The Value Gap

So the big question is this, how do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities, when at this game of recruiting, how do we build a system that allows us to recruit effectively in a minimal amount of time while motivating recruits towards meaningful change? That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Richard Mulligan and welcome. It's recruiting conversations. Welcome back to another recruiting conversations.

It's your host, Richard Mulligan. I'm cutting a podcast today for you, the recruiting leader. Can you feel the love to the microphone? Yes. Lots of love for this audience. I always say this and you've heard me say, if you listen to the podcast much, you recognize this. You have the most difficult job in any business. The recruiting leader does. You're a professional juggler who has a primary responsibility to recruit. Let's go. That's why I'm here to serve this community.

and what we are talking about is, This idea that recruiting is getting easier, more simple, but it's becoming more difficult. And that's an oxymoron, right? It's getting easier, but it's getting harder. It's getting easier for some as becoming more difficult for others. Let me tell you why. We have this aggregation of data. I love that word aggregate. I sound really smart today. I'm an aggregator of conversations. We have this aggregation of data that's taking place in most industries.

And the top salespeople are being reported to different data portals. For example, if you're in the mortgage industry, you're probably familiar with MMI, Modax, Ingenious, CoreLogic, some of these tools that aggregate the data, some of those same tools aggregated for the real estate industry. While there's 316, 000 plus licensed loan officers in the United States, there's about 14, 000 of them. That do almost all the volume.

Okay. There's 14, 000 or so 20 million producers, the mortgage industry. Guess what? Five years ago, six years ago, I didn't know that. Why did not know that? Cause you couldn't aggregate that data. You didn't have access to that data. You have that same information for real estate, for pharmaceuticals, for real estate, for I say real estate for insurance. You just have a number of industries that now have all of this information that's available to recruiters.

To say, instead of taking all of our energy and going at everyone, because we don't know who the producers are, we can now take all of that energy and go to the few, and what's happening is that recruits are becoming numb to this recruiting noise. It's all around them. Go do a LinkedIn search for. Leaders in the mortgage industry alone. Okay. There's approximately 54, 500 leaders by the go by the title of branch manager, area manager, regional manager, and divisional manager.

Go search recruiters for the mortgage industry in LinkedIn. This is just public data, about 6, 800 of them. There's about 54, 500 leaders that recruit 6, 800 recruiters that recruit. And that's just internal. Now go look external. And as you start to actually, this is the multiplier and you go all of that energy. And I'm raising my voice here because this is nuts. All that energy is going towards a handful of producers now.

So at the beginning of the year, 316, 000 plus licensed loan officers, 14, 000 people getting all this energy. Those are the 20 million producers getting all that energy. What does that say? Recruiting is getting more difficult. Recruiting has gotten harder.

Now, what that means for you is that you can't go about recruiting the way that you've been recruiting for most of your career. You literally, if you haven't already pivoted, you've got to pivot. You call me and you say, are you open to a better opportunity? I will say, take me off your call list. In fact, a lot of producers are now texting when they get that call on their cell phone. Hey, missed a call. Who is this? I'll be in meetings for the next hour. I'll call you back.

But once you respond, what's the recruiter going to say? I'm a recruiter trying to get ahold of you talk about my better opportunity. You are not going to get that phone call. So the challenge for you is that recruiting has gotten more difficult because of the data, it hasn't gotten easier. And a lot of people think, Oh, I'm going to go build this awesome spam machine because there's 14, 000 mega producers. I'll just send all my energy towards them. Guess what? Lots of people are doing that.

It was in a conversation yesterday with a leader brought up the name of someone that's been brought up this leader, whoever you are, I won't say your last name. I might say your first name, Eric. This leader has been spamming the heck out of a lot of people. His name's come up multiple times in different conversations. Do you know, so and so I do know so and so not because I coached so and so because so and so comes up regularly in conversation. Guess what? People opt out of that.

You are throwing hand grenades and relationship bridges. Because of these tactics that you're reducing yourself to.

So why recruiting has gotten easier is this, is that in all that noise, it's pretty easy to be different. And so recruiting has gotten more simple. That hadn't gotten more complex. It's gotten more simple. It, it, it's more of what it's always been. It hasn't really changed. What's recruiting? It's relationship building. How do you build relationships? You get people to drop their guard, you build trust with them. How do you do that? You set up some really great scripting.

What does that look like? You're not trying to recruit them. I'm simply trying to build a relationship with you for the future. So if you're willing to say yes to meeting with me, 15 minute meeting over the phone. Here's my promise. If I talk about my company, you can hang up. You've got to have a framework here. And some of that I'm oblivious, but we follow a very defined scripting framework here. Recruiting has gotten easier to stand out. And here's where you really need to stand out.

This is where I'm going in this conversation. You have got to stand out as being viewed as someone who brings me value. Stop creating noise. Start bringing value. What's happening is this. The digital world, because now there's there, do we have these touch points called Facebook messenger, Instagram DMs, LinkedIn, messaging, texting, right? We've always had, we've had voicemail and phone for a long time, but these other areas now, and by the way, the phone is not a phone.

This is a smart device. This smart device has apps on it. The phone is an app on the smart device. You have to see it for what it is today. Texting is an app on the smart device. Instagram is an app on the smart device, Facebook, an app on the smart device. This is not the phone. I got my first cell phone when I was like 25 years old. I think it was a, it was not pretty by the way, it was a flip phone. But now I have 25 plus years . I've had something that was like this device in my hand.

I could walk around with as a phone. It's not that anymore. It's not what it was years ago. It's a smart device. These are apps that people are communicating through all that noise on this machine called smart device. Get all the noise on that machine. It's numbing people to the noise. It's harder to get people to say, yes.

So what do you do? You create a gap of value. No one else is doing this. If you do it, you're going to be an outlier. You're going to be an anomaly. Can you create a gap of value? Bring me value and you'll have a conversation with me. If not today, you will eventually because you're bringing me value. So this gap that you want to create all the other people that are creating the noise and you over here, and you've got, I'm creating my hands. There's a gap in between and it's a growing gap.

And those of you that aren't creating your own gaps are having gaps created on you. Why? Because I'm coaching people that are literally landing the amount of people and the amount of volume, the amount of transactions in recruiting. That most companies would build in 20, 30, 40 years in months. Why? Because they're being seen as persons of value. I'm being seen as a person of value. This podcast is a value. Go to my LinkedIn. I've got some great content there. It's a value.

I write articles for outlets all the time because I want to be a person of value. I'm producing no less than seven to 15 content pieces every single day on four different platforms called social media to be a person of value. Okay. I've got a newsletter. Why? Because I want to be a person of value.

I have had probably no less than seven meetings this week where I spent 30 minutes with people that I've never met before to actually engage them in a recruiting conversation, just to bring them value. There was no hook. There was no ask or invite into my coaching. I want to be a person of value. And because of that, this company grows. Just if you will become a person of value as a recruiting leader, your team will grow. And so recruiting has gotten harder. Recruiting has gotten easier.

It's gotten easier for the people that really want to be people of value versus just trying to hack success. I think what social has done for a season for a lot of people. Is have them believe there's a shortcut to finding great people, to building great relationships and to convincing those people that they're the leader of choice in their market.

And that idea has missed its mark because you might win a few conversations by spamming a bunch of people today, but you won't win the relationship long term. I'll say that again, you'll win some conversations today, but what you're giving up. Is what you could have long term. What I have long term is that people, like people will say this all the time. You're like the known recruiting expert in these industries. It's because for six years I've created content. I've brought real value.

I'm not just out here creating content either. Like it's practical advice. I'm giving you advice here. Right. It's practical advice that you could go use in your business. That's a value. So this gap is being created. Someone's creating it on you, but you need to be creating this gap with someone else.

Who in your market do you need to bring, be bringing more value than that allows you to win the talent next month, six months from now, a year from now, two years now, three years from now, that value gap will define your career. Over the next three to five years in your capacity to build teams at a market level.

So there you have it. There's my podcast for today. I know this brought you some value. Share it with someone. Would you please someone that needs to hear this? Maybe someone that's on your team or someone inside your company that needs to really understand and change their idea around recruiting. This isn't about dialing 50 people in the next hour.

You may do that to get someone on the phone, but ultimately what it's about is becoming someone that actually brings real value to the people that you want on your team. And when you do that, you win the game of recruiting. So I talked to you again on other recruiting conversations, everybody have a great week. Want more recruiting conversations? You can register for my weekly email at 4crecruiting. com.

If you need help creating your own unique recruiting system, you can book a time with me at bookrichardnow. com.