What We’ve Learned from 40,000 Recruiting Calls

Earlier this year, my company started a program where we make recruiting calls on behalf of brokerages across the country.

So far, we’ve made over 40,000 calls to productive agents and we’ve learned a ton.

Over the next couple weeks, I’m going to share some of our biggest learnings and some of our biggest surprises. My hope is you’ll find the information useful as you ramp up your recruiting efforts during the fall and winter.

Learning #1 – There are Three Different Types of Interested Agents

We consider an agent “interested” if he or she agrees to a recruiting conversation with our client. And what we’ve discovered is there are three different types of interested agents.

The first type of interested agent says some version of, “Make me an offer.” About 10% of prospects are this type and there’s only opportunity with them if you’re willing to cut a deal (or a check).

The second type of interested agent is someone actively looking to switch companies. Depending on the time of year, roughly 10% - 20% of prospects fall into this type.

There’s obvious opportunity with these prospects, and you can find them if you’re consistent with your recruiting.

The final type of interested agent is someone open to making a move (but who isn’t actively looking). This type of agent requires the most work to recruit because there’s rarely an urgent or compelling need to switch.

But, if you want to hire more than a handful of agents each year, you must learn to convert this type because 70% - 80% of all prospects are in it.

Learning #2 – We Fail on 87% of our Calls

Sure, I could have framed this learning differently and said we succeed on 13% of our calls.

So why use our failure rate?

Because I speak with owners, managers, and recruiters all the time who are discouraged by the amount of rejection they face. They think they’re doing something wrong.

The thing is, all my people do is make recruiting calls. They have years of telemarketing experience behind them. And we are fortunate to work with outstanding clients who offer strong value propositions.

Yet we still fail on nearly 9 out of 10 calls.

So, if you’re out there making recruiting calls, don’t get discouraged. Most of your conversations will end in failure even if you do everything right.

The key is to celebrate your successes and remember “no” often just means “not right now”.

Learning #3 – Making Calls Uncovers LOTS of Hidden Opportunities

Most of our clients give us call lists they’ve scrubbed to remove owners, managers, and agents they know are part-time or retiring.

But we inevitably find people our clients missed. And that’s turned out to be a good thing.

When we’re making our calls, we talk to plenty of brokers tired of owning their own shops.

We talk to managers who want to get back to selling or are unhappy where they are.

We talk to part-timers who do substantial business and would go full-time with the right brokerage support.

We also talk to agents ready to retire who would love help selling or transitioning their businesses to others.

All those hidden opportunities result from making calls to as many potential prospects as possible in any given market.

So, don’t worry about scrubbing your prospect lists. The more calls you make and the more conversations you have, the more hidden opportunities you’ll generate.

Stay tuned for next week’s email. In it, I’ll share the biggest surprises we’ve found from making more than 40,000 recruiting calls.

P.S. - If you’d like to have your recruiting calls made for you, please send me a message and let me know.

I have a couple spots remaining in the program before it closes until next year.