10 Lessons Businesses Can Learn From Greek Recruitment

Anyone who has ever said that Greek Life doesn’t prepare you for the real world either isn’t Greek or never got involved inrecruitment for their chapter. The following are 10 things that the best Greek organizations across the country do to recruit high quality members to their chapter and are great lessons for any business to follow when selling to consumers, regardless of industry or what product/service is they sell.

1. Cold Calling Isn’t Effective - Your chances at closing a sale are significantly lower if you cold call someone, as opposed to if you were referred to them by someone that they know/like/trust. In addition to being ineffective, cold calling is also a huge waste of time because it takes so many calls to actually generate a sale. This is why effective Greek organizations recruit people they already know or were referred to by someone they know – it is more effective, takes much less time and there is a much better chance that it is a high quality individual.

2. Have Great Referral Sources – You will save yourself a lot of time in business by simply building up relationships with key people who can introduce you to the right people. Fraternities that have good relationships with sororities often get many of their best referrals from those women. If you are a business, you need to have relationships with people that can make your life easier and feed you referrals, and vice versa.

3. Utilize Cross Promotion – If a sorority wants to reach a new group of people on campus that aren’t away of their organization, they will form a partnership with a service organization, sports team, academic club or another group that is outside of Greek Life. Businesses should also find complementing organizations that they can do cross promotions with; examples could include a mini golf course and ice cream shop, or a gym and a healthy restaurant. Think about businesses that provide a complimentary service and partner with them… its a win-win!

4. Have a Specific Target Market - The very best Greek organizations have a specific target in mind and focus on recruiting those types of people. If you sell a product, you should never say that “everyone” is a good prospect or referral for you. That is too vague and makes it difficult for someone to refer business to you. A better answer could involve the age, profession, sex, interests and characteristics of your ideal client. Having a specific target market makes it much easier to refer business your way.

5. Don’t Accept Everyone – If you want to position your product/service as being something special, then you can’t allow anyone and everyone to have access to it. Strong Greek organizations have a screening process in place and won’t just let anyone join. You need to be selective as to who you allow to be a client of yours and purchase your product/service. You may think this will limit your sales, but it actually will increase them because it makes what you offer appear exclusive… we all want what we can’t easily have.

6. Market a Variety of Ways – The best fraternities and sororities will market themselves using banners, t-shirts, websites, social media, flyers, events, word of mouth, press releases, advertisements and many other ways. The more ways you can effectively market your business, the more people you can reach and more impressions you can have on them. We all like to be marketed to in different ways, so just focusing on one way will exclude a significant amount of people.

7. Have a Strong Brand – You must have a strong brand that is consistent across all methods you use to market yourself. The colors, font, logos, taglines and other ways you brand your product/service must have consistency and be the same everywhere. The best Greek organizations have the same branding on all of the different marketing materials they utilize and it makes it much more recognizable to the consumer.

8. Let Quality Drive Quantity – The Greek organizations that focus on recruiting only high-quality individuals are the ones that ultimately end up with a high-quantity of members as well. By surrounding yourself with the best of the best and building an elite organization, you will have an increasing number of people that want to be part of it. This benefits a business because they will have more of the right people who want to work for their organization, as well as more people who want to do business with their organization. Quality drives Quantity!

9. Everyone Has a Significant Role – To be successful at Greek recruitment, each chapter member needs to have a specific responsibility. If every one in an organization has a role and is working towards a common goal, they will be more likely to be successful than an organization that has a few people at the top trying to do all the heavy lifting while the rest of the organization sits around and does nothing. A successful business works towards a common goal and engages everyone in the organization with specific responsibilities that they must execute.

10. Bigger Pipeline = More Success – Greek chapters that are most successful at recruitment generally have a list of prospects that is at least 3-4 times the size of their chapter size. Would a business have a great chance at successful if they had a sales pipeline of 3-4 times the size of their client base? Absolutely they would! The more active leads you have and the bigger your sales pipeline, the more chances you have at being successful.

Is there anything missing on this list?

Lessons for Young Professionals from the NFL’s Nnamdi Asomugha

I recently came across a great article that was written by Nnamdi Asomugha, a premier athlete in the National Football League.  He was reflecting back to his rookie year in 2003 and sharing hid advice to the incoming rookies this season.  I thought all of his lessons for NFL rookies were extremely applicable to young professionals after college.  Below is his advice for NFL rookies in BOLD, followed by my thoughts on each and how they apply to young professionals:

• SET YOUR ALARM FOR A REASONABLE TIME – Make sure to show up early every single day.  How difficult is it to show up 15-30 minutes before everyone else?  If you have trouble waking up in the morning, then go to sleep earlier.  Showing up early gives you a big advantage over your colleagues and will help you separate yourself from the others.
• BE CONFIDENT IN YOUR ABILITY TO PLAY THE GAME – There is a fine line between arrogance and confidence….  You must be confident in your abilities and have a chip on your shoulder to be successful.
• BE SMARTER THAN YOU WERE THE DAY BEFORE – Imagine how much better off you will be in 5 years if you learn something new each day.  Knowledge is power and it will give you a tremendous edge as you work hard to quickly advance your career.
• DONT LIMIT YOUR EXPOSURE – Be as versatile as possible and volunteer to do anything and everything you possibly can.  Learning a variety of skills and areas of your occupation will only help you and potentially open up doors you never knew existed.
• STAY OUT OF THE TRAINING ROOM AS MUCH AS YOU CAN – When a football player is in the training room, he is unable to compete for a starting position and impress the coaching staff.  The same goes for your career – if you aren’t playing the game well every day, you won’t be visible to your employer and will miss out on great opportunities.
• DON’T COUNT HEADS – A significant number of rookies in the NFL don’t make the roster out of training camp.  In many businesses, younger employees come and go pretty frequently.  Don’t waste your time worrying about what other people are doing, just focus on your own success.  If you show up every day, work harder than those around you and constantly strive to get better, it won’t matter what others are doing because you will be way ahead of them.

The bottom line is that there isn’t much difference between professional athletes and any other young professionals, the same rules apply.  And the truth is, the same mistakes are being made and the same types of people are successful.  This isn’t overly complicated – if you work hard, give your best to your work, have a great attitude, learn every day and surround yourself with the right people, you will undoubtedly be successful in your career!

You can check out the full article HERE.  Hope you enjoyed!

Why You Must Have a Strong Ethic to Be Successful as a Young Professional

Of all the traits that successful young professionals possess, the most common trait is that they simply work harder than anyone else around them.  They have a larger desire to be the best at what they do and are committed to doing everything necessary to learn and to improve themselves.  Having a strong work ethic is mandatory if you want to enjoy success in life.  Whether you are in medical school, have a sales career or are pursuing an entrepreneurial venture, remember that everyone who is ultimately successful in life faced challenges early on and responded by working harder than the average young professional.

When I was writing my first book I had interviewed a lot of successful people, both young professionals and those well beyond, to try and find one common link among them all, possibly the secret to success.  What did the most successful people do differently than everyone else?  What types of careers gave them a better chance at earning a significant income?  What the research revealed is that anyone can be successful at anything as long as the will to work hard is present.  Those successful people all pounded the pavement, rolled up their sleeves and gave everything they had to whatever they were doing at the moment.  That hard work gave them opportunities that the average person in their peer group would have never received.  Some of them failed at three different things before reaching any level of success, but they never gave up their hard work ethics at any point.

If you are truly giving your best effort to everything that you do, it’s only a matter of time before better opportunities come your way; there is nothing more that people appreciate from a young person than showing the will to work as hard as possible. Successful people will always help out hard working and ambitious individuals who have the potential to achieve greatness.

There is a huge reluctance on the part of many young professionals to display a strong work ethic.  One of the main reasons for this is a lack of vision and absence of seeing the long-term benefit of hard work.  Once you understand the direct correlation between effort and success, you can then realize that things will only get better and this difficult phase early on in your life will have a very happy ending.

The bottom line is this – if you work exceptionally hard each and every day, you will give yourself an exponentially greater chance at immediate and long term success.  Display a strong work ethic and give your absolute best to everything you are involved with!

The 2 Things You Must Avoid in Your Career

Below are the two things that you must avoid as a young professional and for the rest of your career.  If you fall into either category don’t beat yourself up over it, but you must take action and do something about it immediately, otherwise it will just continue and hold you back from achieving the goals you set for yourself.

Let’s take a look at the two nasty things you must avoid:

Being Unhappy

Many young professionals try to justify their unhappiness with work by saying “It’s just work, nobody likes what they do.”  That is an awful excuse and quite frankly, it isn’t true at all.  There are plenty of successful young professionals that absolutely love what they do and have struck a great balance between their personal and professional lives.  Just because the people around you may be miserable about what they do from 9-5 doesn’t mean it is acceptable to allow them to drag you down and tell you its “normal” to hate your career.

Unhappiness at work very often will lead to unhappiness within your personal life as well.  How many times have you seen or heard someone come home unhappy from work and consequently treat their friends and family differently?  “It’s alright, he just has a lot of tough days at work” is not an acceptable excuse.  Of course you will have bad days, but if you are consistently carrying over a poor attitude from work into other aspects of your life, you need to make a major change immediately.  Find an opportunity that will make you happy.  Enjoying what you do is far more important than a few extra bucks or a fancier title on your business card.  Unhappiness at the office can also lead to depression and/or substance abuse problems.

The bottom line is that you will be spending 40-60 hours a week doing something you call your career, so make sure you enjoy it.  People prefer to talk to someone at a social gathering who displays enthusiasm while discussing their career.  Be the person whose face lights up when he’s asked what he does for a living.  Be the one who everyone else is jealous of because they never took the time to seek out the best opportunities for themselves, and you did.

Being Unsuccessful

The other major pitfall that you will avoid by following the three step process is becoming unsuccessful.  By being diligent and following this process, you will put yourself in a position to become successful.  Some people are able to enjoy success from the beginning of their professional lives, while others put themselves in a position to learn, improve their skills and eventually become successful.  Either way, those who put in the initial effort to find a great opportunity will ultimately achieve their visions of success.

The biggest fear that I have from a professional standpoint is waking up one day and realizing that I wasn’t successful because I never gave myself an opportunity to succeed.  If you don’t put in the proper effort and work hard to find a great opportunity, you will never find one.  Great opportunities very rarely will drop out of the sky, so increase your odds and seek your best opportunity.

By properly preparing yourself, you’ll be ready to recognize and maximize on opportunities when they come your way.  One of the main reasons why young professionals do not experience initial career success is simply because they did not identify and seek out their best opportunities.

Don’t Settle

Below is an excerpt from the commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005. Jobs is the founder and current CEO of Apple, which he started in his 20s. It is important to learn from successful people that did extraordinary things in their 20s; they offer a unique perspective and are able to share the lessons they have learned over their lives and careers. Jobs explains the importance of finding work that you love and never settling until you find it. Regardless of the economic conditions, you must stay committed to finding a career that you truly love and are passionate about.  It will not only lead to career success, but it will also make your personal life more enjoyable as well.  Enjoy Jobs’ inspiring words:

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Steve Jobs – CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios

Stanford University Commencement Address

Palo Alto, CA

June 12, 2005

The Difference Between a “Job” and an “Opportunity

For those of you that have read my book, you know that this is a subject I am very passionate about.  In case you haven’t read the book yet, let me define each of them for you:

Job – a piece of work done for pay, a task; duty, the thing of material being worked on, employment; work

Opportunity – a combination of circumstances favorable for the purpose, a good chance as to advance oneself

In the book we do not use the “J” word, and for good reason; successful people find opportunities to build a great career and advance themselves.  They don’t look for a piece of work done for pay.  If you look at your career and see yourself collecting a paycheck without a clear path to advance yourself, learn about the industry and grow as a professional, then it is time to make a change.  You wouldn’t be reading this unless you had a desire to be successful, so make sure your career is filled with opportunities to continually learn, increase your income, take on additional responsibilities and do something you truly enjoy.

Regardless of whether the economy is in great shape or doing terribly, there are always opportunities for young, ambitious individuals who bring value to an organization.  You may need to look harder and face stiffer competition, but great careers are out there for the taking.  Figure out what you are passionate about and would like to do each day, then simply focus on finding an organization that offers this while simultaneously teaching you and providing you opportunities to grow within the company.