Part 4 of Face to Face Meetings
In this solo podcast episode, recruiting leader Richard Milligan wraps up a four‑part series on the four stages of a face‑to‑face recruiting meeting. He recaps stages 1‑3 (relationship building, uncovering the candidate’s why, and presenting the recruiter’s passion, values and vision) and then dives deep into stage 4 – creating alignment. Milligan explains how to explicitly speak alignment by linking the recruiter’s values, vision and why to the candidate’s, and how to gauge the candidate’s “temperature” (cold, warm, hot) through a concrete next‑step ask. He stresses the critical need to gain agreement on that next step, using the tennis‑ball metaphor to illustrate why the recruiter must force a response to know where the candidate stands. He shares personal mistakes, such as sending a polished corporate presentation that stalled momentum, and the lesson that involving multiple team members (head of operations, marketing, executives) gives candidates a clearer view of culture and increases hiring success. Milligan introduces the “BAM zone” – belonging to a tribe aligned with shared values – and explains how follow‑up strategy should differ based on temperature (passive value‑adding communication for cold prospects, active outreach for hot ones). The episode ends with a call to action, offering coaching sessions and encouraging listeners to share the content with other recruiting leaders.
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Hey everybody, it's Richard Milligan here at Forsee Recruiting. We are about to cut another podcast. We're gonna go fast on this because the camera that I'm recording this on, the battery's about to die. And it's just the things behind the scenes, you know, it's like the little bitty things that happen when you're trying to make content, create content. Those of you that are doing it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Podcast. I think it's podcast 51 that we're doing today. It's actually an important episode because it's episode 4 where we are talking about the 4 stages of a face-to-face meeting. And so we've gone through 1, 2, 3, today's 4. We're gonna tabo on this and we're gonna go live here on our podcast here in 3 and then 2 and then 1. Welcome back to another Recruiting Conversations. It's your host, Richard Milligan. And we are finishing an important series of podcasts here. So if you're arriving at the— this is the beginning for you, just happened to arrive on the scene of my podcast, and this is the one that queues up for you. This is actually episode 4 of a package, I guess what you call it, where we've gone through kind of the perfect framework for a face-to-face meeting for a recruiting leader. So if you're showing up and this is number 1 for you, go back. And I would encourage you to actually start with episode 1 of this and then go through episode 2, episode 3. Now this is episode 4 because it will give you a lot of context around what we're going to talk about here today. So just to bring everybody from episode 1 to present so we can pick up where we left off, I believe that there's 4 stages of presenting. If done correctly. Now, in stage 1, what we do is we build relationship, and that may sound very obvious because it is. But if you want really good— a really good understanding of how to build relationship, go check out episode 1 of this because I promise you there's something there that you will learn. There's 25 years of experience in that podcast alone that will give you some— that will generate some fresh ideas for you. In episode 2, we talked about stage 2 of the face-to-face meeting. What we talked about is figuring out a candidate's why, figuring out a recruit's why, what motivates them most. And then in episode 3, we're talking about now it's our turn to present in this meeting. And this is where we're going to talk about our passion zone. We're going to share why we do what we do. We're going to talk about our core value system. And then we're going to share our vision. Where are we going? And that brings us to stage 4. Now let me start stage 4 with this. You're not always going to have a 4th stage of this face-to-face meeting. And when I say stages, I just mean like transition windows. Like there's 1, 2, 3, 4. There's 4 different places here, 4 different topics or points that we need to You know, move through in order to actually have a successful face-to-face meeting. So when we get to this one, it's where we would create alignment. Now, assuming that you want to create alignment. Look, I've been on lots of face-to-face recruiting meetings, and one of the things I know is that if I went through stage 1, 2, and 3, I was pretty clear after stage 1 and 2 whether this was someone that was aligned with me. And I've learned the hard way in my own recruiting career, in hiring people just for volume, just for units, just for production, just for sales, just to fill a position. I've learned the hard way that that's the wrong way to recruit. You want to attract people that you're going to enjoy doing business with, right? We've talked about that framework before, like doing business that you love, With the people you love while making a greater difference. And if you're not doing business with people that you love, it really makes it hard to love what you're doing, and it makes it almost impossible to get to that larger meaning place. So we want to attract talent, and we want to recruit talent that's aligned with our value system. So when I get to this 4th component here, I'm not always going to go through this because I'm going to have already determined That someone is not the right fit for my team. And so when I get to this one, I'll end the meeting and say, you know, in my phone scripting, I said that I wasn't going to recruit you. And so here I am, and I've just said, here's my vision, value, and why I'm doing what I'm doing. But I am going to end the meeting on that note without moving into this place where I would actually ultimately try to bring this conversation full circle And make statements like, I see us as being aligned in our value system. So in creating alignment, you are actually going to use that word alignment. I had someone I'm coaching come into a coaching session one time and they were laughing and they said, you're not going to believe this. I'm walking through the 4 phases of this face-to-face meeting that you taught me and I got past stage 3 and the person that I'm supposed to be recruiting says to me, Man, I see where we're really aligned in our values. And it was like, it was all I could do not to spit my coffee on the individual because they said that. That was my line. I'm the one that's supposed to be saying that. I got a good laugh out of that. But the truth is that when we model this correctly and we get to this moment, people will feel alignment. People will know whether you are a leader of interest and someone that they should have on their radar, whether that's now or in the future. For when they are experiencing a trigger event or interested in making a move. So we get to creating alignment. Here's what this is centered around. This is really connecting our values and our vision and our why with their values, their vision, and their why— what motivates them most. So there's a number of ways to do this. One, you just speak alignment. It's like in the first part of this meeting when you were talking about your family, You said this about your family and I see where we are extremely aligned because I believe this and this is what's similar. What visioneers do well is visioneers take people and project them into the future with them. That's what visioneers do well. Most of us, most people are stuck in the moment. They're stuck in the next decision. They're stuck in the immediate environment of what's going on in their life. What visioneers do is they place people into the future with them. They speak this to life. So there's a number of ways to do this, but the word alignment is something that's very simple to grab onto and it's something to use. You're going to use the information they gave you in stage 1 or in the first part of this meeting. You're going to use that information in this moment to say, we are like-minded, that we are headed in the same direction. That we have the same value system and I've got to actually have them see this. Okay, once I've spoken alignment into being with them, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to gauge the temperature of the recruit. Now remember, with integrity, we said we're coming into this meeting and it's a non-recruiting meeting. If you have this meeting with me, I've said that I'm not going to to talk about my company, and I'm not gonna try and recruit you. But it doesn't mean that at the end of this meeting, I can't make a statement like, look, if you're 1% intrigued by this meeting today, I would love to host you at our local office and have you come by and grab a cup of coffee. Okay, that would be a next step. They may have asked a question early on, and it might have been around your comp model or your pricing model or your sales system or whatever it is that they asked a question about. And because I've set the precedence before coming into this that I'm not going to talk about my company, I'm not going to try and recruit them, when they ask that question, then I'm going to politely decline answering that. I'm going to say, look, one of the things I promised you is that I wouldn't talk about my company, so I'm going to take a note of that question. When we get to the end of that, at the end of this meeting, I'd love to address that with you, but I want to make sure I honor what I said I was going to do and not talk about my company. So when I get to the end of the meeting and I have those questions that may have been asked, and a lot of times they do get asked even when you set the precedence that this is a non-recruiting meeting, they'll get asked. I push those to the very end. If they asked a question that could be answered by someone on my operations team, then that would be my next step. I would say, early in this meeting you asked a question about this. I would love to get Nancy, my head of operations, in a meeting with you? What's your schedule next week? And she'll not only be able to answer that question, but give you a larger feel for how we handle our process and our system on the operations side. I'm going to put quotations around this, gain agreement on my next step. I want to gain agreement on a next step. Here's a huge mistake that I made for almost 11 years. 11 years into being a recruiting leader, I had hired around, best that I can calculate, somewhere between 42 and 45 salespeople that were currently on my team. So, we're talking about hiring and retaining about 4, somewhere around 3 or 4 or 5 people every year consistently for about a decade. A lot of people thought those were big wins. Like, I had done something of significance. I was running 3 offices 10, 11 years in. A lot of people were like, he's having a lot of success. Ultimately, what I found out in the next 3 years is that that success was really micro compared to what I could accomplish when I was doing things correctly or when I was doing things differently. One of the things that was really important that was different in those two seasons was in the first decade, when I got to this face-to-face meeting, I got to the end of the meeting, I would actually ask for an email address so that I could send my corporate presentation to them. Now, I know this entire audience is gasping for air right now because that's such an amazing tip, and they're probably putting their hands over their mouth going, Never thought of that. But you don't need to think of that. And if you think that's a good idea, I want you just to drop it right now because no one ever said that I joined your company because you sent that presentation. In fact, it was actually— it actually took a street that was a 2-way street going quickly in a direction and it made it a dead-end street because now I just basically equipped them to say, I have all the information that I need To make a decision, and I don't need to build a relationship with you anymore. I can honestly say I never had anyone respond to that email I sent that had this beautiful corporate presentation, by the way. It was a beautiful corporate presentation. The company that I was with had invested an enormous amount of money. I don't know what that amount was, but it was a beautiful presentation that was created by a marketing professional that was very specific, very intentional in how it presented. The story of the organization, but no one ever joined the organization because of that. So, what I did in this season where I transitioned 10, 11 years in was I said, I'm not going to send that presentation anymore, and what I'm going to do is get more people involved in the recruiting process. Now, what I know today is better information than what I knew in 2013. What I know today, because we do a lot of recruiting audits for companies, Is that the more people you get involved in recruiting, the more likely you are to actually recruit the individual. Let me make that statement again. The more people that you get involved in recruiting, the more likely you are to recruit that individual to your team. Why is that? I think it's important to know that that is true, but why is that? One of the things that I have come to realization over the last, however long, 6, 7 years that I've been doing that is that when I get more people involved in the recruiting process, people have a better idea of what the organization looks like. They understand what we represent, our belief model, Are we unified? Is there synergy? Is there a connectedness going on here? Are we having fun at work? They really get an idea of what most people, you know, I put in quotations, call culture. That's important, right? They need to understand what our culture looks like. So when I introduce more people, they get a better feel of that. Now, I think there's other things around this. I call it the BAM zone. The BAM zone is where we want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We want to be a part of a tribe of people that are aligned with our value system. We want to be affirmed by a life-giving leader, and we do want more meaning. And part of that meaning is that we're aligned with people who are like-minded, headed in the same direction. All of those things are true. When you introduce more people, that actually gives me the feel for that BAM zone. So, a best next step would be to have them into your office so they could meet the entire team. A best next step would be to get your head of marketing on the phone or your COO or your CEO or your president or your executive leader or whoever it is into this next step. And if you were to get someone at an executive level involved, it's extremely affirming, right? To say, like, I was talking to my executive leader And that executive leader asks if they can have a conversation with you beyond this because I've really pumped you up to them. And they ask if you'd be willing to do 10 to 15 minutes on the phone with them after this meeting. That's extremely affirming. But remember this, you want to gain agreement on this next step at the end of this meeting. Don't make the mistake of saying, okay, let's leave this, whatever this is, cup of coffee, office meeting, at a restaurant breaking bread, whatever it is. You do not want to leave that meeting without gaining agreement on a next step. And the reason why is that this is a bit like a game of tennis. Okay? You show up at the meeting, and if I hit a ball into your court for you to hit back to me, then I'm just waiting for you to hit the ball back to me. So I'm going to actually make sure while I'm setting in this meeting that when I hit the ball to you, In this meeting, I'm forcing you to hit the ball back to me. So the mistake that I made for a long time was, hey, love your email address. I'd love to send you this 30-page corporate presentation. It'll tell you a lot about the company. So in essence, I was hitting the ball into their court and I was just hanging out waiting for them to actually hit the ball back to me. Here's a true story that happened with someone that I was coaching. So I go through this exact presentation with someone, the 4 phases, the 4 stages of presenting. They go have an awesome meeting with the recruit. The next week they come into a coaching session and they said this to me. They said, would you be willing to review an email that I got from the recruit that I met with last week? And I said, sure, I'll review it, but what are you wanting me to review? And he said, I'm wanting you to kind of give me your input On whether this person is interested in moving forward and in my opportunity, or if this is just a normal email where there's just a conversation going back and forth. Before I ever saw that email, I made this statement, you didn't gain agreement on a next step, did you? And he was like, what do you mean? I said, well, we talked about, like, in this meeting, you would actually invite them into some big next step, and you didn't do that. And he said, how'd you know that I didn't do that? And I said, because you don't know the temperature of the recruit. And so when we ask for an agreement on a next step, we gauge the temperature of the recruit. Think about this. If I was to invite— we had a great meeting, we'll get to the end of this meeting, and I'm now inviting you into visiting my local office. I'm going to get one of 3 responses from you. And one of those 3 responses is going to tell me exactly where you are. Are you 30 degrees? Are you 72 degrees? Or are you 104 degrees? Right? So if I invite you into coming and visiting my local office and you can't see me, but my body language would shift, I would probably push back away from the table and lean out and go, oh no, no, I was only here to meet you understanding this was a non-recruiting meeting. What does that tell us? That this individual is cold. They're 30 degrees. The person that then thoughtfully considers it and says, can I get back to you on that? I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that. This is 72 degrees. And the person that leans forward and says, sure, I'd love to do that. I'd love to come check you out, is 104 degrees. Now, I made up the degrees, but you get the point. You're either cold, warm, or hot. And if I don't ask for agreement on something that's a powerful next step, then I have no clue. We leave this meeting and it's like, what just happened? Where are they at? Did I do good? Are they thinking about possibly taking next steps? It's like we have no clue where they are. So by gaining agreement on this next step, it is in essence hitting the ball to them in tennis and forcing that ball to be hit back so that whenever it comes back to me, I know where the individual is. And here's why we need to know. If I don't know this, I have no clue how to pursue you beyond this. What do I mean by that? Well, if you're cold, do you think it would be a problem if I was aggressively pursuing you? Yes, that would be a problem. It would be a problem because if I'm aggressively pursuing you and you're cold, Then what I do is I position myself to be ghosted. If you haven't heard that word before, ghosted means that, like, they don't respond to texts, they won't respond to your LinkedIn messages, you can't get them on the phone, you leave a voicemail, they don't respond. If I don't figure out whether this person is cold, warm, or hot, then I have no clue how to pursue them. Because if they say, oh no, no, I was only here for the purpose of getting to know you and it was a non-recruiting meeting, Then I know that they're cold. So what will I do? Well, then I will pursue them through what I call passive communication. Passive communication being that I'm not going to ask you for coffee again next month. It means that I'm going to have a value equation where I'm going to pursue you very thoughtfully, where I'm bringing value to you. I'm not going to just stop in through your phone or through your text or through your LinkedIn or wherever it is saying, are you happy? Are you interested? I'm not gonna do it. Because now I realize I've got to build relationship with you in order to get to a place where I can do that. So you've got to have a strong ask in this, otherwise you will not be able to figure out where they are. So the big takeaway for you here is this, is like, have a big ask. Don't be afraid to have a big ask. Once you make that, you're going to extract some information. That information is going to tell you what category they fit in, and from here, We then pursue accordingly. Okay? So there you have it. 4 episodes, 1, 2, 3, 4, talking about the 4 stages of presenting. And listen, this works. This works. It doesn't matter if you are a dental practice trying to hire your next hygienist. It doesn't matter whether you are a mortgage leader looking to hire your next top loan officer, or you're a real estate agent looking to hire your next top real estate agent. Whoever you are, this works. Okay? So get familiar with this, map this into your recruiting process, and then expect great things to come from this. Because when you leave this meeting, something great just happened. You know exactly where the recruit sits, you know exactly how to pursue them next. And because of that, you have now moved yourself in a direction where you are much closer to getting the individual than before you actually started it. And so now for us, the big thing is going to be having a value equation where we're consistently month in and month out showing up with some form of communication where we're bringing real value to the individual that will help them grow, that will inspire them, that will help them in their career where they're at. And we're going to do all of that with no strings attached as we pursue the individual beyond this. Got it. So I'm sure this brought some value to you today because I know it was an aha moment in my career that was a springboard that I was able to use to actually further my recruiting efforts and further growth of my team. So hope you enjoyed it today, gang. If there's any way that we can help you connecting some of the dots on this, you've got access to my calendar. The outro will go right after this and there's my link to my calendar beyond that. Would be an honor and a pleasure to just even spend an hour with you. If you feel like I can bring you value for an hour, I spend probably 3 or 4 hours a week in coaching sessions with people I've never met before. And just to give them value and to high-five them along the journey. Because if you are a recruiting leader, I really believe you have the most difficult job on planet Earth, which is you're wearing 15 hats and then also trying to juggle this big role of recruiting. So I applaud you. I encourage you. Stay the course. Keep doing the right things right this week. And until I see you again or hear or until I speak to you again next time on Recruiting Conversations, have a great week, everybody. There you have it, gang. Another Recruiting Conversations in the books. Man, I try to keep these short. I'm like, got 20 minutes. And don't ask, don't ask me how we get there, but we do. Recruiting is simple, but it's hard, right? Simple in that it revolves around a handful of things. It's hard in that it's the little things that matter a lot. And so when I think about little things mattering a lot, like when there's so, so many little idiosyncrasies in the 4 things we discussed over the last 4 episodes, I would encourage you to go back and check those out. It's worth it because the person who hones their recruiting skills, that gets to that next level of being the expert recruiter, they are the ones that win against the amateurs. And most Recruiting leaders are amateurs. They know what they know, right? And what they know is that they should be making more connections. They should be making more contacts. And so they're using lame scripts or using lame processes, and they don't know that it's lame. They're doing the best that they can, the best of their ability. So if you know someone's in a recruiting leader role, take this, send it to them, tell them about our YouTube channel, tell them about our podcast. We would be honored. It's the biggest honor you can pay to us is sharing this and helping us grow our tribe of people. And so until I see you again on another video, have a great week, everybody. Bye.
