Why You Should Care About Attracting Great People
What To Say Now Episode 48
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Show Notes and Links:
What To Say Now Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow
Full Show Transcript:
Dan Stewart (00:00): Hey guys, it's me, Dan Stewart. And welcome to this episode of What To Say Now. I love, love, love the topic that I'm talking about today.
Dan Stewart (00:22): Today's topic is one of my all-time absolute favorites. Today, we're covering what to say now to attract great people. Not just any people, but great people. The first step in attracting really great people is to understand why. What is it that we need to do to attract great people into our lives, and why should we even care? Like, why do we need to attract great people instead of just any people? Well, if you're building a brokerage, if you're building a business, it makes a lot of sense to attract the highest caliber of people you can. No matter what it is that you specifically are setting out to achieve in your life, I promise you, the path towards achieving it is much more quickly walked together. You can absolutely have greater time, a more successful experience, you can enjoy your life more by sharing it with other people.
Dan Stewart (01:24): The first thing that I'll encourage you to do when considering the reason to attract great people is, what are the things that you really stand for? Who are these people that you want to attract? What is it that's unique and special about them that resonates with things that are unique and special about you? I call this planning your flag. If you can say to the world, “Hey, here I am, love me or don't, that's up to you”, you're in a much more powerful place to attract people.
Dan Stewart (02:01): The reason for that comes from human needs psychology. It's called certainty. No one is really strongly attracted to someone who doesn't firmly state things that they believe in. This is a critical thing to understand, because if you were say, currently in the process of trying to recruit, it can be very tempting just to allow anyone who expresses an interest to join you. Just because someone is willing to work with you doesn't mean that's enough. You need to go beyond that. That's a lesson that I've learned firsthand in my life as an entrepreneur.
Dan Stewart (02:39): As some of you will know that Happy Grasshopper is my seventh company. I've had the privilege of running this firm for the past 10 years. And I've worked with some absolutely amazing people as my coworkers here. And I've had the privilege of recruiting as members, some of the best and brightest brands and people in all of the real estate community.The reason that happens is because I've been able to plant my flag and say, “You know what? Relationships matter. If you don't agree with that, we're probably not going to be a great fit for each other.”.
Dan Stewart (03:15): Another thing I believe, another flag I've planted is that relationships live inside conversation. So if you're not in conversation with people, you're not living your value of really believing that relationships matter. People know those things about me. It allows them to see whether or not we're a great fit for each other before they get more involved. That's important.
Dan Stewart (03:41): So if you're working at attracting people to your brand or your brokerage, I'm going to encourage you to start by conducting an inner process to really understand the things that you actually believe in to the point that it's a binary decision. It's on or off. Like, people adhere to these values or they don't. If they do, they're welcome to join me. If they're not, they cannot stay. When you're really clear about what those things are, you're already starting to stand apart from everyone else in the marketplace. You can become that flag we can see waving in the distance and we can understand exactly what it is that you stand for.
Dan Stewart (04:25): The framework that I'm going to share with you today has a few parts, and the very first one is to plant your flag. You need to be absolutely sure what it is that you stand for. And then second in that process, you need to understand how many people you need to attract over what timeframe. This is something, as an entrepreneur, we refer to as TAM, Total Available Market, TAM or TAM, Total Addressable Market, we see both used.
Dan Stewart (05:00): Let's say I were recruiting to my real estate brokerage here in Tampa, Florida. There's a finite number, a known number of people who are currently licensed to practice real estate in the area. So that would be my total addressable market. And yet I know I don't want every agent. Having a license isn't enough. So I need to refine my thing. I need to shrink the size of that total addressable market down to a very clear subset of people that demonstrate things that matter to me. And what's important is what matters to you. I'm just trying to illustrate this.
Dan Stewart (05:41): Hypothetically, let's say, I want an agent who at a minimum does three to five transactions per year, or maybe at a minimum, I want an agent who does 15 to 20 transactions per year. Knowing which of those groups that you're trying to attract, prevents you from wasting a lot of effort trying to attract people who aren't going to be a good fit.
Dan Stewart (06:04): I've worked with many members who have great training and coaching resources. I'll give a shout out to our friends at C21 Redwood. That's an agency, a brokerage with around 700 agents. They have structure and systems and scale to where almost anyone can find a home that fits for them. And yet culturally, there are some things that stand out that will resonate more clearly.
Dan Stewart (06:35): Let's review. Step one, you want to do an internal process to know for sure the things that you stand for. Step two is to define the subset of people in your market that you want to attract. Now that you've done those first two steps, it's time for the third, which is considering how you can share the things you believe in such a way that it attracts the right people to your brokerage. That's a big topic. It's such a big topic that I've decided to dedicate two days in May specifically for that process.
Dan Stewart (07:12): So on May 19th and 20th, I'll be hosting an online event called The Recruitment Success Summit. The purpose of this event is to guide you through a 10-step framework where you will have absolute clarity about who it is that you want to attract, how it is that you can differentiate yourself in the market, and how it is that you can communicate your unique messages to these people, such that they decide to join you such that they really choose to do that.
Dan Stewart (07:44): I see Eddie Campos is here. Hi, Eddie. Hope you're doing awesome. I just saw JJ posts that he's coming to Toledo, which is awesome. I always get jealous if he goes to Toledo without me. I love you guys. I hope you're all doing well. So please, please, please plan to join me. May 19th and 20th. This is a two-day hyper-focused, purposeful online event that's all about helping you win in the recruitment landscape. I'll have information there to share with you.
Dan Stewart (08:20): And Red, good to see you here. I love that you and Rebecca were chatting about this. This is really, really deep stuff. It's not something you can just watch a little 15-minute episode and get through and feel like you fully understand. There's a process here. Because if you go into any organization, any brokerage in the U.S., anywhere in the entire world, you'll see, there's always a subset of people within the organization that are performing at a much higher level. When we go really deep and we examine what it is about those people who are already with us that allows them to perform at those levels, we see some shared beliefs about the way things are and the way things can be.
Dan Stewart (09:09): Imagine now that I'm an agent in your market that you want to attract. Well, that would mean that we have a shared belief. So if we can send some messaging that speaks to that shared belief system, and we can use that to start a conversation, we're going to establish and build a relationship with these agents weeks or months in advance of having a recruitment conversation with them. Just like everything in life, we're always selling as business owners. We do that. And yet people always buy on their own timeframes.
Dan Stewart (09:47): Just like I can't force someone to list their house with me today if they don't want to sell it, I also can't force someone to leave the brokerage they're at until they've received a signal that it's time for change. So the most effective recruitment strategies do two things. They deliver that signal that it's time for change, and they collect people who've already received that signal.
Dan Stewart (10:13): Again, May 19th and 20th at the Recruitment Success Summit, I'll be going through this in detail. It's an online event. It'll be hosted on Zoom. It's a camera's on for everybody event. We're going to have a really great time digging into these issues.
Dan Stewart (10:29): I see your comment there. Hey, [Magnus 00:10:33] is here. What up, Dr. Magnus? I love to see you in the room. Senator Congressman Magnus. For those of you who don't know, John Magnus is literally one of my favorite people on the planet. And if I didn't greet him that way, he'd know something was wrong. So I have to share that.
Dan Stewart (10:52): Red, I see that you've read Rebecca's book, Permission to Screw Up, or you recommend Rebecca read it. It's by Kristen Hadeed and Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. Pat Lencioni is a great guy. I got to meet him at one of the [INK 00:11:09] conferences I attended years ago. Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a classic that he authored. There's some really great resources there. Speaking of which, if you look at what makes a team function, if you look at a brokerage that's functioning at a high level, like Re/Max Preferred in Toledo, Ohio, where your per agent productivity is leaps and bounds, head and shoulders above industry averages. It's because of the shared cultural elements that exist.
Dan Stewart (11:40): I've been to Re/Max Preferred. I have walked around and met people. I've seen the culture, I've seen the work ethic. I've seen the belief structure that's in place. When I say belief structure, sometimes I think it's a little confusing. You can believe in each other as part of a belief structure. You can believe that every agent should have a true, committed desire to take great care of every client that they're privileged to serve. Those are belief structures. So it does not necessarily have to be a shared religious belief, a political belief, any of those controversial issues we generally want to stay away from, and we want to create content. That's going to attract people based on shared beliefs around things like work ethic, teamwork, collaboration, contribution, volunteerism. Those are all very key, effective, and impactful areas to explore as part of a recruitment campaign.
Dan Stewart (12:44): Again, really love to see so many of you here today. Thank you for attending this session. I will happily continue the chat in the comments below on Facebook. If by chance you're watching this on YouTube or somewhere else, please go to facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow. Go ahead and join there. You can ask any communication question you'd like help with in that group. Myself and my team of writers will jump in there to help you get those questions answered.
Dan Stewart (13:14): One last reminder, save the date, May 19th and 20th, I'll be conducting the Recruitment Success Summit, and I'll be sharing a link to that page where you can get your tickets for that here in the very near future.
Dan Stewart (13:29): Thanks everybody for your time and attention today. Re/Max Preferred, love to see a couple of you here in the house. John, I miss you dude. When the heck are we going to ... I got my first vaccine today, so I figure I'm weeks away from being able to see you face to face. All right. Talk soon, everybody. Bye now.