Want to Be a Leader Worth Following?

So the big question is this, how do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities win 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 would give you the answers. My name is Richard Milligan and welcome to Recruiting Conversations. Hi everybody, it's Richard Milligan.

Welcome back to another Recruiting Conversations. Thank you for listening. Today. We're going to talk about the importance. Of leadership branding today, specific to social media. A lot of people are completely missing whiffing in this particular space. So I teach it in my coaching. We actually, part of what we do at 4C recruiting is we actually model the voice for CEOs. So we've got a lot of CEOs that we actually deliver content for. And in that experience and in that.

The information that we are able to extract from doing that, what I know is that leadership branding is not just important, but it is more important today than having your recruiting team making phone calls. It is not important. It is imperative if you're growth oriented and you have large growth goals. So I want to spend some time around this. There's a lot of people. Get caught in the space of, I understand that it's important, but I have no clue how to deliver the content.

So we're going to draw a straight line between who you are as an attractive leader and the content that you can be delivering to the platforms, because I don't believe it's that complicated. What we model is ultimately attractive leadership.

So I've, that's a terminology I haven't heard anyone else use before. It's a terminology that I came up with in terms of an attractive character. Versus an attractive leader, and the attractive leader in my mind has represents three things has a very clear vision and has is very clear on their core value system. So if you don't have that, you would start there. The second part of this is that they're able to articulate it extremely well. So it's not just having it written down on paper.

It's being able to share it with people. Storytell. Like, why is that value, why is your vision a part of you? A lot of times our values come from our experiences. I found that a lot of times we can go back to beginnings or we started something new. And a lot of times our value system has us leaving some opportunity and going to another opportunity because one opportunity wasn't in alignment with our value system.

And another opportunity is aligned with our value system, but you've got to be able to articulate that clearly. And the third part of the attractive leader is this, it's someone who lives and acts in alignment with their vision and their values. That seems pretty obvious, right? If I say I'm going to be something, I'm going to share it with people that I'm actually going to be something.

But I have found that a lot of times leaders make decisions around growth and around hiring people simply based on the need for. More revenue, more volume, whatever your industry sales perspective is, units, transactions, contracts, a lot of leaders make decisions around that piece. And there is actually a disconnect between their vision and their values.

And what they live in the day to day, those three components has a vision, understands their values, can articulate that well, and then lives and acts in alignment with that.

Okay. So that's where you begin. And I believe that the best leadership brand that you can have is where you're simply documenting that. We use, we use what we call a terminology called social ID. And your social ID is really this, where you're identifying and document simply what you're doing. So when you think about that, oh, I simply need to be identifying like what I'm doing today and then documenting that should be in alignment with your value system.

It should be in alignment with the vision for your team, for your business. And so that's the best, most authentic, real representation of who you are as a leader. Yes or yes. This isn't about trying to conjure up. great leadership thoughts. This isn't about trying to become a, in quotations, thought leader. It's not about that. It's about people having a lens into your life, into who you are, and them aligning with that. So think about this.

If you're clear in representing the authentic real version of you in the day to day, then when they join your team, they already knew all that and they're in alignment with that. And so it seems obvious that you, those people would be the easiest people to retain. Look, I come out of an industry where it seasons in an industry, in this particular industry, it's very normal to have 30 to 50 percent turnover in the most important sales positions.

And if you're turning three to five people out of 10 over every single year, then the truth is that you're not bringing people into your organization or into your team that are in alignment. And a lot of times we simply recruit to things like money, compensation, sign on bonuses. Those are the key pieces that we recruit to and profitability share, whatever that is. When you recruit, that's the lowest form of human motivation. Can you motivate a human through that? Absolutely unequivocally.

Yes, but we are more motivated through other things like belonging. Uh, being affirmed, having larger meaning in what we do, those are the pieces that motivate people most and with clarity. So if I've got clarity around who you are, the authentic, real version of

you, because you've taken this idea that I've got a social ID, I simply identify and document what I'm doing. People know who you are when they get there and thus are already in alignment with you. And so understanding this not only will help you attract the right people. And bring in the people that are looking for someone that represents what you represent. But when they get there, then it's very easy to retain them because you just continue being you. So let's talk about this a little bit.

How do you take this idea of identifying and document the day and day, the day to day, and what can, what should that look like? So, here is a couple of headings that I like to put content under inside that identify and documenting. First and foremost, what are your values? You should be talking about these. You should be looking for moments when you're acting on those. Okay, so one of my, one of my high personal values is growth, personal development and leadership development.

So if I take that single piece, now imagine that I coach, I'm about personal development, right? There's some alignment just in what I'm doing today and a value system that goes back to my teenage years. So if personal development, if growth is one of your, one of your core values, then you're most likely listening to podcasts. You're most likely reading, constantly reading books. You're looking to see what influencers are doing that are out there.

You're looking to see what is current and relative in leadership, in personal development. And so inside that single piece, you have an enormous amount of content That you could actually deliver some easy methods for this. Look, you wouldn't believe how many times I'm walking through the Denver airport. If you've been to the Denver airport, you know that there's a bookstore in the Denver airport.

I'm walking through the Denver airport and for where I live in Oklahoma city, that's a hub to go out West. And so a lot of times we have to pass through Denver, have a short layover. So I immediately go to the bookstore. I look to see what books are new and upfront, and I will open those books up and flip through those. And a lot of times just have come across a great idea.

Yeah. With the book, I buy the book. Sometimes I don't buy the book, right? There are times where there are great quotes, great thoughts. There's even a, I can even hold the book in my hand and take a picture of it and just say in the Denver airport, came across a great book, can't wait to read this and go tag the author in it. I've done that a number of times. Okay. So as you're just walking through something like a personal development, value system that you have podcasts to share.

You have ideas from podcasts to share. You have books that you're reading and ideas from those books that you can actually share. You have stories that you extract from all of those that you can actually regurgitate and say things like, I was recently listening to a podcast, I was recently reading a book. And so there are lots of ideas that you have to share. So in the context of that, in essence, you become a bit of a content curator. You're curating content.

And I think this statistically Today, CEOs are reading somewhere between 50 and 60 books per year. Now, whether they're reading them or listing them, listening to them on something like an Audible version, I can't tell you that, but I know the average CEO today says that they're reading between 50 and 60 books. I know that 85 percent of all self made millionaires say they read two books, minimally two books per month.

So personal development, if you want to grow, It's something that's going to be relevant forever for you, right? So that could be a value. And because it's a value, now I get to talk about this value. I'm looking for moments when I'm acting on that value. So I'm simply identifying and documents my social ID, identifying and document. Another key heading that I love to focus on is a simple statement. What is my truth? What is true about me? Okay. For Richard, I have a family.

So there's structure there. I've got four kids. I've got two dogs. I'm heavily involved there. There's all kinds of truths around that. Perfect example would be here within the past couple of months. I have a, my oldest son just turned 17. We had him go through a process of reading 25 books and writing essays on those 25 books. And so we identified 25 books. That he actually read delivered essays on and he got himself a car, mom and dad bought him a car. So that's part of my truth.

Like why did I do that? Or the journey of even doing, of even doing that, listing some of those books, sharing some of those books. But I have a lot of family structure. I've got a 12 year old son that plays basketball, travel basketball. I've got two, a six and a nine year old daughter, and they love horses. They love riding horses. There's just all kinds of things there in terms of family structure. That can become my truth.

And if I'm going to deliver this in a place like Facebook, it's going to have a different feel. And if I deliver this in a place like LinkedIn, but you can take that truth and you can move that across to a place like LinkedIn, if you do it correctly. Let me give you an example inside that family structure, right? I gave you the example of the 25 books. I could take a picture of my son in front of his truck and list the books and talk about the importance of my belief.

Of reading and growing yourself and personal development. I connected the two, right? Another thing that I've done, I talk a lot about recruiting. Maybe if you've listened to a few of my podcasts, you know that. I talk a lot about recruiting. And so I can draw a line. And one of the ways that I've done this is I can take a picture of my family. I can actually use it on the LinkedIn platform as a short form post. And I will write a dear recruiter letter.

And the dear recruiter letter might be something along the lines of dear recruiter. In the time that you've been pursuing me, one of the things that you've missed is that the most important thing is getting to spend time with these key influencers in my life. Right? So I can connect the dots with my values and my truth and do it in a business format as much as I can do it more of a personal sharing my life format. So what is your truth? Okay. I'm involved in nonprofit. I could talk about that.

I could talk about where I come from. I come from a lot of poverty. I come from, uh, a broken home. I can draw a line from some of my tenacity, some of my determination, some of my willingness to, to work hard. I can draw some straight lines back to some of the places of where I came from. And lots of people will connect with that because that is a part of my story. It's part of my truth. So I'm going to look at what are my values. I'm also going to look at what is my truth.

And then one of the things that I'm going to look at as well is what are the, what's part of my day to day. If you're a recruiting leader, okay, the recruiting leader, and by my definition is someone who leads a team, but is also responsible for recruiting to that team. If you're a recruiting leader, you're doing things like leading sales meetings, right? Great thing to identify and document. There's typically something motivational in there.

There is a lot of times there's a set agenda based on where you are in the season of your business, the things you need to address with the team. You may not share all of that, but there's typically several takeaways there that you could share and you could document that moment. You're in meetings with your salespeople a lot of times through either referral partners or people that they do business with. There's good takeaways there. There's great ideas.

Just even getting in the car with another salesperson and driving over to an appointment that you share, that you coached you, those are all great things that, that you can share in social media. You are establishing your culture, right? Get togethers, offsite meetings, recognition events, birthday parties. Like a lot of times that recruiting leader who leads the team is also responsible for all of those. Why wouldn't you share those? That's part of your truth.

That's part of your core value system, right? If I'm doing a monthly recognition event, like my part of my value system is I believe in recognizing my people, recognizing the people on my team. When I do this, I give the outside world and the people specifically that I'm interested in is the people that I want to attract. that are in my industry. I'm giving them a look inside what it is to be aligned with a leader like me. Here's why this part is really important.

And this is why I'm bringing this up.

I mentioned, I think I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I might've actually mentioned this, I do a video as well as the podcast. And I do an intro with the video. So if you haven't seen that, you can go check that out on my YouTube channel or my Vimeo channel.

But when I, I was speaking to a leader earlier today, who has grown more than 300 percent over the past year, we're talking about the major changes that they had made inside the things that I teach, the things that they had practically applied inside what I teach. One of the top three things that's been applied is building their leadership brand. Okay. There's a direct correlation today. Between recruiting people slash attracting people, okay, and growth.

And so where you can connect with people as being an attractive leader, a person that matters in their industry and in their market, especially in industries where top recruits are heavily recruited. Okay. I come from the mortgage real estate industry. And in that industry, the top recruits are heavily recruited. Bye. Everybody inside the industry, not just recruiting departments, but other slash recruiting leaders they're recruited by.

And so it's pretty normal for someone to get five phone calls in a week for their inbox to be spammed on LinkedIn. And so those individuals, they pick where they're going next. They're not, it data supports this data supports that social media has changed the game for recruiting. Inside that particular industry. The mortgage industry data came out recently that said this was a study of 13,000 top originators.

The, the survey said that 2020 5% of those top originators were directly solicited when they moved to their next org, their next company, 75%, that's the exact number, 75% came through what I would consider non-solicitation methods. They're being referred, or they're seeking out the next opportunity themselves. So most companies are missing out here.

When you look at a platform like LinkedIn, which is critical to this, when you look at a platform like LinkedIn, the average CEO on that platform has 930 connections. Okay. Let me just state that again, the average CEO on LinkedIn has 930 connections, and most CEOs have an enormous amount of resources behind them to really approach this if they want to approach this, but they're not because they

don't understand the importance of this. Look, recruiting has changed. It is no longer direct solicitation. In my own survey, what I found is that about one out of 11 people answer the phone when you call. Think about it. Voicemail doesn't work today. You probably get this because you, like me, get spammed robocalled and they do leave voice messages. And so I don't even check my voicemail anymore. I don't answer the majority of the calls unless I recognize it, number one.

The second part of that is if you left a voice message, I wouldn't look at it. Right? So the phone is something that's dying. You have to figure out creatively in a social world, majority of time now spent on a handful of apps. Those, a lot of those apps are social media apps. You have to be representing something there or they will create a narrative on their own. And if you don't control the narrative, you are in essence delivering a net narrative by choice. Like think about that.

If you're not there. And you've made a conscious decision to not be there. Cause you're not comfortable with LinkedIn or you're not comfortable with Instagram or Facebook. There's a narrative there. They'll create a narrative. Your competition will create a narrative. So either you control the narrative or you don't control the narrative. Either you're active on social or you're non active on social. You can make that decision. But what I can tell you is this data, really large data pieces.

Support CEOs, executive level leaders. And leaders at any level being engaged on these platforms and making a difference in their ability to grow and their ability to recruit. Okay. That's why I bring it up today. That's why I want to give you some context around this. So remember this, your company may be missing out on this, but you as an individual leader can still do this. You do not need your organization to lead this in order to do this.

We are not talking about anything that is. Compliance related. We're talking about identifying and documenting your life of who you are as a leader. Like where I come from, we begin to throw around a lot of terminology, like, I'm not sure if we're going to use trigger terms, or if that's going to be an alignment with regulation Z or whatever it is, we're not talking about anything that has to be put in front of compliance, and if it does, Then you're not representing this correctly.

I'm talking about documenting who you are as a human being, documenting how you're leading your teams. Okay? A lot of people use LinkedIn specifically as an advertisement feed. We're hiring. Newsflash, everybody in your industry is hiring. No one needs to know you're hiring. You the people that you want. The best producers in your industry, they're going to seek out their next opportunity. And either you will be there representing yourself, or you will not be there representing yourself.

So this is something that has to be done. So there you have it. You've got some content strategy. You understand what it takes to become an attractive leader. Activate on this. You won't be sorry. In our, in what we do, what we found is that around the four to five month window where someone's doing this consistently on a daily basis, you The momentum builds that four to five month window. Now it's my belief that there's reasons for that.

One of the reasons for that, I believe is that it takes a while for people to trust the voice. Are you just posting something to be posting a day? Or is this really who you are? Right? Give me four to five months in managing a leader's social, social profile, social voice, social leadership brand. And what I can do is give you guaranteed deliverable results.

I am looking at an email that we sent to a recruiting leader this morning that has nine leads sitting in their LinkedIn inbox of people that are

interested and wanting to talk. Okay. I'm not, this is real data that's coming through real activation. This is what you're missing out on. And most people are still looking at the phone and trying to scale internal recruiting departments to go after top producers in industry by pounding the phone. Okay. Okay. So as an individual leader, you can activate on this.

I've given you some great content here today to move towards immediately in terms of an action plan, you've got to be connecting, you've got to be delivering daily content. You need to be communicating directly to them as a one to one, and you can make a right hook slash conversion if you do that, meaning that you can then, if you've done that correctly, connected.

And deliver daily content to where they know who you are as leader and then communicated directly through their inbox and brought them some value there with no strings attached, you can ask for a meeting and you can scale that kind of behavior. Okay. So as individual leader, you don't need your company to do this. You can do this on your own. I know I brought value to you today, and I don't mean that to be arrogant.

What I know is that this is very practical input that I've actually put myself through. I go back to 2014. In a three month window of time in 2014, I set 38 face to face appointments, not just face to face appointments, but corporate site visits, people getting on planes or getting in their cars and driving to my corporate headquarters to actually have a conversation about the organization, the company directly being recruited, directly looking at making a change.

And my, one of my key elements in that was my leadership brand and using a platform called LinkedIn. Okay. So if it worked in, it will work exponentially today because the platform is stronger. The platform is better. The platform has more engaging content now than ever. So it will work for you. Glad to have brought some value to you today. Looking for other resources. There's lots of resources out there. You can see my content, my daily content on LinkedIn.

And so until we actually talk again here on Recruiting Conversations, have a great week, everybody. And remember this, one change can change everything. 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.