The Gavel Podcast

Expansion and Recruitment with Mac McNeilly (Huntingdon) and Fred Dobry (Indiana State)

Episode Summary

In this episode, Adam and Christopher interview Sigma Nu’s Director of Expansion and Recruitment Mac McNeilly (Huntingdon) and the Director of Health and Safety Fred Dobry (Indiana State). Together, Mac and Fred oversee the Fraternity’s expansion efforts to bring Sigma Nu to college campuses nationwide and develop resources to educate and prepare collegiate chapter Recruitment Chairmen. During the episode, Adam, Christopher, Mac, and Fred discuss the Fraternity’s expansion process and how existing chapters can become better recruiters.

Episode Notes

The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. and is dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to stories from our brotherhood. 

To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at www.sigmanu.org. Also consider following us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr

Have feedback or a question about this episode? Want to submit an idea for a future topic you'd like to see covered? Contact the Gavel Podcast team at news@sigmanu.org

Hosts for this Episode

Guests for this Episode

Episode References

General Fraternity Resources

Episode Transcription

The Gavel Podcast - Ep 34 - Expansion and Recruitment with Mac McNeilly (Huntingdon) and Fred Dobry (Indiana State)

 

[Intro Music]

 

0:00:42.4 Adam Girtz: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.

 

0:00:46.1 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher.

 

0:00:47.6 Adam Girtz: The Gavel podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, and it's a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor, and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.

 

0:00:57.7 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the fraternity, you can always check us out on our website at sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, or X.

 

0:01:06.3 Adam Girtz: X.

 

0:01:06.5 Christopher Brenton: At sigmanuhq or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.

 

0:01:10.9 Adam Girtz: Are we on Threads yet? 

 

0:01:13.7 Christopher Brenton: We are on Threads.

 

0:01:15.0 Adam Girtz: Are we on Threads? Cool.

 

0:01:16.8 Christopher Brenton: We are on Threads. Actually, for those of us who follow the Fraternity on Twitter looking for information there, it is likely that we are probably going to at least try to be more timely with posts on Threads. Twitter and X have been a little more challenging because they're outside of the ecosystem that Meta has established, which is both good and bad.

 

0:01:47.7 Adam Girtz: Yeah.

 

0:01:49.0 Christopher Brenton: But I do think that from a work product and work capacity perspective, it does make it easier that stuff that is shared to Instagram can be very, very easily shared to Threads. We've done a couple of posts there. I am still kind of getting into the swing of things of being on top of that. But yeah, Threads appears to be a new home for the fraternity, at least for the foreseeable future. And then we'll keep monitoring Twitter and X for usage there. But I anticipate, we'll talk to him in just a moment, one of our special guests. But next year we have our Safe Springing Break campaign, which often utilizes Twitter/X. So if we continue to use that platform, that will likely be kind of one of the most visible homes for that conversation. But it remains to be seen just at the moment.

 

0:02:45.0 Adam Girtz: Love it. Well, speaking of our guests, we have our guests with us to kick off here, we've got some staff guys with us. Mac and Fred, welcome to the show. Fred, welcome back. Mac welcome for the first time. How's it going guys? 

 

0:03:00.0 Mac McNeilly: Hey, thanks for having us, Adam. Long-time listener. Really excited to talk a little today about some of what we do and yeah, I think it's going to be a good experience. Thanks.

 

0:03:10.2 Fred Dobry: Yeah. Excited to be here. Can't believe it. I got an invitation to rejoin the podcast. So, good way to kick off the fall semester.

 

0:03:18.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Fred, is...

 

[overlapping conversation]

 

0:03:19.4 Christopher Brenton: This your third episode.

 

0:03:20.2 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I was going to say, is this your third episode. Do we do... I think we need like a pin or like a challenge coin or something like that, something fun.

 

0:03:26.1 Fred Dobry: We get another ribbon to add to the name tag at the next conclave.

 

0:03:30.2 Adam Girtz: There we go. Yeah. Three time-podcast guest. Well, awesome...

 

0:03:36.5 Christopher Brenton: I think if you get to five, he basically becomes a co-host.

 

0:03:39.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah. I think technically, yeah, at that point. Yeah. We'll talk about it. [laughter] Yeah, I have been looking to replace Christopher. So Fred, if you're in it? 

 

0:03:50.9 Christopher Brenton: Makes sense.

 

[laughter]

 

0:03:53.5 Adam Girtz: Well guys, very happy to have you guys here. So we're talking recruitment today. So really, to start off with, because we are in, we're always in recruitment season, but the summer is big for our chapters to start ramping up their recruitment efforts. And knowing that students are going to be returning to campus here in a couple of weeks. I know that there's a lot of excitement, especially for our alumni, knowing that, hey, my cousin is headed to a school that I know there's a Sigma Nu chapter at, or my work friend has a son who's going to be a freshman on a campus, and I know there's a Sigma Nu chapter there. Mac, before we dive in, I did want to just give a note for the episode here up top, what does that referral process look like? Like if I know of a... I'm an eligible young man who's going to be attending a campus where there's a Sigma Nu chapter, how do I let you know, or how do I let the chapter know? 

 

0:05:06.0 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, we have a referral process. The easiest way to get to that is to go on our website and go to the prospective members tab. If you are interested, you can hit prospective member form, fill that out, and it goes to me and I'll send it to the chapter you've expressed interest in. If you were referring somebody else, certainly fill out the membership referral form. Put as much information about this individual as you can, that goes to my office, and then I'll then distribute that back to the chapter. I do think this is a platform that we can probably utilize a bit more. So I really want to encourage our listeners to go out there and ask their neighbors, ask their friends, ask their coworkers, even ask your dog. I mean, whoever you know, who do you know that's going to be going to a college in the next year that we have an active chapter at? And we'd love to pass along that information and include people within the recruitment process. So it's pretty easy, you just fill it out, send it to me, and I'll get it to the chapter and send a receipt verifying, "Hey, we got your interest and grateful you expressed it, and excited to wish you luck on your next steps."

 

0:06:09.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, it's neat. I've always loved that process, and it's... Not only is a great way for chapters to kind of bolster their prospect lists, but really one of the best outcomes of all that is it gives a new freshman on a campus, just one more person to have a connection with, right? Like if the chapter is able to welcome them to campus and help them settle in and find classes and just have a friend or a friendly face on campus or a chapter full of friendly faces, that's always a good thing. So definitely, any of our listeners, if you've got prospective members, definitely send that over to Mac through that form.

 

0:06:55.3 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, and just don't forget, if you're a consistent listener, that we always include links. So in this case, sigmanu.com, sorry, sigmanu.org/referral, that link will also be in the show notes. So you can click on the show notes to go there directly and we'll also include a link to the active chapter listing as well, in case you are uncertain of where Sigma Nu has active chapters.

 

0:07:19.6 Adam Girtz: Cool. Love it. Check the episode notes as always. Well, so let's dive in. So Fred, you've been here before. So we've got your Sigma Nu story recorded for history. I believe that was our, the first episode you were on was a safe spring break episode back in March of 2022.

 

0:07:42.2 Fred Dobry: Yeah, I think that was the case. I remember it fondly. Christopher interviewed me if I remember right.

 

0:07:50.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah, it was wonderful. Well, definitely, listeners, go ahead and check that out here, Fred's story. Fred, have there been any updates to your Sigma Nu story? Any any big Sigma Nu happenings in your life since since that episode? 

 

0:08:05.7 Fred Dobry: Well, still a few years out from my son joining Sigma Nu, that would be probably the next major step in my Sigma Nu journey.

 

0:08:14.5 Adam Girtz: Ah, love it, love it. Is Baseball Little League World Series this week, isn't it? Or is it next week? 

 

0:08:24.3 Fred Dobry: Cal Ripken, Cal Ripken World Series, right around the corner, 10U, the best of the best 10U youth baseball players of the country competing here in Crown Point. So yeah, should be fun.

 

0:08:35.7 Adam Girtz: Love it, absolutely. Well, Mac, then let's get your Sigma Nu story, your first time on the podcast. Just tell us your Sigma Nu story, man.

 

0:08:46.7 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, sure. I think how I came into Sigma Nu and to learn about it was a little atypical. So I grew up in Orlando, Florida. I received the opportunity to go to wrestle in college at the NCAA D3 level at Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama. For those that don't know, Huntington is a very intimate liberal arts experience college of about 1200-1300 students and primarily student-athletes. So, was excited to go there and moved in, didn't have a car my first year and was eight hours from home. So definitely was looking for a group of friends. And I had that at first through the wrestling team. But then at our first tournament, I tore my ACL and had a 12-hour bus ride back. And I think during that time, I thought about, well, hey, like, it's cool that I'm doing this now, but there's really no next level when it comes to the sport of wrestling unless you're going to the Olympics. And I by no means was anywhere near that skill set.

 

0:09:45.0 Mac McNeilly: So I came back, just started making some friends on campus. And my RA at the time encouraged me to go through. He said, "Hey, $10, you get a free shirt and you get to go take a tour and eat some free food. So just go check it out and see if you get along with anyone." And then, I did the tours and whatnot, went into the Sigma Nu House. That same guy who was my RA was the chapter president at the time. Shout out Miles, and he really sold me on this concept of hey, this organization wants to set you up for more than 4 years, which really was kind of scratching the itch of what I was looking for at the time. It gave me something to be involved with and they also were there for me and helped me out a little bit. I was on crutches. So, torn ACL, that was a bit inconvenient and the fact that the brothers took care to help make me feel involved and whatnot, that was really special for me.

 

0:10:39.8 Mac McNeilly: Even got initiated on my birthday on crutches. That was always fun. That was, yeah, very unique ceremony. I ended up getting pretty involved at Huntington. I was the SGA vice president. I was Mr. Huntington twice on IFC. I was an Academic All-American, certainly, because I couldn't participate my first year, and then I focused full-time on academics and my campus engagement. When I graduated, I think this was really cool. So our Dean of Students at the time was a woman named Fran Taylor, who was awesome and was a great mentor for me during my collegiate experience. They named an award after her for the most involved male and female students. And I was the first recipient of that award when I graduated. And that was also really special because one of our founding fathers, who's actually a former staffer that some of you may know well, it was his mother. So I always thought that was kind of a cool like, it all comes around kind of experience. But I loved Huntington, ended up joining the staff team, made friends with my previous consultants and a few staffers at some national events, and came, consulted the Southeast my first year, which was very familiar territory, and then moved into expansion my second year. And then an opportunity came up for me to stay on staff in the role that I'm currently in, in the director position. So of course I took that, I love the culture here and definitely want to do it. I came to help further our mission.

 

0:12:06.9 Adam Girtz: Awesome. You got a pretty unique Sigma Nu story. It's kind of cool that you kind of get all those, you get all those connections in there and you start to realize how everyone is connected. And I think definitely like going to the like national conclaves and national events and stuff, you really get to see that. Coming off a grand chapter, you definitely see a lot of that there. Well, neat, glad to have your Sigma Nu story recorded for posterity. You're in the books now, man. Well, let's dive in, guys. So we talked a little bit about recruitment, but really like the focus today is kind of just talking about like from the national angle, like from the general fraternity, like what is recruitment strategy? How do we open new chapters? What are we looking for? That type of thing. Then as well, we'll get into a little bit of advice for recruitment chairmen that may be listening or alumni advisors for your recruitment at chapters they're advising at. I guess to start off with, we have Fred and Mac here.

 

0:13:13.3 Adam Girtz: This is kind of our recruitment department for the most part and we have some expansion consultants as well that are coming through. But really, as far as leadership for the recruitment side of the general fraternity, what do each of you do for that and kind of where do your responsibilities lie and how does that work on our end? 

 

0:13:39.8 Fred Dobry: I can jump in first, Mac. So, for me as Director of Health and Safety, the expansion and recruitment department is housed underneath me. And so I work in support of Mac and his team and the achievement of the strategic goals that we have identified in the strategic plan by the High Council for Recruitment and Expansion, and so really, my job is just to make sure Mac has all the tools, resources and support he needs for him and his team to accomplish those goals.

 

0:14:11.4 Mac McNeilly: Yeah. And in my role as director of expansion and recruitment, I'm specifically responsible for the overall management and planning of our colony development and establishing of Sigma Nu colonies as well as the oversight development and implementation of recruitment programs that we provide nationally. So I work on some of that curriculum and ultimately I guess in blunt words, open up chapters. So, that's always a fun process.

 

0:14:36.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah, man. It's one of the most exciting things that we get to do, right? I just think about it, there's so much joy around opening a chapter and it's an exciting time. The road from a fledgling chapter to a fully chartered chapter is an exciting one, especially when they're able to achieve that, there's a lot of pride that goes into that as well. So, let's talk then a little bit about, like when we're looking at returning to a school or we're looking at chartering a chapter at a school that we've never had a chapter at before, and those might be different processes, so please let me know if there's differences there, I'd love to hear about that. But what do we look for? What's our expansion strategy? Is it scattershot? Are we just trying to go everywhere that we possibly can or what's that selection process look like? 

 

0:15:39.9 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, I guess first, we can kind of speak to how we decide what campus we want to return to. So, ultimately in a perfect world, we'd love to be able to plant the flag wherever we can, but the reality is there's a lot of financial costs that go into that, that make it really important that we strategize specifically that we're going to the right kind of institution for our brand. So...

 

0:16:01.3 Adam Girtz: Oh, yeah, plus it's kind of a bad look to constantly be trialing a small... Or a chapter at a school and have it, you peter out, we want to build stuff that lasts, right? 

 

0:16:19.1 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, absolutely. So, when we're looking at some different campuses, there are three main kind of overarching characteristics that we look at. First of all, growth, so campus growth. Are there students there that would want to be a part of this experience? The FSL community growth, so fraternity, sorority life. Is this a campus where interest in the fraternity experience is growing? What is the affiliation percentage of people at that school? There's usually a sweet spot that can suggest a supportive environment for fraternities and there's a good balance that needs to be struck there. Our second kind of pillar is campus partnership. So strong university support can significantly boost the chances of a successful establishment. So it's usually weighted pretty high. Campuses that prioritize academics tend to have students who are more likely to be engaged and committed. So that's something that's really important. The presence of dedicated staff can make things smoother and resolve conflicts quickly and its absence certainly can be a deterrent.

 

0:17:24.8 Mac McNeilly: And then recruitment structure as well. What's the barrier to entry to be able to extend a bid to somebody? Do we want to go somewhere in the fall where we can't extend bids to people until the spring? It's about what's being smart with our resources. And the third kind of pillar is alumni engagement. So, do we have alumni in the area who can provide guidance, support and resources to a new chapter? Similar to that, strong advisory support is crucial for a new chapter success. And occasionally, housing can be a factor, I think that's more campus specific though, because certainly within my campus experience housing was not something that was the norm. So I think that's always kind of a situational factor. You asked too about kind of our process of expansion. So, I guess to provide formal definition to it, because it's not necessarily something that every chapter gets experienced with, certainly.

 

0:18:19.4 Mac McNeilly: It's our formal process where a Sigma Nu colony or a provisional chapter is established at a university. And our motto within that is building Rock Chapters. So, what does that mean? Our chartering criteria, so what we measure these colonies on to be able to come a full chapter of Sigma Nu is a reflection of the Rock Chapter Award criteria, so we expect excellence across all categories of operations. And I guess kind of more bluntly, colonies will use that criteria for excellence described through the Pursuit of Excellence Program as a basis for their petition to charter. So, all Sigma Nu chapters are required to participate in this program. I think you guys did a pretty good in-depth episode on that with Scott.

 

0:19:07.7 Adam Girtz: Yeah.

 

0:19:08.1 Mac McNeilly: And those that receive excellence across all categories get the Rock Chapter Award. So, by using this program as a framework for our chartering criteria, colonies can gain valuable experience and make progress towards becoming a Rock Chapter even before we grant them a charter. So, as far as strategy goes, we like to create a high standard group from the start. So in our recruitment process, we focus on strong academics, campus engagement, dedication to our principles, the desire to be a leader, make something fresh, start a legacy, be the founding father of something. People who are interested in immediate leadership experience and really those who want opportunities to provide direct community service and philanthropy or engagement that benefits the local community.

 

0:19:56.6 Mac McNeilly: So, sort of within that process, once we get this founding group, we'll conduct colony officer elections and do weekly training. We'll do training on how to run a committee. We will make heavy use of our lead program, hopefully implementing all four phases in the all chapter section. Different workshops we offer like, Behind Happy Faces, so our mental health workshops, Social Strengths, Hazing Prevention, which I'm sure Fred will talk about that a little bit later. And then we like to help them develop their vision and strategic planning. So that's all really important. Also making sure that they're full participants within their community. So that could be socials, that could be philanthropy, that could be service, and also kind of teaching them to autonomously recruit on their own. We do this through leaning heavily on our onsite staff support model and alumni mentoring.

 

0:20:44.2 Mac McNeilly: So, in our current model, we will dedicate a full-time staff member to that project for a semester. They'll be there for at least eight to ten weeks. They lead all the recruitment and development. They're trained by me. There's a budget that supports them, and kind of as that process is going on, we're soliciting and recruiting volunteers to serve in an advisory capacity so that we can transition and the group is fully functioning kind of on their own by the time we leave. So I guess that's kind of a brief overview of what we do and some of the process that goes into that. I don't know if that's everything you were looking for.

 

0:21:23.4 Adam Girtz: No. Yeah, and so, I did want to ask a little bit more about being on a campus like that. So you spend some time on campuses that we're... You're opening a chapter on. And then you mentioned the expansion consultant as well. So those consultants are those first and second year staff members, the consultant position when you come on. So as a consultant, you're either then touring a region, like you mentioned you did the Southeast, I had the Midwest. You have like twenty some chapters you go visit and provide that support to those established chapters. But then, so we have an expansion consultant then that is on the ground at every one of our candidate chapter projects, right? So, what does that look like then? So, you mentioned that you support and you advising, kind of helping them get a chapter, get all the pieces of a chapter put together, right? They're recruiting officer... Or they're electing officers and whatnot and kind of transitioning over to the chapter running itself. But what is the day to day like when you're on the ground there? What's your favorite part of being on the ground with a candidate chapter project? 

 

0:22:43.4 Mac McNeilly: I think honestly, every campus is unique and every campus has something special about them. It's really fun to be able to, obviously you're there for a job and you have, you're building the fraternity up, but being able to kind of take what we do as a national organization and translate that to local context to not only be one of the best Sigma Nu chapters in the country, but one of the best on that campus is always something special. Every campus has something really unique about them. Like one campus I was working with, they had a tradition after their bid day where all the chapters would go out and paint this rock that had some significance and Rocks and Sigma Nu tend to have a positive correlation in our history. So I always thought that was kind of cool that oh, we can go do that, or some will have their own dance marathons or their own things that make that community successful. And I think it's just being able to bridge the gap between what are our expectations and what are the expectations of the university and helping them kind of get that light bulb of oh, this really isn't as hard as sometimes we make it out to be and setting those standards from the start is really encouraging.

 

0:24:00.2 Mac McNeilly: I think sometimes there's some cultural pieces that you can't fix during a visit that are really cool to see, but it's good to set that from the start and really see them flush that all the way out. And by the time you go to a chartering ceremony, hey, you watched them build it, you gave them the pieces and that was a fun part of it and you built some relationships, but at the end of the day, they're the ones that have to want it. And I think to see that go all the way through and to know, hey, we found the right guys and this is going to be a chapter that's going to be here for the next hundred years is always really cool to see.

 

0:24:37.9 Adam Girtz: That's awesome. Yeah. Fred, when's the last time you were on the ground at a expansion project? Do you have any fond memories? 

 

0:24:45.5 Fred Dobry: Well, on the ground at an expansion project, last would have been I think Epsilon Delta chapter, Wyoming. I attended their chartering ceremony and that was really cool and...

 

0:24:55.2 Adam Girtz: Love those guys.

 

0:24:58.4 Fred Dobry: The alumni took us out to dinner, introduced us to Rocky Mountain Oysters, which, for listeners, go ahead and Google that, we don't need to disclose here in the podcast what that is, but you can find out for yourself. But yeah, that was part of the experience out in Wyoming. But yeah, like Mac said, it's so exciting starting a new group. And shout out to Chaysen Babcock, joined our team this summer. He's actually going to be our expansion and recruitment consultant for this upcoming year, launching our two projects this fall at Zeta Iota at San Jose State University and then in the spring Kappa Gamma at Cal Poly Pomona. So Chase is going to be the one experiencing that on-the-ground work this year and we'll continue that legacy that Mac alluded to with the guys that have done it in the past.

 

0:25:41.4 Adam Girtz: Very cool. Yeah, Chase is a good guy. I think that he's going to be very successful with those. Well, neat. Yeah. I got to consult Epsilon Delta, so I did not try the local delicacy, unfortunately, while I was there, but the chapter is still going strong, so it looks like he had a positive effect on 'em. Awesome. Well, yeah, so I think we were going to transition into talking a little bit more generally about recruitment. Christopher, I think you had a question or two lined up for that.

 

0:26:12.7 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so I mean, I think for the average listener, they're not going to experience kind of the colony process unless maybe they're an alumnus who is from a dormant chapter and they might get involved in the process of bringing their chapter back or you had the opportunity of maybe participating in a colony. But I think the vast majority of our listeners are probably starting to kind of think about, well, hey, what does recruitment look like for my chapter? Or hey, I'm an advisor, how do I assist my chapter in improving the recruitment effort? Or hey, my chapter is struggling, how do I really kind of help them out? Because we're getting low in numbers and we're starting to get concerned because our low manpower means that our fixed costs become more expensive for the average member and we have less hands to kind of do the things that we need to get done. So I kind of thought it would be useful, Mac and Fred, to kind of break up the last portion here to talk about general advice for our recruitment chairmen as well as our advisors who oversee a chapter's recruitment process. And I kind of want to break it down into three different scenarios, so, I think, because this is going to look different for chapters at each end of the spectrum.

 

0:27:39.5 Christopher Brenton: Chapters who are, for the most part, doing really well in recruitment, but maybe there's kind of a worthwhile conversation to be had about quality. How do we improve the quality of our membership? You've got somewhere in the middle where you're kind of trying to focus on both and then on the far end you're focusing on, hey, we need numbers, we've gotten really small. We're trying to kind of improve our overall membership while also not sacrificing quality but really kind of we're focused on how do we grow in away that's sustainable and how do we grow in a way that we can survive, frankly. So kind of through those three lenses, I wanted to see if the two of you could provide, what is your general advice, or when you're talking to a chapter or a collegiate recruitment chairman, what's the advice you're giving to those men in those chapters who might be struggling with recruitment or looking to make improvements? 

 

0:28:37.8 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, I think there are three main things about attitude that we need to think about going into this process. So the first is to be confident, be committed, and speak the language of the person you're trying to talk to. People are not going to believe in something if you don't. So I think having the confidence of what you're building is important and does matter, is going to be crucial toward anything in this process. The second thing is honesty. Be upfront with people. Don't lie or minimize the work or time needed. If your candidate program requires a certain amount of study hours or whatever, you want to hold people to consistent standards, so make sure you're straight up about that or financial commitments in the recruitment process. The third thing is effort. That's half the battle, you just, you got to try. And if you're not actively recruiting, then you're not doing anyone any favors. I think how good chapters recruit and some trends that I've noticed, authentic and intentional relationship building, taking it seriously, setting realistic goals, and then adapting to meet those if you fall short or other factors come up.

 

0:29:40.2 Mac McNeilly: A principle that I think is really important as you're building your prospect list, quantity drives quality. So what I mean by that is, I think every chapter has probably said in their meetings when they're discussing bids, hey, we always want quality over quantity. And certainly that's an attitude that we agree with. But I think doing some quick math behind that, you'd probably agree, hey, if you get ten guys from a list of twenty, great, you got half the people you talked to. But if that list of people was at 100 and you got ten guys off of that, those ten individuals that you just extended a bid to are probably going to be of significantly higher quality than that. And that's just the law of large numbers. I think when we're marketing to students, people join people. One of the biggest mistakes that chapters make is they make an effort to get their name out there and not bring people to them. So I think certainly you can't recruit who you don't know. I always tell chapters, hey, the rule of five, first day on campus, you need to be making five new friends every week and bringing them up at chapter. Because if you're a chapter of 20 guys and everyone recruits or everyone at least meets five people and puts them on a list, you're adding 100 names to your prospect list a week.

 

0:30:45.9 Mac McNeilly: So that just gives you some names to go off of. Be able to tell your Sigma Nu story. You've heard mine, you've heard Fred's, probably Christopher and Adam's too, on a previous episode. Talk about why you're in Sigma Nu. People are attracted to that; people join people. Build relationships. Who on campus can enhance your organization's reputation? Not necessarily people that you're just recruiting, but hey, maybe a campus administrator or a faculty member or another organization on campus. And kind of within that, how can you use that to drive leads and bring people to you? I think as far as strategy goes, raw prospecting like tabling and interest forms and whatnot, that's good for strangers, probably do some small activities for people who've expressed interest or new prospects. Save your recruitment events for people that you've been talking to and have expressed mutual interest in, and really just start having those deep, intimate conversations with people that we want to extend bids to. I think to your example of the chapter that may need to put some more quality filters in, let's get specific with it, like if we're setting good standards, maybe a bad example of setting a standard of involvement is, hey, they just show up to the stuff they're required to.

 

0:32:03.0 Mac McNeilly: But a good example could be, hey, we have a requirement that you're in at least one other on campus organization besides Sigma Nu, and you could do that for a lot of different things. Like for academics, hey, this guy makes good grades. Okay, well, let's quantify that. What's our minimum standard? Some things to think about too as you're filtering people, finances, do they understand the costs associated? Can they fill it out? Behavior. Do they treat people with respect? Have they been in any altercations with hazing? Do they understand what that is and that we are founded to be an anti hazing organization? Do they understand our policy on alcohol and drugs? Do they understand our academic policies? What are their expectations from this experience? And a lot of these are conversations you can have prior to extending the bid. And really, that bid should be confirmation of, hey, this guy understands our values and wants to be a part of it, and we're going to help him be the best brother of this chapter and best individual that we can let him be. When we're talking to people too, something I've learned recently that I always have been preaching to chapters is use your interrogatives.

 

0:33:15.9 Mac McNeilly: Like how? Why? Tell me about it, explain to me, help me understand. Kind of use their words to craft your pitch, but also to understand what they may be looking for. Validate their concerns. You can isolate each concern and deal with them separately. Hey, I understand you're concerned about the finances. We set up payment plans and we can figure something out. Besides that, do you have any other hesitancies about joining Sigma Nu? And the other thing too is timeline. I don't think you should leave a conversation without setting up a follow-up point or an event to invite somebody to within 48 hours of the conversation so that you're staying fresh on their mind. So I guess that was kind of a brain dump, but those are some initial thoughts. I think...

 

0:33:55.0 Christopher Brenton: No, No.

 

0:33:56.1 Mac McNeilly: Yeah.

 

0:33:57.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, I think that's really good. Actually, I wanted to reiterate one point from what you shared, which was the quality, sorry, quantity drives quality. While I'm over charge of... Or sorry, over communications and Adam's over engagement, and Fred also primarily does health and safety. The funny thing about our staff is that all of us have been leadership consultants at one point in time, and so we've all had the opportunity to interact with a collegiate chapter who is struggling with recruitment and have experiences with that. I will say when I was a leadership consultant, one of the things that I often was confronted with were chapters that had kind of fallen to a smaller size and then kind of grown complacent with that size. And that's not to say that the fraternity requires that you be a particular size or you're going to be punished if you're a certain size, or that we expect you to be a large chapter. We want you to have a healthy size for your campus. But there are some times where I think chapters what Mac kind of illustrated with this idea of, like, if you have a Master Prospect List of 20 guys and you bid ten of them, like you have a 50% acceptance rate or a 50% retention rate...

 

0:35:20.1 Christopher Brenton: Of the men who are on your list, there are some chapters who they only have maybe five guys to show up to recruitment and then all five of those men receive bids. And we'll often hear from those same chapters of, well, hey, we're only bidding the best on campus. I was like, well, if you only had five men show up to your events, or you only had a Master Prospect List of five, can you really confidently say that you are selecting from the best men on campus? And so I really think that for a lot of our recruitment chairmen, actually putting in the work to develop and build a Master Prospect List is one of the most critical things you can do. And that is something that you can even start right now. Even if your campus has not returned to school, returned to school activities, like reach out to your members of your chapter over the summer or the final days before everyone returns to campus. Who do they know? Do they know of incoming freshmen? Are they aware of friends from their neighborhood who are going to be coming to the school? Start to build out that list, and that way you can kind of start to dole out names for people to contact to start to build relationships with. The more people that you're going to be able to add to your prospect list, start to develop relationships with, the more, or the stronger you're going to feel about the bids that you're ultimately going to extend.

 

0:36:47.9 Christopher Brenton: And so I really just, I challenge chapters to not grow complacent with their numbers and not just accept that the men that show up to the door are the only options they have to choose from. You're going to have to put in the work, but the work is worth it.

 

 

0:37:00.8 Adam Girtz: There are guys, I think, too, looking at it from the angle of the Sigma Nu experience is so valuable that there are young men on campus like Mac, I think even yourself on your campus, right? If you hadn't found Sigma Nu, like, how would your campus experience be different? Right? Would you have found that loving, caring support group that you found? Right? Maybe you would have found it somewhere else, right? Maybe it would have been in athletics or something like that. But there's young men on our campuses that need Sigma Nu in their life, right? And I think it's doing a disservice to your campus community if you're not trying your absolute hardest to get out there and meet every single person that could potentially benefit from the Sigma Nu experience, and flipping that, then making sure that the chapter has the best possible guys that are going to do the most for the organization. Right? I think it feeds both ways. But yeah.

 

0:38:11.5 Mac McNeilly: Yeah. Sort of to that point too, the people who aren't in this community don't hate the community. They just don't know us. What are we doing to introduce people to our organization? My biggest pet peeve when working with the recruitment chairman is after the recruitment period, they say nothing to report at the chapter meeting. Like hey, we're doing stuff all year, whether it's a service event, whether it's a lead session, whether it's a brotherhood event, invite people to that, charge people to bring two or three friends to events that we're doing. because we're going to do those anyway. And I think, if anything, recruiting throughout the year provides a more authentic experience than just the show that some may put on for the stereotypical rush week.

 

0:38:52.9 Adam Girtz: Absolutely.

 

0:38:53.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Fred, so we can get you into the mix. You know, I had the opportunity to kind of pull from my leadership consulting experience; I know you can do the same. Do you have kind of like a go-to piece of advice or was there a consistent challenge that you saw chapters experiencing that you have advice for of how they can overcome that? 

 

0:39:18.2 Fred Dobry: I think one of the things that always stood out to me, it speaks to what Mac mentioned. You know, people join people, not events. So I think oftentimes chapters spend way too much time, energy, and resources in trying to create some amazing event that's going to bring in all these guys. In reality, those guys aren't joining because of an event, and they're likely not going to that event unless they've been personally invited by a member, created some sort of direct touchpoint with a member. And so I think it's just shifting that focus, and also shifting the focus from the recruitment chairman is responsible for management of the overall recruitment plan, not solely responsible for recruiting a new member class. That's gotta be a chapter effort. Everyone's gotta be involved, and doing their part to make contact with potential new members, and then inviting them, developing that relationship, getting them to recruitment events so that they can then interact with other chapter members, get to know and experience a little bit more of what this chapter culture is and what this chapter is all about. So I think those are a couple things just from working with chapters I'd add on to what you guys have already shared that I've seen in terms of kind of some of the recruitment errors that we sometimes make.

 

0:40:27.8 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, Mac, to kind of close us out here for this recruitment section, one final question, which is from your experience in the department, are there resources or tools that you would recommend that chapters check out, start to take a look at? What can make their experience easier as they go into this recruitment season? 

 

0:40:55.3 Mac McNeilly: I think first and foremost, if you're a recruitment chairman and you're not 100% confident in your role, the first thing you should do is go to our website and look at the recruitment chairman's officer page; there's a manual there for you. We have a very good resource that's a step-by-step instruction on how to create a good year-round recruitment plan called the Blue Book. That document's probably been around for over 10 years now, but I think everything within it is still very applicable. Recruitment solves all your chapter's problems. If you have finance problems, you need more people. If you have a lack of participation, then you should specifically target people who want to get engaged on campus. You know, if you have risk management problems, then bring in people who are going to create a respectful environment.

 

0:41:39.3 Mac McNeilly: So I think that's a good resource for that. There are a lot of tools for a Master Prospect List. Some like to use the old classic Excel. I know in our department, we use a product from Phired Up called ChapterBuilder. There's a lot of different platforms you can use to keep track of. But you know, the big thing with that is, hey, if you're not constantly using your prospect list, then it's a useless document. So make sure that whatever you do, you're constantly using that. There's also our best practices library, so there's a lot of good recruitment ideas that are in here and other resources that I think are well worth your time, sample videos, sample flyers for parents. You know, I think, whatever you do within your plan, we usually follow in our department the rule of six, give people six points of contact or six things that they see that, you know, promote your chapter.

 

0:42:36.1 Mac McNeilly: Whether it's an Instagram post, whether it's a flyer, whether it's seeing a guy in a shirt, whether it's two or three conversations. You know, I think even if we can't extend a bid, that doesn't mean that we can't consistently be trying to promote our brand and bring people into the experience that we're trying to create. So, as far as resources go, there's a plethora of them. And we do offer programming throughout the year that promotes that. We're also available if, hey, if you need to have a conversation about how do I get a recruitment plan together, my email's always open. You have a consultant that's assigned to you throughout the year that's job is to make sure that you guys are in your best position for success. So use the investment that the fraternity has put into your chapter because the the resources are there, and if it's not there, we can certainly make it for you.

 

0:43:23.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Mac and Fred on this topic of recruitment, Adam and I just want to say thank you for coming on the podcast and lending your wisdom. I know that our listeners appreciate it and appreciate learning from you and kind of the expertise that you bring. So, thank you. Mac, how can people get in contact with you if they have additional questions about recruitment or questions about maybe expansion as well? 

 

0:43:52.3 Mac McNeilly: Yeah, my direct email is Mac M-A-C dot McNeilly M-C-N-E-I-L-L-Y, at sigmanu.org. That's the easiest way. If not, if you fill out any kind of form involving recruitment, it'll go to me, but I'm usually easy to find. I'm pretty quick to pick up the phone, so if you need me holler, I'm here for you.

 

0:44:11.4 Christopher Brenton: Perfect...

 

0:44:11.4 Adam Girtz: Yeah, Mac's a big phone guy. Highlight of my week is always when Mac randomly calls me, it's always fun. So yeah, give him a call.

 

0:44:23.1 Christopher Brenton: Well, Fred, we'll spare you from sharing your contact information so that everyone will direct their questions to Mac as that... Since that is his purview. But certainly, if you have any questions related to health and safety, go back and check out the other podcast that Fred has attend... Or Fred has been on, to get his contact information there. We'll make you hunt for it, or you can find it on the website. But, before we let... Or before we wrap up this entire thing, we do have two things we want to plug. I'm going to kick it over first to Fred to talk about National Hazing Prevention Week.

 

0:44:58.1 Fred Dobry: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you Christopher, and thanks Mac, for that great conversation. So, National Hazing Prevention Week, we participate in this week every year. It's organized by the Hazing Prevention Network, which was formerly known as hazingprevention.org. They organized this week each and every year to occur in September, to just raise awareness and focus attention to this ongoing problem of hazing that exists not only on college campuses, but really all throughout society, as anyone that's following the news lately has been seeing in particularly, sports media with what's going on in Northwestern. So obviously an issue that plagues many different layers of society. So during that week, we do an intentional focused effort on bringing additional awareness to hazing prevention and the resource we have available on our website to creating a values-based, positive developmental fraternity experience for new members and all members, as well as, speaking to our storied history and our commitment to an anti-hazing fraternity experience since we were founded. So we have a lot going on throughout September, with that email campaign, social media, all the things that you would expect.

 

0:46:08.1 Fred Dobry: And then on the week itself, which will be September 25th through 29th this year, we will have a different, guest-written article published and shared on the concept of hazing prevention and particularly on our theme for this year's National Hazing Prevention Week, which will be love, honor, truth, nothing less. So be on the lookout for that. A lot more information to come. That's a quick preview of what's coming in September.

 

0:46:32.9 Christopher Brenton: Cool. Thanks, Fred. And I also have a plug for us. So later on this fall, we will be doing our annual Day of Giving, the Sigma Nu Educational Foundation kind of puts together a single day, donor drive. So, really focusing this year on just donor participation really at any level. So, just trying to bring awareness to the good work that the foundation does and everything that it does to advance the mission of our fraternity.

 

0:47:07.8 Christopher Brenton: So that's going to be in October. It'll be October 18th this year. So definitely look out for communication regarding that. If you are listening to this podcast, I would say that you're probably one of our more engaged alumni if you're an alumnus. So if that's you and you consider yourself someone who has a connected network, I would love to work with you as a Day of Giving ambassador as well.

 

0:47:37.2 Christopher Brenton: So if that's something that interests you and you're passionate about Sigma Nu as passionate as we all are, a great way to help advance our mission is to serve as an ambassador for The Day of Giving. So, definitely reach out to me, Adam.Girtz G-I-R-T-Z@sigmanu.org. And just mention that you heard about this Day of Giving, ambassador volunteer position and it's something that you're interested in. Would love to chat with you about it and give you some more information. So, but yeah, in general then, be on the lookout for communication going out regarding The Day of Giving and if you are feeling so inclined, participate on that day. So, alright. Is that it? I think we've hit everything we needed to. Are we good to go? Anything else, guys? 

 

0:48:29.4 Fred Dobry: I mean, the only thing I would say about The Day of Giving, hey, The Day of Giving, the result of that made some of the work we do in mental health possible. So just a further plug, we got a grant from the foundation to support our mental health work at the fraternity because of the participation of alumni and collegiate members in The Day of Giving two years ago. So thank you to all that have donated and thank you for considering being involved this year.

 

0:48:51.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, man, it's really cool, working with the foundation now for this last year has really kind of shown me, I think more about the power of the collective, right? The power that our organization has when we all stand together and work towards our common goals, right? The value that we can provide the mental health resources that we were able to provide there, where it's invaluable for our members. So it's really making a tangible difference. So, really neat stuff. Well, Mac, Fred, thank you both again for being with us here, spending some time talking about recruitment today. And as always, for our listeners, if you enjoyed the show, best thing you can do is share it with a brother.

 

0:49:39.6 Christopher Brenton: Send this podcast link out to your group chat, post it in your alumni page. Just let a brother know that this podcast exists and that they can go back and listen to it. We've got 35 episodes now, so we're getting to the point where, yeah, you've got a good backlog worth of episodes to go back and listen to and hear our growth and development in the podcast. So, as always, thank you all for listening and share it with a brother. We'll talk to you next month.

 

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