Wisdom Sparks

NEW BLOG LOCATION! (AND NEW WEBSITE!)

2007-01-31T09:23:00.000-06:00

January 31, 2007

NEW BLOG LOCATION! (AND NEW WEBSITE!)
The Wisdom Sparks Blog has been moved to www.PhiredUp.com

Phired Up Productions is proud to announce the launch of their newly formatted website at www.PhiredUp.com.

The new site includes an internal blog where you can find regularly updated recruitment tips and tactics to help all membership organizations (but especially fraternities and sororities) recruit a higher quantity of higher quality members.

The site also features some free resources, which at the time of the launch, included several articles on recruitment, a Names List database tool, and free access to the company’s proprietary Phi Mountain strategic planning system.

Phired Up Productions is proud to be the provider of Dynamic Recruitment education and resources to membership organizations around the United States. Also from Phired Up, be sure to check out Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for Fraternity Recruitment.
We are the recruitment experts.

Rush T-Shirts

2007-01-22T17:55:00.000-06:00

by
Josh Orendi & Matt Mattson

Does your chapter have Rush T-Shirts made every semester?

If so, here are a few quick questions...

How much money do you normally spend on Rush T-Shirts?
How much time do you normally spend trying to think of the coolest idea ever?
How many members have you gotten because of the time and money you've spent on Rush T-Shirts?

The only people you are recruiting
with “cool t-shirts” are screen printers.

It is amazing to look at the creativity, passion and dedication that fraternity/sorority members have for... designing T-shirts. I swear, if we didn't plan events and design T-shirts, I'm not sure Greek Life would even exist. We come up with funny, kitschy, goofy, disgusting, often offensive slogans, logos and themes, but we rarely sit back and examine whether those things actually get any results.

Think of it another way... If you just arrived for your freshman year, and some stranger walked up to you and your parents on campus with a shirt that had the word "RUSH" paired with letters from some foreign language on the front, and on the back of their shirt was some risqué slogan that is demeaning to women or sexually suggestive, would you be super excited to pledge your life to him? Probably not.

Your Rush T-shirts belong in the SOCIAL BUDGET. The recruitment budget should be reserved for “results producing activities.” Nobody joins because of a Rush T-shirt. Let’s be honest, the shirts are more for the members than they are for the prospects. Become obsessed with focusing your dollars and energy on “results producing activities.” And if you do make T-Shirts, remember that your Grandma will probably see it someday, and if she doesn't, 30 years from now your 14-year-old daughter will run across a picture of you in it. Just something to think about.

MGCA Article (and GET READY FOR REGIONALS)

2007-01-22T09:58:00.000-06:00

by
Matt Mattson

As the Spring approaches for fraternity and sorority leaders, the best of the best start thinking about gathering with their peers at fancy hotels to network and learn together during regional Greek leadership conferences.

Have you never been to MGCA, NGLA, SEIFC, SEPC, WRGLC, SGLC? If you don't know what those letters stand for, be sure to ask a Fraternity/Sorority Professional near you, or check out the links below. Those regional conferences can be an awesome way to get some of the best recruitment and leadership training available in the country for Greeks. Plus, Phired Up will be represented at MGCA, NGLA, and WRGLC this year!

But before you check out those conferences, check out the great articles in MGCA CONNECTIONS, the newsletter of the Mid-American Greek Council Association. Phired Up is featured in an article alongside several other great articles about recruitment for both fraternities and sororities. Enjoy!

Plan to attend the regional conference near you:

MGCA
WRGLC
NGLA
SEIFC
SEPC
SGLC (not yet updated for 2007)

A Day to Consider Values & Dreams

2007-01-15T11:52:00.000-06:00

by
Matt Mattson

Today is the day set aside on the calendar to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thinking back about what I know of Dr. King, and because I was sitting here wondering how that ties into fraternity/sorority recruitment -- so I'd have something to blog about today, I'm immediately drawn to two concepts: VALUES and DREAMS.

We talk about values a lot in the Greek world. We talk about values a lot. Some committed fraternity/sorority members truly take that talk seriously, and they try to walk the walk. Unfortunately, there is one area of fraternity/sorority life in which values are often forgotten: recruitment. This happens in two ways, 1) Big Rush Events that do not represent core values, and 2) Offering a life-long commitment of sisterhood or brotherhood to strangers based on minimal information or mutual commitment.

When selecting members, does your chapter have a set of values-based selection criteria? Or, to take another approach, does your chapter require an, clear commitment from each new member that they understand before joining?

Martin Luther King also demonstrated for the world the importance of a DREAM. Consider that the dream that King spoke of in that famous "I Have a Dream" speech was a dream to utterly change the world. This wasn't a goal, a benchmark or even a vision. This was a dream. At the time it was wild, it was extreme, and it was revolutionary. But because that dream was so big... the obstacles, challenges, and sometimes horrible pain that stood in the way of achieving that dream didn't matter to those that believed. Consider how easy it would have been to use all those obstacles as excuses for why King and other leaders just couldn't recruit enough members into the movement. But he chose to make the dream so big, that the challenges seemed inconsequential.

Do you have a dream that you're leading your organizational members toward?

I realize that equating the Civil Rights Movement with fraternity/sorority recruitment may seem a bit of a stretch -- even silly. But consider for a moment the way in which involvement in an organization like yours can literally change a person's life. Consider the power of a shared commitment to truly live by a stated set of core values which instruct you to be honest, loving, caring and giving. Consider that this is all Dr. King ever asked of us.

Maybe they are two different things, but the fraternity/sorority world can learn a lot from the challenges and successes of the Civil Rights Movement, and from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you have never seen the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, it is one of the most moving pieces of video that I know of. Watch it.

Focus on the Basics - People & Purpose

2007-01-11T08:21:00.000-06:00

By
Josh Orendi

So here's the thing... Chapter leaders often spend countless hours working to resolve problems associated with finances, housing, alumni, university relations, apathy, risk management, retention, poor leadership, time management, diversity, stereotypes, etc.

Many of these issues are big problems that take big efforts to dent, let alone fix. Investing your time fixing these problems makes as much sense as putting $1,700 rims on a 1996 Dodge Neon. The problem isn't your wheels, it's your car!

The #1 thing YOU can do to solve all these problems and aid the long term success of your chapter is ... (drum roll please) ... replace yourself! Look at your list of problems and ask yourself which ones would begin to take care of themselves if your chapter had significantly more leaders who were your level of quality and above. The answer: All of them.

See, there are only 2 priorities that strong leaders need to focus on to make their organizations great. People & Purpose. Everything (yes, everything) comes after that.

Take personal ownership in recruitment by replacing yourself at least 5 times before you graduate (That's what I call leaving a legacy). The second part is appointing yourself as the man who will force powerful conversations about your organization's Purpose every chance he gets (if you need help, consult your ritual book). Organizations obsessed with their purpose produce remarkable people and do remarkable things.

Keep it simple. People & Purpose. Think about it.

Facebook Recruiting

2007-01-08T10:42:00.000-06:00

by Matt Mattson

While delivering training this weekend, I heard two real-life examples from undergraduates about how they've used Facebook to aid in their fraternity recruitment efforts.

Example 1: Relationship Maintenance
The Grand Valley State University Alpha Sigma Phi chapter (yes, my alma mater) is using Facebook to maintain relationships with about 13 or so freshman prospects that they met during the fall (because campus policy prohibits first semester freshmen from joining). The chapter started a Facebook group called "Alpha Sig Winter Recruitment 2007," and they've done some pretty smart things there. On the discussion board they've been brave enough to post their chapter's goals for the year in an effort to not only show what they've done in the past, but what they're looking for help with. That was smart! This group of Alpha Sigs also invited not only potential new members to join their Facebook group, but sorority women as well in the hopes that these ladies would bring the men of character that they know along with them. Great job to this chapter -- they've found one way to hold onto relationships despite a deferred recruitment policy on their campus.

Example 2: Growing the Names List
While serving as a facilitator at the Phi Kappa Theta President's Academy in Bloomington, Illinois this weekend I heard a great story from a guy named Brock, the President of PKT's San Diego State chapter. Brock explained to me that before last fall his chapter was 28 guys and in need of more members. Brock spent most of the summer hunting down men on Facebook who were incoming freshmen at SDSU. One way or another he found about 150 of them and befriended them. By starting with a large pool that included the whole freshman class, and focusing on just MEETING these guys, Brock initiated relationships with larger group of men than the chapter has probably ever had show up to a rush event. Largely from Brocks efforts of GROWING HIS NAMES LIST, that Phi Kappa Theta chapter of 28 men recruited 30 new members for the fall semester -- more than doubling the size of the chapter.

Brock added, "The funny thing is that half the guys we ended up with weren't even the guys I was talking to on Facebook -- they were friends of those Facebook contacts."

I think there are a few big lessons that can be pulled from these two stories.

1. Because, "You can't recruit who you don't know," Brock focused on just getting to know as many people as possible. Because he worked on gathering names first, he had more potential for success.

2. The Grand Valley guys used NORMAL means of communication to maintain relationships with their hottest prospects -- they didn't keep these guys around by throwing the biggest or coolest events, they just communicated with them in ways that the prospects were used to communicating.

3. Brock's last statement illustrates that your prospective members can be even better recruiters than your initiated ones if you ask them to be. Encourage your prospects to bring a friend or 10 to your events or activities...

Thanks to the GVSU Alpha Sigs and the SDSU Phi Kaps for these stories.

New Year’s Recruitment Revolutions

2007-01-03T18:37:00.000-06:00

By Matt Mattson

The new year is a time of hope and promise. Many fraternity and sorority chapter leaders are returning from a long break to find a chapter in disarray and in need of some major work. Luckily, it is the new year and everything looks a little more promising in January.

My own chapter has recently declared that they must get ready for a HUGE recruitment class during the Spring of 2007 if they want to survive. It turns out that some of the guys are graduating, and others are inactive… after several semesters of not-so-great recruitment efforts, panic is setting in.

It is in the spirit of hope and panic that I offer these top 10 Tips for IMMEDIATE, SHORT-TERM RECRUITMENT RESULTS for those chapters that are in desperate need of a New Year’s Recruitment Revolution.

IMPORTANT NOTE: these tips are meant to generate short-term results. I
can’t promise long-term results with these tips, and for that matter, you might
risk sacrificing quality if you’re depending on a quick-fix to survive – but
there occasionally comes a time when caution is thrown to the wind and
desperation rules the day. So, good luck.

Top 10 Tips for Immediate, Short-Term Recruitment Results

1. Don’t Sacrifice Your Values. Many chapters that are motivated by survival easily toss their values out the door in favor of numbers. Don’t do that. A chapter of 100 idiots is much worse than a chapter consisting of 8 decent men. Be sure you determine measurable values-based selection criteria to screen men. Hopefully by the time you follow the other 9 tips below, you’ll have more than 5 guys to choose from.

2. “Quality” is Not a Valid Excuse. It is a mediocre chapter that says, “We didn’t get enough guys because we put quality before quantity.” If you’re using that excuse, you just didn’t have enough people to choose from to begin with. Trust us, there are enough potential members on your campus of your caliber or better to quadruple the size of your chapter. You just have to meet more people from which to choose. So, start by meeting as many people as you can. No kidding. Meet thousands of people. Your recruitment goal shouldn’t be to recruit 20 guys this semester – it should be to meet 5,000 men and choose the best from among them.

3. Be Unique. Inevitably your chapter will probably choose a theme or a catchy catch-phrase for marketing purposes (even if we advise against it you’ll do it anyway). If this is something you must do, think about how you can position your organization to actually be different from the others on campus. Not just a slight variation on the basic frat theme. Not just the funniest play-on-words that you can fit on a t-shirt. Actually position yourself with a simple, clear, easy-to-understand message that communicates that your organization is different from other fraternities on campus – heck, I’ve even advised groups to not call themselves a fraternity and actually BE something different. But that might be a stretch for short-term results. Identify the UNIQUE value that your chapter offers to its membership (and here’s a hint – you DON’T have the tightest brotherhood on campus because that’s what everyone says, DON’T use your national catch phrases like “To Better the Man,” or “We’re Balanced Men,” and leadership, scholarship and service are not unique.) Think hard on this one. Differentiate yourselves.

4. Do It Yourself. Guess what… if you want to quickly turnaround your chapter, you’re not going to have time to motivate the slugs with the spit-cups at the back of the meeting to do their part. It is up to you. Choose to start the revolution yourself. Revolutions don’t normally get passed by committees – they’re started by wild, independent, brave do-ers and the people who are smart enough to come along for the ride. Leave everyone else in the dust. Do the work yourself, and engage anyone who is open to dramatic improvement and dream realization.

5. Names, Names, Names. As we mentioned, don’t set a goal for x many new members. Set a goal to see how many people you can meet in the shortest period of time. You can’t recruit who you don’t know, so you’ve got to start there. Do marketing efforts and events ONLY IF THEY GENERATE A LOT OF NAMES. Taking 4 guys to Hooters doesn’t get you more names – it just gives your four names a boring stereotypical view of your chapter. Do things that generate names. Keep a simple spreadsheet of names (you could call it a “Names List,” and record which brother met them, their contact info, and anything else you know about the. Try these ideas for getting names:

A raffle.
A scholarship.
A new club.
A petition for better
organizations.
A political rally.
A big service event.
“15 Minutes on
the Quad” (between class periods, fan out across the quad on campus and just
introduce yourself to people – see tip 6 for something to talk about)
“5 for 5” (go out to meet 5 new people a day for 5 days straight – and get others to
join you in the challenge)
Referrals from profs, sororities, friends, R.A.’s,
coaches, campus religious leaders, volunteer centers, other organizations and
organization leaders, your office of Greek life, etc.
(If you’ve read Good Guys, see the section on the 6 Cylinders)

6. Give Something Away. Often, if I’m making a cold-call when doing sales work, I like to open by saying, “One of the reasons I’m contacting you is to make sure you’re aware of this great resource…” It works every time. What can you give away that is of value to others so that you have something easy to talk with them about. Maybe the chapter is having an event that you want to make sure everyone’s aware of. Maybe the chapter is organizing a weekly study night / poker night / bean bag game / basketball tournament / memorial ceremony / philosophy discussion. Maybe the chapter is raising money for charity and giving away a prize. Maybe the chapter is looking for volunteers to serve on a focus group that is evaluating campus life (or fraternity life). Give something away. It makes it easier to talk with people.

7. Do what has ACTUALLY worked before. Often when given this simple piece of advice, chapters will plan to do some big event that they had fun with before. Just because it was fun or seemed cool doesn’t mean it actually drove results. And remember, the most important results are NAMES – you can’t recruit who you don’t know. Think back to what you’ve done before and do the things that have actually driven potential members’ names to a list from which you could choose.

8. Do Something Other than a Rush Event. All frats do rush events. Are you just another frat? If not, do something different than what they do. Do brotherhood or service or social events that you can bring dozens or hundreds of prospective members to. Heck, I’d recommend not doing events at all – they’re often a waste of time and really expensive, but if you’re going to do them anyway, don’t do RUSH events. If you are brave enough to avoid events, try doing normal people activities (lunch, work out, hang out, watch basketball, etc.). After all, it is important that you know that normal people (non-Greeks) are afraid of RUSH events.

9. Ask For Help. “Hi there volunteer club thanks for letting me talk to you for a few minutes, my name is Matt and I’m a member of XYZ fraternity. We realize that the fraternity system here is not great, and because of that many of you aren’t a part of it. We want to change that. In fact, we want to change everything about the fraternity system and to do that we need better men to lead that effort. We need men better than us. We need men like you who do… blah blah blah. All we’re asking is for a chance to talk with you or your friends about a pretty amazing opportunity – to revolutionize the way fraternities are seen on this campus. We’ll even buy you lunch.” Imagine a scene like that at every major organization on campus and with every professor you know, and with every administrator you know… It will work.

10. Be Brave. How many people have never joined your chapter because you never asked them? How many people have never joined because you never even bothered to meet them? Be brave. Step outside of your comfort zone for 2 or 3 weeks and give people the chance to have the life-changing experience you’re having in the Greek World. You’re doing them a favor. Be brave enough to offer a great gift to others.

Bonus tip #11: Have Multiple New Member Classes. This is a no-brainer to me, but not to everyone else. Why try to do it all in a couple of weeks at the beginning of the semester. Have rolling new member classes that start and end whenever they need to.

Good luck!

Recruitment Resources (Happy New Year!)

2007-01-03T12:02:00.000-06:00

Josh Orendi, COO of Phired Up, posted this on our FaceBook Recruitment Group, and I (Matt) thought it was worth a full blog post. There are some great resources listed below. As you begin this new year, hopefully you'll resolve to revolutionize the recruitment practices of all the membership organizations to which you belong. Enjoy!

NEW RECRUITMENT RESOURCE: First of all, you've gotta check this out. TKE has a new podcast series out that is excellent. Here's the link: http://www.tke.org/teke_speak/

PROGRAMS:

Dynamic Recruitment Workshop, Phired Up Productions
Recruitment Bootcamp, Campuspeak
NIC offers limited recruitment programming/resources
Most national fraternities offer a recruitment college, regional symposium, recruitment track during a conference, or similar.
Regional interfraternity conferences usually offer recruitment tracks (e.g. MGCA, NGLA, WRGLC, SEIFC)

BOOKS

Good Guys, The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for Fraternity Recruitment. (Mattson & Orendi)
Dynamic Recruitment Workbook (Orendi & Mattson)
How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie)
Purple Cow (Godin)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey)
Remember Every Name, Every Time (Levy)
The Fine Art of Small Talk (Fine)
How to Start a Conversation and Win Friends (Gabor)
100 Ways to Motivate Yourself/Others (Chandler)

PEOPLE

Director of Expansion for your fraternity. This person or someone with a similar title is the recruitment guru of your organization and charged with recruiting brand new chapters from scratch. Give him a call.
Alumni ... especially those in sales can provide great insight, training, and/or mentoring.
Greek Advisor. Your school has a person on staff responsible for overseeing/supporting Greek Life. This person can be a wealth of recruitment knowledge or at least point you to someone who is.
Recruitment Advisor. Most sororities and many fraternities have a designated person with a volunteer position designed to provide your chapter with recruitment support. Use this person.

PARTNERS

Niche Department. If you are a fraternity with a niche (engineers, catholics, sports, music, business, etc), build a collaborative partnership with the school's department.
Niche Organizations. Use other groups that share your niche to build inroads and create pipelines to fill your names list. For example AGR might use FFA, SAM might use hillel, PMA might use the band/chorus, etc.

OTHER

Student Groups. Other student groups are successfully recruiting 2 - 10 time more members than your chapter. What results producing activities can you learn from them?
Fraternities. Most fraternities are more than willing to collaborate and share ideas ... but only if you ask. Find out what the top recruiting fraternities on your campus are doing.
Community Groups. The community is full of membership organizations such as civic groups, fraternal orders, congregations, chambers, lodges, etc. These member groups are dependent upon recruitment the same way you are. What can you learn from their best practices? (ask them)

Here are several strong national fraternity website links with great recruitment information that members of ANY fraternity can use:

Phi Delta Thetahttp://www.areyoualeader.com/
Tau Kappa Epsilonhttp://www.tke.org/member_resources/recr
uitment/
Sigma Phi Epsilonhttp://www.sigep.org/recruitment/default
.asp http://www.sigep.org/recruitment/resourc
es.asp
Beta Theta Phihttp://www.betathetapi.org/index.php?opt
ion=com_content&task=view&id=121&Itemid=
159
Lambda Chi Alphahttp://www.crossandcrescent.com/2006/03/
recruitment-trends/http://www.fraternitymanuals.com/index.p
hp?title=Lambda_Chi_Alpha/Recruitment_Ch
airman

Last Minute Gift Ideas...

2006-12-19T14:20:00.000-06:00

Got someone in your life who needs a little recruitment inspiration?

Do you have a new year's resolution to read for just a few minutes a day?

Are you one of the far too few people in the world that understands that you can gain a lifetime of wisdom by reading a few pages a day?

Check out these books if you want to drive your recruitment results to a whole new level.

Becoming a recruiter with the necessary wisdom to get results takes a commitment to seeking out knowledge from beyond your normal circles, and considering how it applies to your needs. It is equally important to TEACH and USE these learned principles and techniques. The wisdom gained immediately begins to transform you and your chapter.

We have become successful business owners, consultants and authors due mostly to the fact that we read the words of people smarter than us as often as possible.

Recommended Books to Spark Recruitment Results:

Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for Fraternity Recruitment

Matt Mattson & Josh Orendi

How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie

7 Habits of Highly Successful People
Stephen Covey

The Magic of Thinking Big
David Schwartz

Remember Every Name, Every Time
Benjamin Levy

The Fine Art of Small Talk
Debra Fine

The Art of Possibility
Zander & Zander

Good to Great
Jim Collins

The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz

The Sky is Not the Limit. You Are.
Bob Davies, M.S.

You Can Make It Happen
Stedman Graham

Secrets of Closing the Sale
Zig Ziglar

The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell

21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Maxwell & Ziglar

Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill

Purple Cow
Seth Godin

If you don't want to be "just another frat..."

2006-12-18T09:57:00.000-06:00

[Note: This is as true for women's groups as it is for men's -- that goes for almost everything on this blog!]

There's a line in one of my fraternity's old songs that claims that Alpha Sigma Phi is "Better Than The Rest!" No doubt your fraternity or sorority has a similar line in one of its songs, chants or cheers. As an organization, we cling onto that line and we truly try to believe it. I think most of my brothers around the country would claim that their chapter is truly "better than the rest" of the organizations on their campus.

Of course, from having spoken to members of nearly every inter/national fraternity and sorority, I know that almost ALL members will claim that their chapter has the tightest bonds of brother/sisterhood, and they're the coolest people on campus, but that's beside the point.

Whenever I'm consulting with one of my undergraduate brothers, I'll ask them how much it matters to them that they're better than the rest. They'll usually respond that it is important, and that they truly believe that statement. Then, I'll go on to ask them what they think their chapter's founding brothers wanted more than anything when they founded the chapter. You know what the answer always is?

"We started our chapter to be DIFFERENT and BETTER than all the other chapters on this campus. We started because our founders weren't satisfied with all the frats here, and we knew we could be different and better than all of them."

Does that sound familiar to you? Is that why your chapter was founded? For that matter, is that why your inter/national organization was founded? (That's why my fraternity was founded 161 years ago at Yale University, and I'll bet yours has a similar story).

If you were founded to be different and better... In fact, if you still believe that your chapter can and should be different and better than the rest of the chapters on your campus... I have one question for you.

Why do you recruit just like the other chapters on your campus?

If you want to be different, you've got to be different. If you want to be better, you can't just modify an already lackluster modus operandi and expect dramatically different and better results. You have to DO THINGS dramatically different and better. This is especially true for recruitment -- the one task that leads to almost all of the results your chapter achieves.

Evaluate your recruitment practices. Look for anything that looks similar to what the other chapters on your campus are doing. Once you've identified those things, promise never to do them again. You already know that they don't work that well. You already know the results you'll continue to get if you keep doing them. Literally stop doing the same stuff the other chapters on your campus are doing.

If you want to be different, be different. If you want to be better, don't do what they do -- be remarkable.

I learned this lesson from working with new interest groups and colonies when I was Director of Expansion for my national office. I'd watch a small group of guys who were determined to be different and better quickly meld into mediocrity by assuming that they had to do things (especially recruitment) similarly to the way other chapters were. It is our nature to just mimic what we see around us, but if we want to be GREAT, we have to give up being GOOD.

Be different. Be better. Be great.

The Greatest Gift

2006-12-13T08:31:00.000-06:00

If you've ever been around Josh Orendi during a Phired Up program, you've no doubt heard him say something along the lines of, "Love your organization enough to give it away." He's constantly spouting off that line, and for good reason.

We hear stories all the time of men and women who say their fraternity/sorority literally changed their lives... in some cases, saved their lives. At least half of the Greeks we talk to tell us that they love their organization -- that it means the world to them. So, we like to ask, "What gifts of appreciation have you given to your organization." Immediately the responses will flow in about time, passion, energy, heart and soul, hard work, and creativity. These gifts are a wonderful way to "repay" your organization for what it has given you, but there is something that would make an even better gift.

"If you truly love me, you'll let me go," you might hear a Hollywood damsel overdramatically state in some sappy chick flick. It's a stretch I know, but imagine your organization saying that to you. That's what it really wants, ya know. To be given away. If you truly love your organization, give it the gift it deserves... give it away to others.

Fraternity/sorority professionals (like us) talk all the time about the values in our organizations' rituals. We talk about "living your ritual," and that's what will make the organization strong. I agree with that, but I think we sometimes forget that somewhere in our ritualistic materials (even if it isn't written in secret esoteric language on your badge or pledge pin), our rituals tell us to not only live our PURPOSE, but also to GROW the organization.

Think about that for a second...

Even the best of our chapters around the country -- those that teach their members to live their values -- don't bother teaching them the most important thing about being a member: how to recruit other members. The ONE thing that keeps your organization alive, and the ONE thing that your founders truly ask of you is to recruit and recruit well.

Love your organization enough to give it away. If you're not recruiting really well, and working hard to improve your ability to do so, you're not living up to the commitment you've made to your founders, and you're keeping the ultimate gift from the organization that has given you so much.

Just do regular stuff...

2006-12-11T08:59:00.000-06:00

I find myself giving that advice a lot when working with fraternity and sorority members. When it comes to recruitment, 99 times out of 100 we overcomplicate the matter.

When we want to meet people, we feel like we have to roast a pig or put on a skit. When we want to get to know someone, we feel like we have to go play paintball or follow intricately detailed policies and procedures.

"Just do regular stuff! Do normal things that normal people would do." That is typically my number one piece of advice when it comes to the BEST way to get better results from your recruitment efforts.

What it really comes down to is, NON-GREEKS ARE AFRAID OF FRATERNITY/SORORITY RUSH EVENTS. No kidding. They're terrified. They have no idea what a "rush event" is (does that term really even make sense to you?), and if they do know what a rush event is, why would they want to come see a group of strangers in a strange place doing abnormal activities? Especially considering the fact that all they've heard about fraternities and sororities is the bad stuff.

Simple pieces of advice:
1. Non-Greeks are afraid of rush events
2. So please don't depend on rush events to fill your membership
3. Because the people you want aren't showing up at your events
4. Instead... do normal, everyday things... be normal (strange advice, I know).

Normal things to develop relationships with prospective members:
Go to lunch, grab some coffee, study together, go work out together, go to the bar together, order pizza, watch the game, have girl talk, play IM sports, hang out after class, work on a volunteer project together, play video games, go shopping, go to a movie.

Don't scare them away... Have fun.

Tiny Programming Budget? 10 Ways to Improve Recruitment ANYWAY!

2006-12-06T08:36:00.000-06:00

Are you a campus professional who struggles to provide high quality programming because your budget is limited?

One thing that Phired Up has always been proud of is our ability to work with our customers' budgets. But sometimes we know it is just impossible to bring in training or consultation because you have essentially a $0 budget. We get that, and honestly, we still want to help.

With a little creativity and awareness of resources, even a ridiculously low budget can have a big budget impact.

Here are are 10 tips:

1. Finally something on facebook you can promote. Connect students with the group: Recruitment Ideas & Success Stories. There are great tips and a network forming to innovate and revolutionize recruitment one 'poke' at a time.

2. Leverage the expertise of chapter alumni advisors and university professionals -- especially those in admissions, sales, marketing, etc. Ask them to do presentations or programs, or better yet... ask them to serve as coaches and mentors to your recruitment leaders.

3. Give National HQ Consultants the Stage. A consultant can offer qualified training with a relatable face. Partner with them to offer Greek-wide programming.

4. Let them read it. The book Good Guys is available for as little as $12 in electronic format and bulk order discounts apply for paperback versions. Give every chapter a copy. Start small discussion groups. Coach your leaders based on the concepts in the book.

5. Go to Nationalz! Nearly every national fraternity and sorority offers a low/no cost recruitment track at regional and national conferences. Send your students. Get them thinking about it early so they can plan ahead.

6. Cross-train. Get your men involved in sorority recruitment. They'll walk away with a whole new appreciation for organizing formal recruitment. And vice-versa... challenge your women to consider what they can adapt from the men's methods.

7. The regional conferences keep getting better. Invest in sending your rock stars and rising new members to regional conferences such as NGLA, MGCA, SEIFC, WRGLC, etc.

8. Resources from NIC/NPC/NPHC/NALFO, etc. National governing organizations offer low/no cost resources for recruitment growth. Call your area representative or the national office for details.

9. Broaden your budget. Did you know recruitment/organizational growth programs such as Phired Up's Dynamic Recruitment Workshop can be offered to ALL STUDENT GROUPS? This allows you to pull from non-Greek budgets such as student activities.

10. Partner with local schools. If you have your eye on a program/speaker, you can often request a significant discount by doing a little leg work. Give the company multiple dates at area schools or bring students from multiple schools together to cut costs.

Motivation Fuel

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A great business leader spoke before an arena full of colleagues. He was asked, “What is your #1 responsibility?” He answered, “To fuel the dreams of the people in my organization.” A confused hush fell over the crowd. Surely an organizational leader must focus first on management responsibilities. They asked, “What about sales, training, marketing, board develoent, mission statements….” He abruptly stopped the conversation and said, “If a man’s dream is big enough, the facts don’t count!” In other words, a man who knows why he is doing a task doesn’t need to be managed. He will find a way to achieve his goals.

Lead your chapter by becoming the dream-builder for your organization. Effective leaders leverage the motivating desires of their members and chapter. Below is a meaningful exercise you can do formally or informally with the brothers of your chapter to better understand their individual and collective desires.

Dream Building: Have – Do – Become

Fold a piece of paper into three equal parts. Write the words Have, Do, and Become separately at the top of each column. Now, think about the chapter at its best. Get a mental picture of the chapter as you want it to be – when it’s at its maximum size with only the highest quality members who are deeply involved. Take 90 seconds and, without stopping, write down all the things you can imagine the chapter “having.” These should be possessions… things you could touch… wonderful things that exist beyond your present reality.

At the end of 90 seconds stop and move to the next column. Repeat the same exercise thinking specifically about what you and your chapter members could “do” in a perfect scenario. What actions, adventures, good deeds, fun times, or activities would you do if there were no boundaries on the possibilities?

Finally, move to the last column for 90 seconds. Consider what members of your chapter will “become” as a result of joining your organization when the chapter is at its best. Describe their character, personality, or any intangible quality of the man/woman.

Dream building should be one of your first steps when it comes to recruitment... not goal setting, that comes much later. First, build a dream that truly motivates you and fellow members to do the hard work it will take to make your chapter remarkable.

What drives your "bottom line?"

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Results. That's what people tell us that they want help getting. People want results. National headquarters want results, campus IFC's and Greek Councils want results, and chapters want results. That's why we get hired, and people expect that we'll help them get those results.

But what results is your organization looking for? For a fraternity or sorority, what is your BOTTOM LINE?

In the business world, the bottom line is easily defined. The bigger the profits (income minus expenses), the better the bottom line. It is a simple dollars and cents math equation.

In the non-profit world, it is a little harder to define, but for most non-profit organizations their bottom line is defined by maximum human impact (lives saved, diseases cured, people fed, etc.) for minimum cost.

But what about for fraternities and sororities? What is the bottom line for TKE, Alpha Kappa Psi, Delta Zeta, Alpha Sigma Phi, or AOPi? Is it measured in service hours? Is it measured in philanthropic dollars raised? Is it measured in amount of people who come to party minus amount of people who go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning? Is it quantity of members? Is it quality of members?

It is the last two questions above that strike up the biggest debates within the organizations we have worked with. Almost every undergraduate tells us that "quality is more important than quantity." But if you're an organization full of QUALITY members, but you only have 2 members, are you a successful organization? And how do you determine what quality is? Is it more than just a 'Good Guy' or a Great Sister?

Tough questions.

My recommendation is to first answer the question, "What is our organization's bottom line?" Most fraternities and sororities that we've worked with have forgotten the very essence of their organization. What is it they are trying to accomplish? What does success look like. And please don't toss out your memorized catch phrases that are found on your t-shirts and pledge manuals. Genuinely answer the question, "What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we know we're successful?"

We talk a lot about the fact that you don't need to choose between quantity and quality of members. You can have both. In fact, we believe that quantity (# of prospects) drives quality. Essentially, the more people you have to choose from, the higher quality your average member will be (of course that depends upon you having a good membership selection process.) It is important to remember though that your organization, like a business, should measure its success and must know what success looks like.

When it comes to recruitment, what is your bottom line?

To answer this question, start by building a dream. We'll talk about this more in another post, but once you know what your organization wants to accomplish, you can work back from there to determine the best quantity of a specified quality of member that will get you to your dream.

You Can't Recruit Who You Don't Know

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As fraternity and sorority members, we often talk about how “Recruitment is the lifeblood of the organization,” and “We have to recruit 24/7,” but when it comes down to doing the work of recruitment, we often fall short. Doing year-round recruitment is a hard task, and sounds exhausting for those of us who have planned recruitment events before. So, here are a few tips to make year-round recruitment a much more manageable task.

Tip #1: Cure Your Disease.
Many fraternities and sororities have a nasty disease that can be hard to cure, and that often prevents them from doing effective year-round recruitment. The name of that disease: Eventitis. Eventitis is a disease that has spread to almost every chapter. It makes all the members believe that they have to spend a lot of money and time on planning a big event in order to make friends. The thought of having to put on big events every week to keep recruitment going year-round is daunting. There is good news though – the cure for Eventitis is Doing Small Activities. Normal people (non-Greeks) make friends by doing simple, small activities together (e.g. lunch, coffee, work out, hang out, etc.). Recruit people by doing normal-people-activities, and don’t put so much pressure on yourself to have big events all the time.

Tip #2: People Don’t Join Organizations.
It’s true. People don’t join organizations. People join people. Be honest, did you join a set of ideals, a calendar of activities, and a bunch of great T-shirts? Or did you join a group of people based on your relationships with one or two of the members? Most people can pinpoint the one person who recruited them into the organization. If we know this, we can focus our time on building one-on-one relationships, and not “selling the organization.” People are going to join your fraternity or sorority because of their personal relationship with you, so don’t spend your time, energy and money on cool t-shirts, barbecues, parties, or events; go out and make as many acquaintances and friends as possible, and watch them turn into members.

Tip #3: You Can’t Recruit Who You Don’t Know.
It is a simple concept. You really can’t recruit who you don’t know. So, if you want to build a successful year round recruitment process, the first step is NOT to hold big events, make T-shirts or plan for house rotations. The first step is to get to know (just meet) as many people as you possibly can.

With that in mind, build your year-round recruitment plan so that your members are constantly collecting names and putting them on a Names List. For many chapters, the quality of their members is as important as the quantity of members they have. Tip #3 suggests that Quantity drives Quality. In other words, the more names you have on your names list, the more people you’ll have to choose from, and the more likely you are to get high quality members.

Reference:
Mattson, M. & Orendi J. (2006). Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for Fraternity Recruitment. Phired Up Productions, LLC. Naperville, Ill.

Welcome to Wisdom Sparks

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Wisdom Sparks is your source for discussing values-based recruitment into membership organizations. Welcome.

This blog is published and maintained by the staff of Phired Up Productions, LLC (www.PhiredUp.com). We hope to offer valuable, practical insights to help groups like fraternities, sororities, and other organizations that can benefit from leading-edge recruitment strategies.

Some authors you might hear from include:

Matt Mattson is co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Performance Consultant for Phired Up Productions. Leveraging a Master's in Education with a specialization in Training and Performance Improvement along with a background in public relations, collegiate admissions, fraternity expansion, human performance improvement, and non-profit leadership education, Matt combines his passion for Wisdom with a firm sense of integrity to effectively inspire thousands of organizational members toward their pinnacle of achievement. Matt is the co-author of Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for College Fraternities.

Josh Orendi is co-founder, Chief Operations Officer, and Performance Consultant for Phired Up Productions. Applying successful backgrounds in business-networking, non-profit expansion, corporate management, and executive recruitment, he delivers a fun, demanding style of training, consulting and facilitating that empowers individuals with the belief and skill necessary for achieving limitless possibilities. Josh is the co-author of Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for College Fraternities.

Colleen Coffey brings the Phired Up team a dynamic perspective on recruitment and organizational culture. As a performance consultant for Phired Up, she is a skilled presenter and consultant with professional experience working with college students and an extensive knowledge base in the area of sorority recruitment. Colleen has a Bachelor of Social Work from Belmont University and will graduate from Eastern Illinois University with a Master’s Degree in College Student Affairs in May 2006 having completed research on organizational recruitment and program evaluation.

We look forward to learning along with you.

For more information on Phired Up Productions, visit our website.