The Most Important Thing In Recruiting Figuring Out Your Recruits Why

Hey everyone, it's Richard Milligan, 4C Recruiting, and I'm back today. We're cutting another podcast and, you know, I'm always in studio by myself, so I play these little mental games. And so I come in today excited and laughing. And man, if you can't laugh at yourself or at your own humor, then whose humor are you going to laugh at? If you don't think you're funny, who else is going to think you're funny, right? So I'm coming into this just chuckling at some of the things that are going on inside my head and looking forward to sharing some of those things here in this podcast where we're going to talk about the why piece, pursuing a recruit through the lens of their why. Look, I whiffed on this for a long time when I was recruiting. Recruiting, it is about a lot of these small things. A lot of people want to know what's the one big thing that I should be doing. Having a system is important, right? That's one big thing. But ultimately what I found is that great recruiters come from shaping all of the little things, the little things that most people don't think about. And one of those things that I didn't think about for almost 11 years was trying to capture what was the motivation of my recruit. What was the highest form of motivation for my recruit, which is what is their why? What is it that motivates them the most? So we're going to talk about that today. We have a lot of fun doing this. And so we're going to go to our podcast here, starting that in 3, in 2, and then 1. Everybody, welcome back to Recruiting Conversations. Today it's a very special episode and it's— I'm alive. Right? It's always a special day when you wake up and you can feel your toes and you can feel your fingers and you know that you're living and you're breathing. So every time I show up and I'm alive, it's a special episode, right? I rue the day that this podcast goes on where I'm not alive and so that day, whenever it happens, is not a special episode. So until then, maybe that's my new intro. Here's a special episode. Today, we are going to talk about a very special topic, something that's very near and dear to my heart, and something that took me 11 years inside an industry to really figure out. Those of you that know my story know that I spent really 10, 11 years being a very average recruiter, having wins but being very average in those wins, and then about 11 years into it, changed some things very dramatically. That gave me a lot of momentum to launch 18 teams in just 3 and a half years. And so one of those things I'm going to share with you today, and that thing revolves around understanding someone's why. Now, when I say why, I'm talking about what is that thing that motivates us most, right? A lot of times when we recruit, our tendency is We recruit with the company value proposition and we recruit through the lens of money, like compensation structure, sign-on bonuses, whatever it may be that you have to offer on the financial side. A lot of times we recruit through the lens of that and we miss, I mean we miss in a major way, an opportunity to recruit someone through something that motivates them more. One of the things that if you follow me much at all, you know that I believe that there is this what I call the BAM zone. And that is the zone that we want to focus on most when recruiting people. And so, the BAM zone is this: belonging, affirming, and meaning. So, when we understand what motivates human beings, what we know is that primarily at the lowest form of human motivation, right, there's this motivation that comes through financial security, feeling safe, right? It goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of human motivation, which is safety and security, Protection and provision, those are the things that we are motivated through first. If I'm not safe, if I'm not protected, if I don't know where my 4-week paycheck is coming from, then I am primarily motivated through that lens first, not through anything else. But if those things are there and I'm safe financially, I'm secure financially, and I feel protected inside the organization that I'm a part of, then I'm ultimately motivated through a higher lens. I want to belong to something bigger. I want to be affirmed through my leadership or through the people that I'm around. And ultimately, I want to have more meaning, more purpose in what I do in life. So when we understand the BAM Zone, what we understand is that people, yes, they're motivated by money. But if I can figure out what your why is, what is it that motivates you most? I have a secret ingredient that allows me to pursue you through the lens of that, and then it becomes not a matter of if you'll join my team, rather a matter of when you'll join my team. Now, yes, there are other things around that. Do you have a system? Are you staying in front of the candidate forever? And I say that jokingly because you should have a system where you are in front of them one time per month forever, right? As long as you're in the business, if you're a recruiting leader, you're probably Fishing in this small pond, in this smaller geography, which may be a city, maybe a state, maybe a couple of states. But because you're going to be in that market, in those markets, for as long as you're in your business or in this career, then you begin to understand, man, you have to recruit differently than a corporate recruiter. And that's why this podcast has been created, is to help you, who I call the recruiting leader, someone who leads a team. But then is also responsible for not just managing but recruiting and building that team. So, let's just talk about the practical piece of this, the why piece. How do I capture it? Where do I insert figuring this out? And how do I ultimately pursue people through the lens of this? So, let's really tackle the first part of this, which is like, where should this come up? Now, when we're recruiting people, A lot of times at the very beginning of our recruiting funnel, so to speak, we're really just trying to get the individual into an engaging conversation. And sometimes that— most times that's just over the phone. And so, when we're over the phone, we're trying to build relationship, but it is at a very high level. It's not at a deep level. And so, trying to figure out the why when you have a 5-minute conversation doesn't make any sense at all. It's going to be actually pretty awkward for you to Insert it in that location. Where I like to insert asking that question, what is it that motivates you most? What is your why? I love to insert that if you're going to get into a face-to-face. Great place to insert that. Now I understand you're not always going to get people into a place where you're going to get them to a face-to-face. As a minimum, I want to be having a really strong conversation about who the individual is. So, this should be one of the first things that we're doing when we're recruiting. A mistake that a lot of people do make is they don't spend enough time getting to know the recruit, and what they actually do is they really move towards the company toolbox pretty quickly, and it becomes nothing more than a sales pitch. So, we're no longer really recruiting people on a relational level. We're actually recruiting people on a sales level. And I love to insert the terminology relationship building over recruiting. So when I think about, you know, if I'm gonna build a relationship with someone, I'm going to have to start there. Or if I'm gonna recruit, simply throw that thing in there. Go ahead and be the salesperson if that's how you're gonna recruit. What I know is that the best way, the quickest way, right, the right way, the way people love to be pursued Is through relationship building. So, we're going to change if you're currently recruiting through this company value proposition and leading with that first. We're going to actually— it doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. It means that we're still going to at some point that's got to come up. But I'm going to insert relationship building first and primarily at the very beginning. And in that, where I'm getting into a deeper conversation about who you are, I'm going to be able to ask that question. What is it that motivates you most? What is your why? Now, I'm going to pause for a second. I can go back through my 15-year career and what I can tell you in one industry— now, as a recruiting leader, I spent about 25 years, but in one industry, 15 years. Inside that industry over that 15-year window, I never had anyone ask me, Richard, what is it that motivates you most and how can I help you accomplish that? Never. It never happened. And while you may have that happening where you are in your business, if you're not, okay, you have to do this with the people already underneath your leadership, already underneath your care. This is a retention 101 tool, right? If you want to retain your people, figure out what motivates them most, and then you go help them. Make that be your primary goal as a leader, that I'm going to help you accomplish that. And if you do that, you'll retain your people. In my own career, for better or for worse, when I was at my best and when I was at my worst, I was either focusing on helping the people that were underneath my leadership, I was either focused on helping them accomplish their why, or I was either focused on things that were non-centric to them, non-centric to their why. A lot of times, those might have even been selfishly motivated. They were Richard motivated. So, if you want to retain, this is where you're going to also lean as well. On the recruiting side, look, here's what it does for you. Marketers get this at the highest level. Okay? Marketers are so brilliant when it comes to this piece. Marketers start any marketing campaign with a general consensus around this: if I can get the consumer to believe this one thing, they have to give me their money. Okay, I'll repeat that. That's what marketers focus on. If they can get you and I to believe one thing, then we have to give them our money. Look, if you've ever been sitting up late at night and you've seen an OxiClean commercial come on where they're like dumping wine on the carpet and dumping Kool-Aid on the carpet and they're getting it up, well, the one thing in that situation is like OxiClean cleans your carpet, right? OxiClean gets wine and Kool-Aid and whatever stains are on your carpet and And if they can get us to believe that, guess what? I now have to order the OxiClean. And so inside recruiting, it's a slight shift in this. The one thing recruiting is, if you can get your recruit to believe that you above all other leaders in the market that they're in will help them accomplish their why, then it's game over. Now it may not be game over in this exact moment. But if you stay in front of the recruit and you convince them that you as a leader are all about helping them accomplish their why, then they will join you at some point in time. One of the reasons why I believe that holds true is that I think that there's an epidemic in terms of great leadership. Like, ask yourself that question. How many leaders have you worked for in your career that have actually focused on what motivates you most? What's your why? It's a very small number of leaders that actually lead with this. And so because of that, and because as human beings we're motivated through the lens of that at the highest level, it's your best tool in your toolbox to go out there and recruit with. Now, I want to pause for a second and just say this. I'm equipping you with something that is going to automatically improve your recruiting efforts. But you should truly become that. If you're not that leader and you're not leading like that right now, then become the leader that leads like that. Don't lead with this lack of integrity simply to convince people to join your team because it is a short-lived season when you recruit someone through the lens of that and you don't deliver on that. I can speak from it firsthand. So, when you focus on this and you deliver on this, Not only do you become a much better recruiter, but you become a much better leader and retainer of people. And so, that is a critical element to this as well. So, where I'm going to insert that question, what is it that motivates you most? What is your why? I'm going to insert that where I'm relationship building. Okay? Now, I teach 4 stages of presenting and I think that this is one of the stages where you insert and ask, what is it that is your why? Okay? So, it comes right after the relationship building piece. Okay? Got it? Now, I think that that context of just applying it is going to help you, but now you need to know how to actually pursue people through the lens of it. That's a critical element to this because now that I've got it and now that I've captured it, what am I gonna do with that? Most of the people that you're gonna recruit are going to fall into what I call The cold category, right? They're content, they're happy where they're at. You call them and they say, no, I'm good, I'm good where I'm at, things are going well, I'll keep you in mind, right? So, if you have a system and that system now says that this individual is a cold candidate, a cold recruit, now it's a matter of what's next, okay? And so, what I believe is while I've got that person on the phone, what I need to work towards is getting a yes. A simple yes could be, well, I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn and would love to touch base with you from time to time. And most people will say, sure, that's fine, right? So now I've got a yes and now they go into my recruiting system. Now, one of the things that I did that was really powerful for me was when I had that recruit over the phone, I would say, look, thanks for taking the time out of your day to just take a couple of minutes and speak with me. As a way of saying thanks, I would love to send you one of my favorite books. Is there a good address that I can send that to? Now, not everyone will say yes to that, but the people that said yes to that, man, I had a really good next step, which was I was going to send them a book with a note card. Now, understand, most people can't do that to thousands and thousands of people. It's just not cost-effective to do it. But recruiting leaders are typically recruiting a smaller audience. You've identified the top talents in your market, the people you wanna go after. And so if those are the individuals, then you better have a really powerful next step system Staying in front of them. And a great book sent to someone in the mail is a phenomenal next step. So that's a great next step for you to move towards. And then beyond that, pretty simple to text message them a couple weeks later, did you get the book? Did you get a chance to read the book? Now they're into a system, a next step system. Now, if you're following a next step system and someone's cold, you should minimally be touching them one time per month passively. I say passively because a big mistake that recruiting leaders make is that they pursue everyone the same, and everyone is not the same. Either you're warm and hot or you're cold. And if you're cold and I'm constantly asking for a cup of coffee with you or a face-to-face or time with you over the phone, eventually, because I'm aggressively pursuing you, you will stop responding. But the big but here is that if I've addressed you As being a cold recruit, then I should— and I pursue you passively where I'm giving you things of value along the way. When I say things of value, just get creative. There's all kinds of things of value that you can give. A motivational video that you saw on YouTube, it's a great thing to text. Something contextual inside your industry that you're in. That brings value to the relationship. So if you're in real estate, go find a great coach inside the real estate community that has a solid video that brings good content and text that to them or email that to them or go to Facebook and use Messenger or LinkedIn and DM them. Those are all great ways to bring value in that passive zone. It's gotta be in the passive zone. If you're in the passive zone and you're bringing me value, I have no problems communicating to you because you're bringing me value. The problem that people have is where you are constantly in front of them, not bringing them value, only trying to extract value. The extraction of value is, let's meet. And it doesn't matter whether you think your company value proposition is 200 times better. The recruit sees it as an extraction of value. You're, you're looking out for you. The face-to-face benefits you. It doesn't benefit them. And so what you have to do is pursue them passively using some creative next steps. Now, with that said, what I love to insert around the 6-month window is what I call this touch called Lens of Why. And when I say lens, it's like I've got glasses on right now. I'm recording this on video, by the way, and I also put that in some other locations. So if you look at my YouTube channel, you'll find this on video. But lens, meaning I'm looking through my glasses. So, I'm going to look through the glasses of what is their why, and then I'm going to deliver something of value in alignment with that. So, let me give you an example for me personally. My big motivator is my family. Big motivator is Richard's family. My full story, context of my story is I grew up extremely poor, duct-taping tennis shoes, wondering where meals were going to come from. When I left home, one of the things that I said was my family would never live like that. And so, a big motivator for me is actually providing for my family. I also come from a broken home, a very broken home. And so, one of the things that I also said is that when I have a family, that I'll be a good father and I'll be a good husband. And so, the lens of my why comes through the context of that. So, I'm a little ate up with some of that. If you know me personally, I've got 19 family purpose statements. I actually have a family mission statement. I mean, I'm all about leaving a legacy in that place and giving my kids this opportunity to stand on a platform that's a different platform than what I had to stand on coming into life as a young adult. So there's a big motivator in that. If you were following me on Facebook, one of the things that you would see is that I consistently post around my family. When we go on vacations, I take pictures of my family. And if you ask me what motivated me most, I would give you some context around that. And if you were looking at my Facebook page today, then what you would see is a guy who's all about that. You could very simply go to a picture that was me and my family on vacation and you could right-click— this is really hard, listen closely, okay? You can right-click on that photo and it's going to say Save As. You simply save that photo to your desktop. Upload it to a framing website that's going to put that into a beautiful frame, and you send that to me. Okay, now remember, I'm a cold candidate. You've been pursuing me for six months, and all of a sudden, six months in as a candidate, I get in the mail this beautiful picture of me on vacation with my family in this awesome frame and a note. And that note says something along the lines of Richard. In the time that I've been following you, I noticed that you're extremely motivated. by the why, which is your family and being a good father and being a good husband. And because I saw this photo, I had to just send it to you and let you know that if I ever had the chance to partner with you in this crazy business that we both love, that I would be all about helping you accomplish more moments like this. All the best, recruiting leader. Okay, so that's context around how you can actually implement this into what you're doing on the recruiting side. It is a powerful, powerful tool, but I want to warn you, you have to have a system. There's got to be touchpoints in front of this and touchpoints after that, otherwise you will not be seen as being altruistic in your approach. If you simply go, oh, great idea, let's scale this and send this to 100 people and see what we get, it is a standalone tactic and it doesn't represent you as an attractive leader. That's why the system part is so critical to this. Yes, it's a great idea. Yes, would it work to start some conversations? It would. It would do all of that. But in the context of pursuing someone for 2 years or 3 years, this is so incredibly powerful that it's worth the time to implement this into a system to use it. Okay? So, there's how you actually execute the idea and the strategy. Now, let me actually put a warning out here. Here's what you're going to run into. When you ask a lot of your recruits, what is it that motivates you most? What is your why? You are going to get at times these surfacey answers and that's a problem. And why it's a problem is this: the surfacey answer is, I want to make $250,000 a year. I want to do 200 transactions in my business next year. I want to buy a new house. I want to buy a boat. I want to— I want to travel the world. Put my 4 kids through college and pay for it myself as their dad. A lot of those are wrapped up around the financial piece. And that's what I would call a very surfacey why. There are reasons why they want those things, but if you settle for those surfacey answers, it makes it very difficult to pursue someone through the lens of their why because then it goes back to those basic premises: safety and security. Protection and provision. People will see that as money. And the only way that you can get that person that their larger why is money is through sign-on bonuses, better compensation structure. And you've really positioned yourself. And you may say, look, I've got all that. Great. I'm okay with it. Ultimately, that is the lowest form of human motivation. We, as human beings, have been intrinsically designed to want more than that. We want more than that. That's just the truth and that's why when I coach people, we focus on that BAM zone— belonging, affirming, and meaning zone— because as humans, we want more. We want to be on a journey to more than just acquiring more stuff. At the end of the day, if you've lived 46 years like I have— well, in a couple of months— 46 years like I have, then you understand that that stuff, yes, it is great, it's awesome to have, but it is not the largest motivator. In fact, it's pretty It's going to be unsatisfying if that's all you're going to pursue. You can have all the stuff in the world. Some of the most miserable people that I've ever met are some of the most wealthiest people I've ever met. If that is all you get, you have to get a better answer. In my experience with this, let me give you how I came to a solution of getting a better answer. When I would get that surfacey answer, I would respond in a way that That I think will help you respond and it is this. I would go back to a time and a place where I had found or figured or realized or uncovered or whatever word you want to use here, my own why. So, if someone said, look, my biggest motivator is I'm going to make $250,000 this year, my response to that would be, man, I appreciate that. I love the The drive and the motivation that you have to get to $250,000, that's an enormous goal. Congratulations. Let me share a little story with you. And I would tell people a story that would go back to a place in time. And so the story that I would use was, I would go back to 2007. And in 2007, I was actually 5 years in the mortgage industry. I was running a mortgage brokerage where I was having lots of success. had just made a decision to take on a lot more risk because I had built a business model that really felt like it couldn't fail and I didn't know what I didn't know until it was too late. And so if you know anything about the US economy, you can go back to 2007, 2008, 2009 and you know, wow, whatever follows that story is going to be pretty interesting and the truth is I had just scaled my risk dramatically. I had taken on a ton of retail lease square footage and in my lifetime, I think 2007, early 2007, retail space was at the highest cost per square foot that it's been since or ever in the history of retail space. And so, I had a lot of risk and what I didn't know is that my business model of how I was actually running my business, getting my business, The percentage of business I was getting from certain places, it was a perfect recipe for failure. And I didn't know what I didn't know until it was too late. And when it was too late, I really found myself in the throes of failure, like the worst failure that I'd ever had. Up to that point, I had really never experienced failure at that level. And I remember in that season, Just getting out of bed in the morning was, was a feat for me. I mean, it was just a difficult, difficult season for me. My oldest son was— he would have been 5 years old then. My second oldest kid, Gavin, was a newborn then. Lee and I had been married for 10 years in that season. And so I'm so thankful that God gave me that in that season. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would have had the motivation to make it through it. But I remember in that season getting out of bed in the morning and putting my feet on the floor and one foot in front of the other, not for me, not because I was going to try and figure out what I was facing because it didn't feel like I was going to actually make it through it. And the biggest failure ever in my life, I figured out what motivated me most. And it took me all the way back to being a young kid and living in poverty and making those statements as a young man saying, I will never live like this. I will never have my family live like this. Coming from a broken home and saying, I will have a strong relationship and I will be a good husband and a good father. And in that season, my why became more clear than ever. I was putting my feet on the floor in the morning and moving through the struggles of the day-to-day simply because of them. And so I would share that story with my candidate, with my recruit. And listen, I pause now. I'm not telling the story. I hoped I had the opportunity to share that story. I hoped that your why that you gave me was surfacey so I could tell you that story for a couple of reasons. Storytelling when we're recruiting is one of the most powerful tools that we have to motivate people. There is science in recruiting, I mean in storytelling when you use it when you're recruiting. The science is this, a story told correctly, it actually As humans, causes us and our brains to actually emit chemicals called dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin. It's like watching a movie. Movies tell stories in such a phenomenal way that we can feel sadness, we can feel happiness, we can get scared, we can do all these things because they're telling the story correctly. At the end of the day, we realize that the movie screen is nothing more than actors and props. But because the story is told correctly, we will lean into it and things happen at a chemical level that have us building trust, bonding, having empathy, all of these things. So, I hoped to have that story to tell. A lot of people say, well, gosh, I could never tell a story of failure. Well, that's okay. That, that if you don't tell a story of failure in those moments, you're missing out on opportunity. To build trust, to create empathy, to bond with this individual at a level that you won't have an opportunity to bond at if you don't tell stories like this. So, I would share that story and then I would say, with me sharing that story and the story of where I got a lot of clarity around my why, I would love to know if you found yourself in a season like that, what would it be that would motivate you most? And then I would get a better answer. Now, I wouldn't always get the best answer that I was after, but I would always get a better answer. So, I give you that framework for a number of reasons. You may not have failed, and I applaud you. I'm clapping in studio right now if you haven't failed at a significant level in life. But most of us have. If you've taken much risk in life, you probably failed at a pretty high level. And so, if you failed at a level, I want you to analyze that failure Right? Where did— maybe there was an opportunity to get clarity in that season of what motivated you most and share that story with people when they give you that surfacey version of the why. It's worth spending the time and the energy to get clarity around that so that you— and crafting the story around that so that you can share it when you're recruiting because that is another one of those small things, right? Yes. Asking someone what is their why, that's the larger piece. But underneath that, the underlying piece is when you get the surfacey answer, getting a better answer And now, inside my system, I can go pursue you through the lens of your why. And I truly believe that if you do that, it's only a matter of time till someone joins your team if you're staying in front of them. Okay? So, I love this piece so dearly because I love this idea that we are all motivated at a higher level than just money, things, and stuff. And so this makes us all better recruiters when we implement this into what we're doing on our recruiting side. So remember, the why is critical to anything that you're going to do inside of recruiting, and so you have to get the why. And until next time on Recruiting Conversations, remember this. Have a great week, everybody, and look forward to spending some more time in the future on that storytelling piece because we're just, we're just at the very edge, the very tip of that in this particular podcast. We will definitely hit that up in a future podcast. I want you to become a better storyteller. It's critical to you and to your success. And so with that said, have a great week, everybody, and look forward to seeing you next time here on Recruiting Conversations. Done and done. There's another Recruiting Conversations. Look, this piece is really important, right? You have to implement this into what you're doing on the recruiting side. Otherwise, you're missing out on a huge opportunity, and you're really just positioning yourself to have to lead with the company value proposition. The beautiful thing about not leading with the company value proposition, leading with relationship building first, is that you still leave that value prop, which is the company value prop, As a bullet in the gun that you can fire at a later date. If you're leading with that right now, then guess what? You don't have anything else. You can't reverse engineer leading company value proposition and then building relationship. People will say there's no need to build relationship with you because you already led with the company value prop. So it always has to be relationship building, showing people that you're the attractive leader, And figuring out the individual's why. And at a later date, okay, a lot of times this is the next meeting, you're going to talk about the company value proposition. But in a minimum, we're going to lead with this other piece first. That makes your process around recruiting a better process. And look, if you don't have a story of failure like the one I just mentioned, you can use mine. How's that for an added bonus to being a part of this video? You can use mine. You can say, I know this one guy, Richard, that failed miserably one time, and I would love to share his story about when he got clarity around his why. You are more than welcome to use that. I want to walk in transparency. I think that the most authentic leaders are the ones that are the most relatable, that are the easiest to bond with. They're the easiest ones to want to work alongside. That leader who's willing to share a failure is an attractive leader to me. And so just remember that piece. Don't ever be afraid to share a failure and think that you have to have the golden touch because you don't. We all want to work for an authentic, transparent, honest communicator. That's just the truth. That's how you build trust is by communicating through the lens of that. So do that. I encourage you to do that. And until we meet again, thanks so much for watching the video and we'll see you next time. On Recruiting Conversations.