Justin Stoddart
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show I am your host, Justin Stoddart and fired up about today's episode as it's one that I know is very pertinent to top agents and aspiring top agents. And it's how to recruit, listening to this show, you're going to learn principles from a master recruiter, they're going to help you attract the talent that you need to get your business to the next level. Let me just remind you that the purpose of this show is to help you think bigger. I know that as you do, as you start to think bigger, your actions start to change, and your outcome starts to change. And ultimately, you're able to go on to live a life of great impact, which is what my mission and passion are all about. So I'm excited to put you in front of people who are big thinkers. Just like today's guest, his name is Connor Schwab. So first and foremost, Connor, thank you for coming on the show today. excited to have you here.
Connor Schwab
Appreciate it, Justin. It's a it's an absolute pleasure.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, good stuff, man. So Connor and I have not known each other very long, but I learned really quickly. He's a master recruiter his back and let me tell you a little bit about his background. He worked for years. recruiting scientists into the biotech space. He lived in a Silicon Valley area at the time, and that we all know how competitive it is to for computer engineers, right? You've got Google, you've got Facebook, you've got all these massive companies like Apple, etc, that are trying to recruit talent. Well, the, the biotech space is similarly extremely competitive. And so he worked for a recruiting company, not only worked for them, but he was actually the top 20 out of 2500 recruiters. So the guy did this all day long and was masterful at it. In addition to that, he's since got his MBA from a university that maybe some of you are familiar with. If not, it's you'll want to be familiar with it. It's called actin a CT when he walked me through what the curriculum look like. And it was honestly probably the answer to all of the things that I thought were wrong with a university education like it was very much in action, doing work, working with real companies, helping them get to the next level. So his education and his work experiences is super legit. So I'm excited. to have you here, Connor on the show today to teach all of us how to be better recruiters.
Connor Schwab
Absolutely can't wait.
Justin Stoddart
Let's get into it, man, let's get into it. So let's talk a little bit about maybe give us three principles, three principles that you feel like if people did these things. They would be better recruiters. Now, keep in mind that some of the people are listening to this, and they're a solo real estate agent. And they are saying to themselves, I'm ready to hire my first assistant, I can't do it all myself, right. I've got a transaction coordinator, but it's still I need more help. Right? And they're at that spot in their business. There are others that already have a very full team, right? And they're trying to attract talented real estate producing agents to their team, or maybe they want a brokerage and they looking to attract talented teammates to their brokerage, right. So I would imagine that these principles would be applicable to all three of those scenarios. Would you agree?
Connor Schwab
Absolutely. That's Yeah, and so the three principles would be the first is, you know, start today, and that is start to build your talent bench right away. The second is more getting into kind of the interviewing and the vetting process. And that is different ways of interviewing. It's called behavioral versus hypothetical. And the last one is kind of doing your background check. So you know, who you hire on your team. And once they're hired, you know, you're, you're, you're in a committed relationship. So you want to make absolutely sure that the person is going to be type person you need before you kind of pull the trigger and bring them on board.
Justin Stoddart
I love it. Three great points. Let's get into the first kind of building your bench, right Talk to us a little bit about what that is, and then what it looks like on the ground for a real estate agent.
Connor Schwab
Absolutely. So this can be used for solo agents, but it's also extremely applicable to someone who's building a team on a large scale. That is you. Anytime you come into contact with someone who you think kind of has the right stuff to be on your team or shares qualities that you share or you admire, that you could see on your team, you want to have some sort of lists going and you have, you know, you start with the number one, the perfect person that would be perfect on your team, and just kind of build it from there. And these can be people that you're meeting out of dinner friends at an open house, you know, maybe you see a listing that they have that you think's excellent. Anything like that, and you start to build it. And the reason why this is important is because sometimes a recruiting effort for a top agent can take three years. And you know, you want to start having those conversations early and being warm and being inviting and building that relationship so that when the timing is just like selling a house, so when the timing on their side is good, maybe maybe their kids graduate and go to college and they're looking for something new or they You know, have a disagreement with their boss or their company changes, then all of a sudden, you know, your your invite to come onto their team as a Top Producing agent is all of a sudden very realistic.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, I love this point, Connor for a couple of reasons. One, I think is that relationships take time when people are going to make a commitment to go to work for somebody, they're simply putting their entire entire family and livelihood in the hands of that person with whom they're going to work. And that doesn't happen overnight. Right? It takes time to develop those relationships. And maybe like a simplified version of what I hear you saying is you need to dig your well before you're thirsty. Like if you're, if you're going to find somebody at the moment you need them, it's too late because it's going to take time to build that trust and get them to really believe the fact that they can, that they can come work with you and that their situation in life is going to get better. That Is that a fair way to put it?
Connor Schwab
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Justin Stoddart
Great stuff. Okay, so would you say then that somebody should even if they don't have the need right now, let's say that they're new agent, they're like, I have no need for an assistant yet or my team's perfect. I've got all the right players, all the right producers, I don't need to recruit. You probably see better than I do the mistake in that thought, right? Is it like I'm not in recruiting mode right now.
Connor Schwab
Life happens, you know, you might have the perfect team setup. And then life happens, you know, someone might move their spouse they might have to move or some something less fortunate happens in their lives with all sudden they can't work anymore. They have to make an arrangement or or they get headhunted to another opportunity themselves. So that's why having that bench is so important. So that if all of a sudden you find yourself kind of up the creek without a paddle, you you have a plan, you have a place that you can go right away to your bench to your list, and you can start calling people right away.
Justin Stoddart
I love it. That's that's super profound. And I think there's probably some people that are saying like, I don't ever want to have an employee, I don't ever wan...