In this video and blog post I want to talk to you about the topic, how to use High Trust Selling in recruiting. This is a specific video for branch managers and above that find themselves right now needing to have a robust recruiting plan. And I might add to that, a robust retention plan. So what I tell branch managers and up all the time is that recruiting has to be a cultural activity that you involve yourself in on a regular basis.
Here’s the pain that I feel the market has right now. We don’t know basically how to recruit the right way. We don’t know how to ask the questions we’ve never asked. So there can be a massive differentiation between the current person, this person reports to, and you. We oftentimes don’t have a follow-up plan that is uniquely oriented around adding massive value that they are not getting from their current manager and company.
Asking The Right Interview Questions
Most often, we don’t have the right interviewing process so that we can really, really learn what people are looking for so that we can offer something that they’re not getting. So in this blog post and video, I’m going to talk about things that you can do to solve that. And I have to remind you that I’m coming off of a call with 36 of our top leaders. They’re all branch managers and above running branches and running teams. And even today we talked about recruiting and retention using the High Trust model. So the very first thing in the High Trust model is called The Approach. And The Approach is how to add value to a targeted person and set an appointment. And so right now in today’s market, you’ve got to come up with the ideas that can make a difference today in that first impression. Right? So no matter where I get the name, from my own intel, from my internal recruiting team, or maybe a title partner, an MI company, whomever it might be, I want a first impression to be off the grid, particularly in today’s market.
How to Be Memorable in Your Recruiting Efforts
So in the normal world, which you’re not in right now, what that used to look like and can look like is something that you find super, super valuable that you could send to them that would be something that every time they see it, they would think of you. Okay? So I’ll give you a couple of examples. So one time I had a conversation going on with somebody I wanted to do business with, and I was having a conversation and the words that were mention in response to like, what do you need that you don’t have right now? That was the question, what do you need that you don’t have right now? And the answer was a crystal ball. Okay. And so I kind of jokingly played along with that, but then I realized that if I sent this person a crystal ball and a nice letter and a nice maybe package or something along those lines, then I could really have a powerful opportunity to follow up often.
How are you and your crystal ball doing? Okay. Because every time they see the crystal ball, they’re thinking this guy or gal, I don’t work for, I have something on my desk that reminds me of them every day. And the guy or gal I do work for has never even asked me if I need a crystal ball or what I need, you know? And it’s like that kind of thing that you just go, wow. Today I am sending out a $200 three-inch high and an inch and a half around square crystal that has a hologram golfer in the middle of that crystal. And the reason I’m sending it out is because the individual that I’m sending it to, I want to deepen my relationship with this individual so that he will do more business with our company. So I figured since I know that he is a passionate golfer, that if I send this to him, he’s going to put it somewhere where he sees it, because that’s what golfers do.
And every time he sees it, he’s going to think of me. So that’s the first thing. You got to do something or send something. I could ask a title rep, what is this guy at ABC mortgage like to do? And if he says he loves to play tennis, then maybe I could send something that has to do with tennis. It’s even just beyond business. Or what if this person says he loves auto racing or whatever it is, or what if she says that I love art, whatever it is, right? So we’ve got to be really unique and different. Here’s the second thing. Most people are open to a transition now more than ever, even though we’re in a volatile economy, right? And the reason for it is we’ve come off a refi high, we have a reset going on right now with interest rates.
Asking Questions Others Don’t
And we know right now that as interest rates rise, people are going to be looking for new and unique solutions to how they do business. And so this is on you to figure out what your capabilities are and your liabilities are around what you can offer. But what I have found, and I think this is gold. If I could ask questions that their branch manager isn’t asking so that I could learn things that their branch manager doesn’t know, so then I could offer things that their branch manager’s not offering, that alone could get them to move. I’m not going to go down the path of signing bonuses. I’m not going to go down that path. I mean, signing bonuses costs somehow some way or another… I’m going to look at what is your life and professional experience and how can we improve those? And so when I ask the questions that their manager doesn’t ask, it’s like, I would come to that person maybe on a follow-up call after the golf piece, hey, John, it’s Tod over at blah, blah, blah.
I hope you’re enjoying your golf hologram. Ron told me that you’re an avid golfer. I got a question for you that I was chatting with Ron about, do you have 60 seconds where I could ask it? And let’s just say, he says yes. And I’m going to go, what do you see you needing for your business in the next one to two years to help it perform and accelerate that right now, you don’t have? So here’s what I know and I’m going to say this very simply, we’ve all been guilty of taking relationships for granted, loan officers take realtors for granted so they don’t call them as often. We get the top producer on board and then we take that relationship for granted, right? We have business partnerships with people and we start to take that for granted. Even marriages we start to take that for granted. And so branch managers, if they’re not mindful of re-recruiting, which is asking questions they’ve never asked so they can keep the people from going anywhere else because they know what everywhere else doesn’t know, that’s what we’re talking about here.
Re-Recruit Your Current People
So I got two messages. If you’re a manager, you got people, you better be re-recruiting them right now. And you’re a manager and you’re recruiting from the outside to add to your current team. You better ask the same kind of questions, because here’s what happens. Let’s say in that conversation I learned three things. And I say to this person I’ve got a strategy for all three of those things. Could we sit down together so I could show you how this would help you execute a future plan in which you have total confidence and what it means to you economically and emotionally? So I send something to get their attention and then I start to ask questions they’ve never been asked. And then I know where they want to be and their current manager doesn’t know where they want to be.
Building Loyalty Through High Trust
So then I say, I’ve got solutions, which is the top of the pyramid, approach them, interview them, and then offer them something that they’re not getting. That’s how you use High Trust today to recruit. People will never move to you if you use gimmicks, signing bonuses, where you haven’t connected and you haven’t gone deep, okay? Period. And the more loyal they are because of generally the higher performer they are, the less likely they are to move. So you got to do this. You got to get really clear on these questioning processes, right? So if you come to the toddduncan.com website, you can download a document we have that’s called talk less, sell more. It’s written for loan officers and real estate agents, but you can use it exactly, just replace realtor with loan officer and you can use it exactly the same way. Also, download the High Trust interview guide because the High Trust interview guide is the absolute top thing you have to do as a recruiter.
If you don’t know what’s important to them and if you don’t know the top three things they’re looking for and you don’t know their dreams and goals, and you don’t have a lost leads conversation with a loan officer where you can show them how to double or triple their conversion rate, because you know how much money they’re leaving on the table, those are the things you need to do to get people to wake up and go, you know what? I need to work for this guy, because I don’t even work for him right now. Or I don’t even work for her right now and she’s helping me or he’s helping me more than the current person that I work for is helping me. I mean, that’s just how do you ignore that? And in the lost leads’ conversation, it’s like it gets down to what’s their conversion rate. So managers should be tracking how many phone calls their loan officers are having today, and how many of those are converting into real deals into processing.
Create a Culture of Recruiting
And your only goal is to coach your current team on how to get a higher percentage, and your goal in recruiting is to take a look at what their percentage is and show them how to improve it. So if you’re a manager all the way up to CEO and you’re wanting to recruit and even create a culture around recruiting, send this video to everybody on your team. This is a masterclass right here on how to recruit with value, how to recruit in a non-pressurized scenario, and how to recruit intentionally by asking questions that have never been asked. And that becomes the pathway to High Trust recruiting.
We’re excited about seeing some results that you guys achieve as you deploy High Trust recruiting. If you haven’t downloaded that High Trust Interview guide yet, get it for free here. If you have not yet read my High Trust Selling book, you can get that here.
Good luck in your recruiting efforts! Take care.
