Let's do it.

Dan Stewart (06:15):
Now I need you to do me a favor though, everybody. The way to get the most out of this session is to be engaged and involved. I want you to be asking questions. I want you to interrupt me. Okay, so Daniel, I'm going to need your help there. Because when my screen shares on I can't see the chat. That's open.

Daniel Ramsey (06:32):
Yeah, and I'm going to I'm definitely going to jump in. [Isla 00:06:35] said, She's so excited. "I'm feeling lucky to be here live woo-woo." I love that. I know Matt does the whole talent thing at a high level. Brian's here to learn too. If you're here, right now, the only way to actually get value is to pick Dan's brain. He's an expert at what he does. What to say now is the thing that everybody's got on our mind. One of the challenges that we're all like as an owner, are we going to go back to an office? Are we going to talk to our employees about what it looks like to come back? How do we get somebody to move when they've just had this trauma of their business going down and then right straight back up.

Daniel Ramsey (07:16):
This is a really profound conversation, and Dan is the expert at it. The only way to get value is to interact. Let's do that.

Dan Stewart (07:25):
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Dan. There's a little bit of my background on the screen, right? This is not about me, it's more about what I've learned that can help you. The reason this information is there is because I know for certain that the internet is full of people who are just talking and don't have any experience in actually being able to create results. I want you to know that everything I'm sharing with you, it's because of some things I've learned in my career as a serial entrepreneur. I come to every meeting I ever attend with some goals. I would encourage you to just recognize that the person in whatever interaction you're in, that's more certain about what they want is the person who's going to get it. That's like tweetable, you should write that shit down.

Dan Stewart (08:15):
If you're more certain about what you want than the other party on the other side, you're most likely going to get it, okay? Today, I'm coming here to help you understand what recruitment really is. I'm going to help you understand the strategies for the type of recruiter that you really need to be. I'm going to show you how to put those strategies to work as well as steer you away from some of the stuff that can screw this all up for you along the way. Where we have to start is a pretty simple basic place. That's with questions. Okay, we're going to just like, huh, marvel at the simplicity of this, because we all have the same amount of time. Plus or minus a few dollars we all have about the same amount of resources.

Dan Stewart (09:00):
The place that we start that really gives us the edge over our competition is by asking the right questions. You should know, this isn't just me saying this, this is guys much smarter than I am who knows how to teach this. I love this quote. This is this is Albert Einstein, right? Not a dumb dude. He's essentially telling us that when his life's on the line, he's going to take his time to slow down and think about the right questions before he just sets about having the work. Similarly, another quote I love is from Abraham Lincoln. He said that if he had eight hours to chop down a tree, he'd spend the first seven sharpening his ax. We're going to start out by asking ourselves some questions. This is where I really want you guys to engage in the chat here.

Dan Stewart (09:54):
Let's start out by asking ourselves, what's the purpose of our prosperity? What are we doing this for? What are we going to do with it all? Where's it going to go? Why is it important for us to be successful? You have an answer, Dan? [crosstalk 00:10:14].

Daniel Ramsey (10:14):
Everything about ... Yeah, no, I love it. Everything about what we do is serving others. One of our core values and the most important one to me is a servant's heart. At MyOutDesk, we serve our clients by providing high caliber talent so they can grow and scale their business. Every time somebody asked me like, "What am I doing in the world? How am I making impact?" It has to do around finding talent for businesses and entrepreneurs to really grow and scale. Then being able to take that opportunity and help our people make impact in the world by doing charitable stuff. That's 100% what we do.

Dan Stewart (10:50):
That's a big answer, and it's important. [inaudible 00:10:54] it's clear you spent some time thinking about this sort of thing. I think if we boil it down to the very heart of it, it's same answer for almost everybody. That answer is to fund a meaningful life. That's the purpose of our prosperity. It doesn't do us any good to earn millions of dollars if we can't enjoy our life despite that opportunity. The next question, obviously, is, well, what's meaningful? The really good news here is that that's up to each of us. That's always going to be up to each of us. What I need to share with you now is the way to go from wherever you are to where you're achieving a specific goal.

Dan Stewart (11:42):
Here's what I'd like you to do, guys. Let's go ahead and set a goal together. Just imagine this big giant goal. We'll put that where the metal is in the upper right of the screen there. I want you guys to call it out in the chat, who's got a giant goal? Maybe it's number of agents recruited. Maybe it's number of agents, you're going to add over a specific period of time.

Daniel Ramsey (12:05):
I love it.

Dan Stewart (12:05):
Maybe it's a [inaudible 00:12:07] goal, a number of transactions, it can be anything. A weight loss goal. A dollar saved goal. You could put any single thing you'd like to put in there.

Daniel Ramsey (12:16):
All right, so Matt O'Neill.

Dan Stewart (12:18):
Matt O'Neill.

Daniel Ramsey (12:21):
400 million sold by 2020. 2022, sorry. I love that.

Dan Stewart (12:27):
You just need one $400 million sale over the next couple of years. No problem.

Daniel Ramsey (12:32):
One island, right?

Dan Stewart (12:35):
Talk to my buddy Jan Kuha, he's a financial advisor in Charleston. He knows people who need to live in $400 million homes. He can help with that.

Daniel Ramsey (12:43):
There you go.

Dan Stewart (12:44):
That's actually a pretty good illustration here right? We'll take that goal. We'll take Matt's goal , $400 million sold by 2022. What's the immediate thing that has to happen before that? Sales. He can't get to that total unless he's making sales along the way. Where does sales come from?

Daniel Ramsey (13:05):
People, opportunities.

Dan Stewart (13:09):
Hey, there's the word I'm looking for.

Daniel Ramsey (13:10):
[crosstalk 00:13:10] I can see your screen. I'm cheating because I can see your...

Dan Stewart (13:14):
Oh is everybody seeing that?

Daniel Ramsey (13:14):
Yeah, that's so funny. You got to switch screens brother.

Dan Stewart (13:20):
All right.

Daniel Ramsey (13:21):
You're giving us the questions and the answers to the test.

Dan Stewart (13:25):
No problem, man. I'll walk you through. I'll make it as simple as possible. If we follow this ladder all the way to the ground, it starts at questions. We began today by asking ourselves questions internally. To have conversations with people who can help Matt achieve his goal, he has to ask questions of other people. Then what happens inside conversations is that we actually build relationships. That's an absolutely critical thing to understand. If you're not having a conversation with someone, you're not in a relationship with them. Let's own the fact that your CRM that you're subscribing to its sole purpose is to create conversations for you. Because those conversations, deepen relationships, relationships lead to better opportunities, opportunities lead to sales, sales leads to the achievement of your goal.

Dan Stewart (14:19):
When we talk about what to say now, we're always going to talk about where to start with questions. For what it's worth, I'd like to share just a little bit of my own personal story. I just turned 50 like, damn, that seems like an eye blink ago, I was 20 and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. 25 years ago, my girlfriend says, "Hey, guess what? We're having a baby."

Daniel Ramsey (14:50):
Nice.

Dan Stewart (14:50):
Like, wow, right. I did what so many people do, I sought out a career in sales because I needed income and it didn't really matter how I got it I wasn't going to break the law or do anything too stupid, but I didn't grow up saying, "Oh, I want to sell stuff for a living." What I discovered in the pursuit of an income is that people who enter a sales career, they're really entering a personal development plan. Like you cannot be great at sales until you get really good at working on yourself. There are few exceptions to that rule. I really believe that, and I believe sales professionals are some of the best people in the world. If I can go from being like a waiter, bartender dude with a pregnant girlfriend at age 25, to a guy who's created multiple multi million dollar companies, like everything is possible, sincerely, no matter who you are, what you're doing right now. If I can do what I've done, you can certainly achieve what you want to achieve.

Dan Stewart (15:55):
I say all this not to impress you, and I show you this picture not to impress you, but to impress upon you that really nothing is past you. This is my horse farm here in Tampa. I am in this building right now. That's where I am as-

Daniel Ramsey (16:11):
Nice.

Dan Stewart (16:11):
... you're seeing this broadcast. Back to the whole, no BS stuff. There are a lot of people on the internet selling stuff. I've actually done what I'm teaching you to do today. Now we're going to dig in today.

Daniel Ramsey (16:26):
[crosstalk 00:16:26] Hold on, we just did a blog post, "Beware of false prophets", like literally last week. Based on a conversation that you and I had, when we were setting up this call, we were talking about it. These fake guys on social media who've never done it, but they have great marketing. What we're sharing today is the actual framework for actually building a sustainable business. That's the beware of those false prophets. Yeah, I just .... I'm glad you're here. I'm excited to dive into it. I'm really wondering what this whole question conversation, relationship opportunity sales thing. I want to get into that because I'm like thinking ...

Dan Stewart (17:06):
We're going to get there brother.

Daniel Ramsey (17:08):
I'm like, how do I incorporate questions into our hiring process? Anyways, keep going. I love this stuff.

Dan Stewart (17:15):
Yeah, I'll show you how to get there. The first thing we have to do is recognize what recruitment really is. It's a process of exit and arrival. All sales is the process of exit and arrival. I'll use myself as an example. I drive a 2014 Subaru, and I love it. It's the best car I've ever had. I don't think about getting another car ever. All the ads that are fired, I'm not susceptible to them. Then recently, I had to pick up a friend at the airport, someone that I'm friends with, but I wanted to impress a little bit, right? I can't bring my house with to the airport, right? So I had a moment of, "I might need a new car.

Dan Stewart (18:08):
I love this car, but..." I was fine there, absolutely fine with that car until something occurs and then I'm no longer there. That moment, that's a signal from the universe that we're all receiving that tells us when it's time to change something. Some of us listen to those signals a little more loudly than others. Some of us have the discipline to say, "Nope, I love my car I'm not going to let what other people think impact me." The point here is that there are agents in your marketplace right now who are super happy where they are, and won't even consider being recruited by you until they receive that signal from the universe.

Dan Stewart (18:52):
You can't rush that, that's going to occur in their time. What you can do is build a relationship with them until such a time as they're ready. Here's a huge mistake I see a lot of brokers make when they're trying to recruit, is they just send messaging that's all about them. It's about their model, it's about how much you could earn if you join them. I'm not susceptible to a new car right now, that doesn't do me any good. It would be much better for that broker to build a relationship with me, so that when I am ready, they're the person that I'm thinking off.

Daniel Ramsey (19:29):
But I think the challenge is that that's a lot of hard work. What you're talking about, like that ... building relationships when they're not really ready to move. I think the thing that stops people from doing that is they don't see an immediate return.

Dan Stewart (19:47):
We're going to make that part easy, I promise.

Daniel Ramsey (19:50):
Okay.

Dan Stewart (19:52):
I have to do just a little bit more teaching here or the good stuff will make absolutely no sense. Okay?

Daniel Ramsey (19:57):
Okay, go.

Dan Stewart (19:57):
I hear you Daniel, I'm going to get to like showing you exactly how it works, but I've got to show you some other stuff here first, because, I'm not the person who invented the idea that we should talk to people and build relationships with them before we sell stuff to them. That's really simple. When we're talking about building a relationship over time, we have to understand that all of us are exposed to the same sorts of things over time. Plato wrote about this. There's something called The Hero's Journey, that is so astute. It's so smart when you consider how you're going to communicate with people over time.

Dan Stewart (20:41):
I'm going to break this down, and since I'm a Star Wars fan, we're going to use Star Wars as an example. We've got Luke here, right? You've seen Star Wars, Daniel, I presume? Right?

Daniel Ramsey (20:51):
Everything. Yeah.

Dan Stewart (20:52):
Of course. Right? We've got Luke, who's on a sand planet, he's a moisture farmer. He doesn't Love being there. He's received a signal from the universe, he wants to do something else, but he doesn't have a way to get there. He doesn't have a way to access this new special world tha t he wants to be part of, until something very important happens. That's called the meeting with the mentor. You have a decision to make when you're recruiting people. Are you going to be the hero of the story, or are you going to be the guide, the mentor that gives the person you're trying to recruit access to that new special world? There's a distinct choice that has to be made there. From my perspective, there's no mystery here. Like you are the guide period.

Dan Stewart (21:46):
If I'm happy at the brokerage I'm at, the only reason I'm going to think of leaving is because I think I've got a better chance of achieving my goals with you, than I do where I currently am. You have to be the person who gives me access to this new special world that I want to be part of. We're going to break this down just a little bit further, because we've got two recruiting styles. You've got the Obi-Wan style. This is the person who recruited Luke, so to speak and then departs from the story. They show up and then they're gone. A lot of my friends over at eXp are Obi-Wan style recruiters. They're recruiting the model, get you in the fold. You're in my downline, and now I'm moving on to the next one. That's a lot different than joining a team, or working at a brokerage where you're tucked under the wing of someone who's going to actually guide you.

Dan Stewart (22:44):
We'll contrast that with Luke, who's more like the small independent broker. Luke is looking for people to go to battle with. He's looking to add people to his team where they're going to stay on mission together. It's a different approach. If you're an Obi Wan style recruiter, that's fine. But just know that that's what you are. If you're going to be on mission with them, that's great too. You just have to know because having mixed signals here and sending a mixed message, it means that you just don't make the progress you'd like to make. Does that make sense Daniel? Are you following that all right.

Daniel Ramsey (23:24):
Yeah, I'm in the process right now of recruiting somebody, and she was actually recruited to an Obi-Wan style of business. I'm definitely much more of a Luke style. Like, we're going to go together, and we're going to go far and this is going to be fun. So I absolutely get it, and I didn't know that it mattered to have the two distinctions until you just taught this piece of it.

Dan Stewart (23:52):
Yeah, see a lot of people make a mistake. Put yourself in the mindset of that small independent broker. Every day you have people popping up who are saying, "I'll charge you less fees." Right?

Daniel Ramsey (24:06):
Right.

Dan Stewart (24:07):
Or, "I'll have more leads," or, "I'm with a national brand," or, "I've got a downline that will make you a multimillionaire." Whatever those stories are, those are all things that you have to compete against. Your relationship with them as a Luke in their life is what's going to make them invisible ... is going to make those other brokers invisible to your agents. It's the quality of that relationship that you have. Like the old saw with recruitment is you've got to recruit and you've got to retain. You guys all know that, the place you struggle is [inaudible 00:24:48], it's an understanding exactly what you need to do in order to recruit and in order to retain. This is where we're going to walk you through the process that will do that. It's time to buckle up and actually do some work.

Dan Stewart (25:01):
A lot of webinars, you just sit there, it's passive, and then somebody's trying to sell you something at the end. The only thing I'm trying to sell you is on a process that you can implement yourselves and get results with.

Daniel Ramsey (25:13):
Love it.

Dan Stewart (25:14):
I want you to use this, whether you ever work with me or not, is besides the point. We're going to start with four critical questions. The first question that you've really got to identify is who? Now, as a serial entrepreneur, we always look at this as a customer avatar. What does this person think? What are they worried about? When they're trying to go to bed at night, what's that conversation they're having with themselves? When they're driving down the road, what's that internal conversation that's going on in their brain? We want to try to understand just as much about who it is you're trying to attract as possible, before we start sending a message to them.

Dan Stewart (26:00):
For example, let's say I run a really tech forward brokerage. We're cutting edge. We've got every bell and whistle, every shiny object. We really need people who are familiar with and fluent with technology and can leverage it, that's what we're looking for. Well, if I send that message to a bunch of people whose hair matches mine, that aren't comfortable with technology, like I can have the best message in the world, but if I'm sending it to the wrong people, it won't do its job for you, right?

Daniel Ramsey (26:34):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dan Stewart (26:35):
When you are absolutely certain of who the right fit is for your brokerage, that gives you something that's really valuable and that's unshakable confidence. The reason that I want you to go through that process of knowing who, is so when the wrong person shows up, you can point towards the door. You don't want to bring the wrong person in and upset your culture, and be more of a problem than they're worth. I'll tell you as a guy who once ran a contracting company where one contract we could take in would be what we might focus on for two years. Oftentimes the very best contracts we ever had were the ones we avoided. There's a lot to be said about knowing who you want, because that unshakable confidence lets you push the wrong people away, and it lets you pull the right people towards you much more quickly.

Dan Stewart (27:33):
Because when that they're right, they're going to sense that certainty within you, and it's going to be attractive to them. Super, super important to do that. Then of course, we'll move from that into where we actually need to be to find these people. If you think of it like a military campaign, like every general is going to assess the terrain in which the battle takes place right? This is actual physical terrain in many cases. In other cases, it's virtual terrain. I have a lot of clients who are recruiting nationally or internationally, there really isn't a geographical restriction where they want to get these people. Sometimes it's a psychological terrain. We want people who believe some things, who are certain of some things, and we'll use that terrain match to get these people.

Daniel Ramsey (28:34):
What I think I want to just point here because ... and ask you a question, is this also a market timing? Because I think we're in a really unique timeframe in our history where 15, 20% unemployment, there's some talent out there that if you're an entrepreneur who has a big $400 million sales goal, now's the time to pull those guys into your world. I'm curious if terrain also talks about market timing.

Dan Stewart (29:04):
Well, no, that's really more in the messaging.

Daniel Ramsey (29:07):
Okay.

Dan Stewart (29:09):
Here's something I believe and teach. We all have some things about our businesses, about ourselves even, that are unchanged. They're constant, it's our spine, it's our foundation. No matter what the market does, those things are still going to be true right?

Daniel Ramsey (29:25):
Right.

Dan Stewart (29:25):
We need a plan that communicates those things effectively over time, no matter what. We have to supplement that communication chain with things that are happening now. None of us can predict what's going to happen a week from now, a month from now, three months from now, so we have to expect to be able to plug in the right content as part of our communication training. To me a market condition would be something that gets handled then, rather than something that's a core foundational element of our communication plan.

Daniel Ramsey (29:59):
Okay. Makes sense.

Dan Stewart (30:00):
Okay. When we talk about terrain, it's really about figuring out where to go get people. We'll use Obi-Wan here as an example. When he was looking for his Luke, where was he? He wasn't hanging out at the bar, right? He was in a place where someone might need to be rescued from something. There's a lesson here, because if you can build a relationship with someone, if you can start that process, by giving them a solution to something that really bothers them, wow, that bonds you. They're like always going to think highly of you. It sets you in a much greater position right from the start. Effective sales, effective recruitment, it has a lot to do with positioning.

Dan Stewart (30:50):
That's the reason that we look for things that they're struggling with that we can rescue them from. Then of course, once we've shown up and we're rescuing them from that we have to have a plan to take them somewhere okay? Let's break this down. We'll use some real world examples here. Let me think of something recently here. I have some friends at HAR Houston Association of Realtors. Recently there was a COVID amendment that was created and added to contracts. That created a heck of a lot of questions like, what do we do with our contracts that are already pended? What does this really mean? How do we respond if this, then that? It was a new thing that created a lot of issues for people. That's the sort of thing that you can recognize and you can start conversations about.

Dan Stewart (31:47):
I would just encourage you guys to like take a moment and think about what are the things that are agents in your market are struggling with? Those are things you can rescue them from? Where's their pain? You can go greet them at their pain, and you'll be ready to take them in a better position.

Daniel Ramsey (32:04):
I love it.

Dan Stewart (32:07):
When it comes to terrain, there's another component here that's important to discuss, because we've got all sorts of different ways that you can meet people, right? Some of you might advertise. If you've got a job advertisement out there and people are replying to it, that's certainly one way that you can recruit people. A lot of our clients in the real estate space, they generate lists. You can pull them from your association, from the board, from the MLS. You can pull them from tools like Broker Metrics, or the ShowingTime broker tools. I actually, I'm a huge advocate for this. Because if I have done the work to say, "I know I can help an agent who's doing between three and 5 million a year, get to seven to 10 million using a tool like Broker Metrics, or the ShowingTime broker tools to pull a list of agents who are currently performing in that band, that gives me a great start in pursuing a relationship with them right?

Daniel Ramsey (33:16):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (33:16):
The more we know about the person who's going to be reading our messaging, the better job we can do creating a conversation with them. Okay?

Daniel Ramsey (33:24):
Sure.

Dan Stewart (33:26):
I want you to imagine that you're this broker, you've pulled a list of people and now it's time to communicate with them. Here's a mistake that a lot of brokers will make. They'll build a HTML email that argues for why their brokerage is the best, and it'll say something like, "We've got room for more agents. If you're interested in making a change, come join us." That's the sort of message that may work if you just happen to get it in front of someone who's ready to make a change. Those are really small odds and I don't like to play the small odds, I like to win. The way that we're going to win is we're going to start a conversation with that person that's going to build a relationship that is going to make sure they come and join us when it's time.

Dan Stewart (34:16):
Instead of trying to just patch a band aid, and get people to join us today, we're going to build a system that makes sure we can attract the right people over time, such that we can achieve any sort of recruitment goal. I'll show you some examples here where we've actually helped agents and brokerages do that. Before we do that, though, I do want to really drive home a point about when you have a list here, you have to have a strategy for first contact. I told you what's wrong, that HTML email about why your brokerage is great, don't start there. The right approach would be to ask them a question. Just engage them in conversation. Daniel, if you're on my list of people that I might recruit, because of your performance, I have some options here. I can, I can congratulate you, that's a really good thing to do.

Dan Stewart (35:13):
Here's three common things that you can reach out and start a conversation about. Once you know what their status is, you can congratulate them about that. You can mention that, "Hey, there's this change that's taking place, I'm curious what your thoughts are." You congratulate people who are already with you. This is a huge thing to do for retention. Let's imagine that agent in your office, who's been in the business for two years, they've only closed three transactions. They're kind of in, kind of out but they've recently made a commitment to make this their career, and they just got four deals under contract. Like wow. You can tell that story in a message. You can lift them up to their peers in the community. Send out, "Please join me in congratulating Daniel. I'm so proud of the work he's done. I know he's going to have a great career here. Isn't it amazing to know that two years in he was almost out of the business and now he's got four deals that are pended, so proud of him, that's awesome."

Dan Stewart (36:17):
That makes him feel fantastic. It makes the person reading that go, "What did they do to get four deals pended? I wonder if I'm at the right place?" That's a strategy to start a conversation with someone who has no idea who you are, then of course, you have to have a strategy to keep that conversation going. For that, you need a blueprint. You need a mapped out plan of what's going to be said, to whom, when. That's the purpose of building this communication plan for people you're trying to recruit. So that you can just start people on the plan and you know that it's going to run through the steps with them over time. When you do this, when you put these sorts of things in place, the goal here is not for people to like, come back to your website and fill out a form. The goal is for those people to pick up a phone and call you, right?

Dan Stewart (37:16):
We want them to schedule an appointment with you, we want them to attend a career night. You've got to have a clear understanding of what the goal is, and then we of course, can build a messaging to create that. I'm going to show you-

Daniel Ramsey (37:29):
This blue print looks really, really detailed, and I feel like this might be some of the best value in the conversation, because most brokerages, most businesses don't have a mapped out plan for their communication strategy when it comes to talent. They have half-ass put something together the night before the email is supposed to go out. You know what I mean?

Dan Stewart (37:56):
Oh, my god, somebody just left, we got to recruit.

Daniel Ramsey (37:58):
Yeah, exactly. Or, we've gone through incredible growth and I have more leads than I know what to do with, and my internal staff is busy. That's probably my story, actually. Are you willing to give that blueprint away to this group? Because we have a question-

Dan Stewart (38:19):
[inaudible 00:38:19] of course yeah.

Daniel Ramsey (38:20):
Okay.

Dan Stewart (38:23):
We're here to help, right?

Daniel Ramsey (38:24):
Yep.

Dan Stewart (38:24):
Daniel said at the beginning, his highest value is service, okay?

Daniel Ramsey (38:28):
Yes.

Dan Stewart (38:29):
Not only do we have the same name, my brother, right? But like, yeah, absolutely we'll give that away. We'll give our time away too. We're going to create a lot of questions here. We're starting you on a process, if you need help getting to the end of the process, just book a tour with us. We'll have one of our coaches go through and solve these problems with you for your specific situation.

Daniel Ramsey (38:54):
Yeah. What we'll do is we'll put a link to getting the recruitment blueprint in the Facebook groups. If you're live with us right now, you'll just have to jump on the MyOutDesk Facebook or book a consultation with Happy Grasshopper. But we'll get this to you one way or another.

Dan Stewart (39:11):
Sweet. Thank you for that, Daniel. I'm going to break down this blueprint here in a bit more detail for you, because there's a few components here that are really important. You've got your data, right?

Daniel Ramsey (39:22):
Yep.

Dan Stewart (39:22):
Who you're going after. You've got to have the list there. Then you've got to have that communication plan. We're breaking this into initial messaging, and then some positioning content. Then that's followed with long term nurturing content. We've got your initial message, these two blocks are ongoing positioning, and then long term nurturing. Let's talk about what the goals are here. In an initial message, you've got to change the content according to how you're meeting this person. If there's someone who already knows you it's a different message than if they're a total stranger, right?

Daniel Ramsey (39:58):
Yep.

Dan Stewart (39:58):
If they come to your career night, it's a different message. If they've just got their license and they don't even have a broker yet, it's a different message. The way you're starting here is really important. Then there's some core things about you that don't change. These are the things you believe in. This is where you're telling your story. You're arguing for things you believe in. You're planting your flag in the ground and saying, these are the things I would defend. What you'll find is that when you're sharing these things the right way, it works like a magnet. It attracts the right people to you. The people have that same belief or who will see you as someone who's aspirational, someone they would like to be-

Daniel Ramsey (40:45):
I think.

Dan Stewart (40:46):
[crosstalk 00:40:46] Okay.

Daniel Ramsey (40:46):
I got to slow you down here because I think this is probably the most important defining piece of the conversation. How do you help people who are just because we're all high DS and high Is. We're driven by, "How do I make more money? How do I build a bigger business? Or how do I help more people?" That's kind of our ... and you saw in the beginning. How do you help somebody talk about their flag and really craft that? What does that look like? What's that process look like?

Dan Stewart (41:13):
That's a really smart question, because I might be really great, and the moment I start to write how great I am, I feel like a total tool.

Daniel Ramsey (41:23):
Yes, yes.

Dan Stewart (41:25):
We all have that blind spot. It's really hard to write about what we love about ourselves, because who wants to even say that as a sentence, it's awkward and nasty. What has to really take place is the transfer of knowledge from people who are already with you to people who might choose to be with you. We need to find out what it is that agents who are with you love about being with you, and then tell those stories. That's what needs to take place in the positioning area. Very similar to the way we would advise a client to convert more internet leads. Let's communicate to that lead what your past clients love about you. That's a lot different than I'm a true professional, a great negotiator, and I really care. I'll treat you like a family.

Dan Stewart (42:16):
That doesn't go very far. Those are platitudes. If you want to really make the impact, you've got to tell a story. Recently there was an agent in my office who was struggling, and they said this and that. Use that as an example to tell them that you really provide a lot of great training. Don't just say you provide great training, give examples, and then show them how that great training has improved the life of people who are already with you, that's what makes the difference.

Daniel Ramsey (42:46):
That's so interesting, because there's so many parallels to generating just regular business leads and generating talent leads. There's just such a great parallel, and when you make that mind shift, I think it becomes easier.

Dan Stewart (43:00):
Yeah. We're all walking around in the same flesh, right? We're people at the end of the day. As people, if we're asked questions we'll generally respond, right?

Daniel Ramsey (43:12):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (43:12):
That's a great way to engage us in conversation. Whether we're trying to convert an internet lead to get a home sold, or we're trying to get an agent away from where they are to join us. Asking them the right questions is the first step because that leads to the conversation, which leads to the relationship, which leads to the opportunity, which leads to the sale, right?

Daniel Ramsey (43:37):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (43:38):
We'll build that ladder for you again. Now, here at the bottom, capture, reply. The whole thing that we're trying to do here in the positioning phase is start that conversation. Then based on that, it's going to go in different directions, but the goal is always to set that initial meeting. It all traces back to that. What I'm an expert at is building content that starts conversations. I will never build an AI chat bot to have the conversation for you, because there's no one who is more equipped to do that than you are. You have to show up to do that part.

Daniel Ramsey (44:17):
I love it. Guys, we're we're about five, 10 minutes away from wrapping up. There's a lot of opportunity to ask questions around this conversation. We've got Dan here. Let's keep going. But I want to just poke we only have five minutes left with this brilliant man. Let's use his talent. If you have a question, throw it in the chat or in the Facebook Live post and we'll get it to him. Dan, what should we cover next in the next five, 10 minutes?

Dan Stewart (44:46):
Well I think I need to show you guys some examples. We're going to talk about some case studies here. I have a client named Alison Gaddy, she's in Austin, Texas. She's with eXp. You'll see her recruitment style, she's an Obi-Wan. And her mission, the thing, this is all about his personal freedom. Now we've done a heck of a job helping her recruit people. We've been able to do that because we're able to understand what it is she's actually doing herself, and how that story is compelling to people that she's attracting. I'll give you a little bit more detail here. She's not out for just everybody. She's not interested in attracting everybody. She's narrowed her focus to where she wants people that are at high producing teams.

Dan Stewart (45:37):
She wants to bring the whole team over, not just an agent here or there. It's a really interesting approach. Next example I'll give this is one of my favorites. Liv Real Estate. They're in Edmonton, Canada. This is Sarah and Sheldon, they're the principles there. I promise you that if you met these guys and hung out with them, you'd be like, I could live in Canada, I could do that. They're that awesome, that you just want to really consider moving to Canada, just to work with them. What we did with them was really neat, because they're definitely Luke's style. They're looking for people they can go into battle with. What they're out for, is helping you achieve your lifestyle goals. They've built a real culture that's super cool. This is their office. It's the kind of place where you could just like hang out and shoot pool, but the culture there doesn't let that happen.

Dan Stewart (46:39):
This is where you celebrate something, it's not where you just show up and hang out. They've got a very high producing office culture there, and because they're so good and they've got this great reputation, they generate a ton of leads, it was really easy to help them achieve their goals. We met their annual recruiting goals in just two months, which was really fun. Now I'll just, I'll show you one more here to give you guys an idea that the way things can scale differently.

Daniel Ramsey (47:10):
Sure.

Dan Stewart (47:10):
There's a brokerage we serve in Northern Virginia called Pearson Smith. Eric Pearson's one of the principals there. They have a really neat model, because it's a hybrid. You could be 100% commission with them, or you could be like 50:50, where they're holding your hand and helping you through every single thing. They joined us back in 2013. They actually use Happy Grasshopper not just for recruitment, but every agent when you join Pearson Smith, you get a Happy Grasshopper account. The reason I bring that up is because we've talked so much about the recruitment side, and we haven't talked a lot about the retention side. One of the things I love to do is provide a broker a tool, that's branded for them that the agent can't get anywhere else.

Dan Stewart (48:04):
That really helps them hang on to people over time. So [crosstalk 00:48:10].

Daniel Ramsey (48:10):
What is the technology part of the recruitment process in your mind? I think we need to wrap up with probably answering that question and also how to get ahold of you. If you're listening, we want to give away a book. We've got our free book that I always give away every single time we do one of these things. If you're interested in scaling your business with virtual professionals, our virtual assistants, you can just text SVP, so Sam Victor Paul to 31996. It's a really cool book. Right, Dan? I love it. But here's the point, if you're thinking about hiring, or leverage, or you want to hire a virtual assistant, it's 120 pages, easiest read in the world, and it'll give you every single thing you need to know about actually getting a virtual assistant.

Daniel Ramsey (49:00):
That's what we do here at MyOutDesk. But let's end with the technology piece of the recruitment process, because Happy Grasshopper is actually a platform, a communication platform and that's what's really ... we want to make sure that everybody realize is, if you took everything that you learned today from Dan, you'd still need somehow to deliver those messages out. I think that's a good spot to wrap this up and then go.

Dan Stewart (49:27):
Having the content is great, that's wonderful. What you really need is a way to send the content that is multi touch and multichannel. The system that we built sends emails, voicemail drops, text messaging, and we even write and deliver handwritten cards. For every segment of the database, whether it's recruitment or lead conversion or your past clients and sphere, every contact should have a communication plan. I might catch a lead and respond via text immediately, follow it with a voicemail drop, follow it with an email. I might have a personal meeting with someone and send a handwritten card out automatically, just right from our system, where it's totally hands-off, and all you have to do is collect the replies and have those conversations.

Dan Stewart (50:17):
I see a question from Diane here, it says, "Talking about encouraging people through culture and your example is workplace. How would that work now that most people are working remotely or from home?"

Dan Stewart (50:28):
I love it. That's great. That's a great segue all the way back to the beginning here, because this is the big time of change. Here we are on Zoom right now having this meeting. Now, for 10 years, I've had a company wide meeting every Monday afternoon at 3:00 pm. Like everybody shows up, whether it's a virtual meeting, whether it's a physical face to face meeting, it doesn't really make that much difference. Zoom is great for having these sorts of shared open experiences. I would strongly suggest that you consider having some water cooler type spaces within your technology, where people can get together and hang out. We use Slack for that and Happy Grasshopper. Every employee in the company has their Slack account. We use Facebook groups for that.

Dan Stewart (51:22):
We have a great Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow where any agent or broker can go there and ask a question about how to word something, or how to overcome the communication problem. Our writing staff gets in there and answer those questions. The last thing, Diane here that I really want to drive this point home with is that despite the fact that we're together physically less frequently, we're still human beings, we still have that need for connection. We've got to leverage technology that lets us have that connection. We need to pick up the phone more frequently. We need to talk to people. We need to get to be expert at that two minute phone call. "Hey, I've only got a couple minutes Daniel, I just wanted to reach out and say, how are you, brother? Good to hear your voice?"

Daniel Ramsey (52:15):
Yeah.

Dan Stewart (52:16):
"Yeah, great." click. It's like a little ... You got to keep feeding the machine there. You got to keep putting your coins in that till. It's important to [inaudible 00:52:27].

Daniel Ramsey (52:27):
Well Diane brings up a good question. We should talk a little bit about the recruiting virtually as we wrap up. What do you feel besides more frequent conversation maybe in doing videos, Zoom meetings in the recruitment process? What have you had to change because you can't do a coffee, or you can't have people come to your office? What have you changed in the process for your clients?

Dan Stewart (52:56):
Well, so let's talk about the coffee meeting, because I'm in Tampa, Florida right now, and I swear looking outside and walking around in the world, no one's heard of Coronavirus. It's terrifying. It's absolutely nuts. I know from our member community, like some of you guys are super comfortable with that, others are terrified of it. Right?

Daniel Ramsey (53:22):
Right.

Dan Stewart (53:22):
The first thing you're going to have to do is have your sensory acuity turned up to stun. You don't want to pressure that person who doesn't feel comfortable to meet you for coffee. You need to give them some latitude and to have a voice and how you might get together. And it really gives you an opportunity to solve that problem together right? I'd love to have a chat with you about this Daniel. Normally, I'd say, "Hey, let's just meet for coffee," but it's a new world. What's convenient for you? How would you like to get together? Right?

Daniel Ramsey (53:55):
Yeah. Then offer him a couple options. We can do FaceTime, we can do a Zoom call, or we could meet at the park and maybe do a walk. One of my favorite things during this whole timeframe is I just have people meet at our office and then we go for a walk around the park. You keep that distance, and you still get to have that closeness even though all of our 1200 people are fully remote working from their home, there's still that opportunity to get together and spend a little bit of time with people. Well, Dan, we're wrapping up. We're not wrapping up, you had a point?

Dan Stewart (54:32):
I was going to ask you a question actually. MyOutDesk, you guys have been virtual from day one. This is no joke, right? There's probably no one better to answer those questions of how to create a sense of community for a remote workforce than you. By the way, for what it's worth, guys, I am a MyOutDesk customer. Okay, so, when we hired our folks through MyOutDesk, we went through a process that involved a virtual interview, we scheduled the appointments. I put them through some paces to make sure they could communicate in a way that was appropriate for our brand. Like, you kn ow exactly what to do in this situation. It's been your process for years.

Daniel Ramsey (55:16):
Yeah. We just moved the ... Most people move the face to face interview, at the end of the process, we just move it closer to the beginning. I know that sounds weird but when you're recruiting somebody and you're fully virtual, meaning we've hired 6,000 people over 13 years, what you want to do is you want to speed up that engagement. In the talent acquisition world, which is a world that we're in, the speed to lead is still the biggest influence of success. For us, that speed to first conversation, that speed they apply to We do an interview, that's the metric that determines success. We have thousands and thousands of face to face interviews every single month.

Daniel Ramsey (56:13):
The reason we had you here is because your messaging is just so superb. It's like really the best, and your process for getting them. The thing that we do is we're a fully remote company. Slack is a great tool, Zooms a great tool. I love internal Facebook groups. We're in there all the time doing like ... I'm doing a lot of live videos. Like once a week, I'm doing a live video for our team. We have weekly meetings where we do breakout sessions. Communicate, communicate, communicate is the measure right now. That includes with your talent pool.

Dan Stewart (56:50):
Awesome.

Daniel Ramsey (56:51):
That's my answer.

Dan Stewart (56:52):
Well thank you for inviting me Daniel, I really appreciate it.

Daniel Ramsey (56:55):
Yeah, man. It's been great.

Dan Stewart (56:56):
Always happy to help, so if there's anything I can ever do for you guys, don't be shy.

Daniel Ramsey (57:02):
How does somebody ... Should we just go to happygrasshopper.com/tour to go deeper if somebody wanted the process, or some messaging, or to see your technology. Is that the best way to do that?

Dan Stewart (57:15):
The best way to do it. Here's a core belief, this is why I'm asking you to go to that link. I'm not a believer in one size fits all messaging. What works for an aggregate of our members is not going to be great for you, honestly. We have to recognize that the one size fits all content approach has been tried and it just doesn't work. Look at any CRM system, it's got stale content in it that's so watered down, it's not right for anyone. It's instantly ignored the minute it arrives anywhere. If we're going to cut through that clutter, we've got to do it by getting to know you and creating content unique to you.

Dan Stewart (58:02):
That's why I ask people to go to that link because the process starts by talking to one of our business coaches. We can learn enough about you to figure out whether or not we can actually help you. That's important. If we can't we don't want your business. And then we can build that roadmap for you, build that communication plan, that blueprint that's going to produce the results that you're looking for.

Daniel Ramsey (58:27):
There you go. All right, Dan Stewart, Happy Grasshopper. Thanks for your time today. I really appreciate you.

Dan Stewart (58:34):
My pleasure.

Daniel Ramsey (58:36):
If you stuck to the end, get a copy of our book. Text SVP to 31996, you'll get a free electronic copy of Scaling Your Business With Virtual Professionals. Dan, thanks again for joining us.

Dan Stewart (58:50):
My pleasure, Daniel. Take care.

Daniel Ramsey (58:52):
Bye-bye guys.

Dan Stewart (58:53):
Bye.