Can’t Find the Right People? Stop Trying
(The answer is in a system)
When I started in canvassing I was a young kid in college and only interested in making food and beer money. When I took a canvassing job for a home improvement company I had no intentions of making it a life-long career, but it turned into that. When I started my own home improvement company I had to recruit and hire canvassers, and show and event people and I remembered who I was, where I was and what I thought about the job when I was recruited. When I created my own recruiting, interviewing and hiring system I put myself in the shoes of the person looking for the ‘job’. Yes, there are professional face to face marketers out there, but there’s also the young, pimply faced kid looking for a job, who’s ambitious, motivated and not interested in working at McDonalds asking if you want to super-size your order. They’re out there, even if you haven’t been able to find them yet. I’m going tell you how to find them.
I’ll warn you that what I’ll share here will be in contradiction to everything you’ve heard about before; and it’ll go against your instincts about how you should approach recruiting and hiring. I promise you though if you follow what I share you’ll minimize the staff turnover and the churn & burn, you’re experiencing now. And, you’ll recruit the right people.
The Right Person Defined – The ideal recruit
Who is the right person, for your company? Only you can decide that, but I’ll give you some tools that will help you define who this person is. Generally speaking, from my position, and that of my private clients, the right person is someone who ‘gets it’. They understand who they are, what their role in your company is and the benefits of your products and/or services and is motivated to go out, get leads and set appointments; and avoid the whining and complaining, basically a canvassing machine. Is it possible? Yes! They won’t be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Terminator’ character, but they’ll keep focused on the goals, yours and theirs.
How’s this accomplished? There are very specific steps in choreographing the process; it’s a set of systems I’ve developed. The biggest shift in people’s thinking about recruiting and hiring marketers is they should be managing systems and not people. Your system should be designed and set up to put the right people in front of you for interviews and then the system takes those people through a process. At the end of the process they’re either right for you or they’re not; and here’s the beautiful part, my process is self-eliminating. That’s to say that during the entire process the recruit recognizes, on their own, that you and the job are right for them, or it’s not. They decide.
So, Who Are You Really Looking For?
I get asked all the time, “Where’s the best place to recruit people; Craig’s list, online sites, Monster, Career Builder?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is, “Who do you want?” Once you’ve clearly defined who you want then the where you advertise becomes insignificant. It’s more about the ‘who’ then the ‘where’ you find them. The emphasis shouldn’t be on the vehicle, the place you’re recruiting, rather the target you’re searching for.
The approach most companies take in recruiting is ‘hunting’ for them. You shouldn’t hunt, you should attract. To do so you first need to understand the message, then you can define the who.
You must make some determinations and definitions about the job. For example, will you require them to work full or part time, must they have experience or can they be inexperienced and you’ll provide training? What’s the age and/or demographic of the people you’re looking for? Do you have a clear picture of the ideal person for you, your company and the role they’ll fill? The Disney Company is a master at hiring people. The subtle secret to their method is they don’t hire a person for a job; they hire people and put them into the role they’re best suited for. They have the luxury of hundreds, if not thousands, of different jobs. We have basically 2 categories, canvasser or event marketers; and often the same people can fill all 2 roles.
Next, what don’t people like about the job? You can’t sugar coat or hide it, canvassing is a high activity position. It’s tough and you shouldn’t shy away from that. There is a personality of people out there who welcome the challenge, they like the daily interactions. Too many companies set up their recruiting to interview the masses in search of the right person. My approach is the polar opposite; create marketing that attracts the right people and interview those in search of the right people. It’ll be a smaller group of people to interview, but the process will be more productive and ultimately more profitable. Besides, I don’t, and my clients don’t, have time to go through all the drama, aggravation and disappointment to talk to a whole bunch of people who will only waste our time. How about you? What’s your time worth?
Are You Getting Your Message Out Every Day?
For most companies, recruiting is cyclical. Not following a calendar cycle, rather following supply and demand cycles. They recruit as they need and that mindset creates the cyclical dilemma.
You must always be recruiting. When you’re ordering food at the fast food joint be on the lookout for a potential star marketer. When you’re picking up your dry cleaning, your recruiting radar should be working. Never stop recruiting. When you find a prospect you can always hire them when the position becomes available, but you must always be looking for your next marketer. It’s just like sales leads, you don’t only go out and canvass when you need them; you canvass everyday regardless if you need leads today or tomorrow.
Canvass King Members have access to my entire recruiting, interviewing and hiring system. I overviewed the 5 steps of my recruiting system and the 6 steps of your interviewing and hiring process on the last Silver Level Telecoaching call. If you’re not currently a member and would like to get the audio CD of the live call and the newsletter outlining the process, go to Silver Level Membership.
You worked hard to get recruits in the door, and they can cost you a lot of money if they don’t work out and leave you. Create a system for recruiting, interviewing and hiring face to face marketers. If you don’t have one, use mine. The rewards will be well worth the time and effort you invest to implement one.
Committed to your canvassing success,
Chris Thompson
The Canvass King