GOOD GUYS


 GOOD GUYS

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

GOOD GUYS

THE EIGHT STEPS TO LIMITLESS

POSSIBILITY FOR FRATERNITY
RECRUITMENT

MATTHEW G. MATTSON
JOSHUA A. ORENDI

A Product of Phired Up Productions, LLC

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Created and published by

Phired Up Productions, LLC
727 Genesee Dr.
Naperville, IL 60563

Copyright © 2006 by Phired Up Productions, LLC

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without permission.

Matthew G. Mattson and Joshua A. Orendi

Good Guys: The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility for
Fraternity Recruitment / Mattson & Orendi

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

http://www.PhiredUp.com

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This book is dedicated to

Louis Manigault, Founder of ΑΣΦ
He's the guy, who recruited the guy, who recruited the guy, who
recruited the guy, who recruited the guy…
…who recruited us.

Special thanks to:

Rick Deale Christopher Boniface
Ed Lenane Kyle Jordan
Heath Stephens Mike Post
Matt Maurer Tom Hinkley
Colleen Coffey Drew Thawley
Kristi Hoffman Sandra Moore, Editor

Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity, Inc

…and most importantly, our wives

Meggan Mattson
Denise Orendi

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Your house may have different

letters on it than mine, but our
foundations are built from the
same stone.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DO IT.
Throughout Good Guys you will find practical applications to
help you improve your recruitment results immediately. Pay
special attention to the sections entitled “Do It.” These
sections provide exercises and activities to help you get
immediate results.

FOREWORD: LESSONS LEARNED 7

THE BEST GUYS ON CAMPUS 13
DO IT. 18
THE EIGHT STEPS TO LIMITLESS… 19
THE STAGE IS SET 23
STEP 1: KNOW THE BASICS 27
DO IT. 31
STEP 2: A.C.E. YOUR VALUES 35
DO IT. 48
S.P.A.M. 49

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STEP 3: GET MOTIVATED 59

DO IT. 70
STEP 4: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE 73
DO IT. 92
STEP 5: KNOW YOUR PRODUCT 95
DO IT. 104
STEP 6: DEVELOP SKILLS 107
DO IT. 128
STEP 7: GROW WISER 131
DO IT. 140
STEP 8: REPEAT 143
DO IT. 150
WHO DOES ALL THIS? 151
THE EIGHT STEPS IN REVIEW 153
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 157
DO IT. 159

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FOREWORD:
LESSONS LEARNED

This book is about recruiting gentlemen into college

fraternities (though you’ll find the messages to be universally
applicable). We believe recruitment is at the core of a fraternity’s
potential and at the core of most fraternities’ major challenges.
That being said, you should know that we (the authors,
Matt and Josh) used to be really bad at recruitment. We’re
talking bad. Not like when “bad” really meant good, but actually
bad.
When we were undergraduate fraternity men we both
dreaded that “rush” time of the year. We didn’t like that we felt
fake and cheesy when just trying to get a few strangers to join our
chapter within the allotted rush week. Because we didn’t like it,
we never learned anything about it, and we didn’t get any better
at it while we were in college.
Then, while working at our fraternity’s national
headquarters (Alpha Sigma Phi) as Chapter Leadership
Consultants, we decided to apply for a promotion to share the
role of Director of Expansion. That essentially meant that we
would be the brothers in charge of recruitment for the entire
national organization. The future growth of a 150-year-old

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organization with tens of thousands of living brothers would be

solely in our hands.
Somehow we got the job and, honestly, we were still
really bad at recruitment. We tried some expansion efforts at a
few universities along the East Coast; and while most of them
ultimately “succeeded,” our success was mostly due to the
dedication of the few undergraduate leaders at those schools.
Anyway, to make a long story short, we left our posts as
Directors of Expansion after a while; we had some work and life
experiences in which we were forced to learn how to do sales,
recruitment, and relationship building; we read some books; we
got involved in other organizations; and we got a LOT better at
recruitment. We studied the best recruiters, fraternity men,
salespeople, managers and leaders in the field, and we quickly
realized that it would have been really helpful had we had this
information, knowledge and wisdom while we were in college.
In 2002, we founded Phired Up Productions, LLC as a
way to get the message out about membership growth and
development for non-profit organizations – especially college
fraternities. Nobody had ever taught us how to do any of this
while we were in college, and we became determined to change
that for others. We hadn’t learned it in classes, we hadn’t learned
it in our new member education programs, and we had definitely
never read any books about it when we were in school.

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Nobody teaches you this stuff!

Yada, yada, yada… Now we’re writing a book about how
to discover limitless possibilities for your fraternity, all of which
is based on the premise that if you had a system to recruit a
higher quantity of higher quality members, you would have more
money as a chapter, you would have more friends as a chapter,
and you could do more fun things as a chapter. Essentially, a
better amount of better people makes a better organization.
Good news! You don’t have to wait until you’re old like
us to discover the limitless possibilities of your fraternity
experience. And, if by chance you’re reading this after your
storied undergraduate years have passed, don’t worry. You can
do a lot to make the future of our struggling but proud fraternity
community as bright as possible by advocating and practicing the
eight step model found in this book.
Someone a lot smarter than us once said, “The two ways
people learn are by making mistakes and taking note of the
mistakes made by others.” We hope the lessons of our failures
speed your successes.
The paradigm of fraternity recruitment is about to
experience a revolution. The model in this book, if it is learned,
shared, and practiced, provides the framework for that revolution
of limitless possibilities.

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May you see your potential, may you work hard, and may
your dreams be achieved!

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“Associate yourself with men of

good quality if you esteem your
reputation. It is better to be
alone than in bad company.”

~George Washington~

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THE BEST GUYS ON CAMPUS

After hours of heated debate, the color and design of this

year’s rush T-shirts are determined. The T-shirts arrive just in
time for the big week. At the last minute the chapter throws
together several events for IFC (Interfraternity Council) rush
week. A few members print up fliers and chalk the sidewalks of
campus. One brother leverages his artistic ability to produce a
large rush banner on a white bed sheet.
The chapter invests most of its available funds and
hundreds of man hours into preparing for the arrival of freshmen
prospects. The IFC events are OK, but the real recruiting
happens at the chapter’s Big Event. They’re known for Big Event
and have a lot of pride in this special occasion.
Nobody is quite sure who will be coming to Big Event, but
everyone is sure it will be Big. Prospective members will be
asking for bids by the dozens when they see how the chapter can
make Big Event come together. Special care has been given to
cleaning the house (sort of), the women have been invited,
beverages are provided, and free food is available. The chapter
is now prepared for the best rush ever.
Big Event goes relatively well since everyone had a good
time. However, the brothers ate most of the free food, the girls in

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attendance were mostly the brothers’ current girlfriends, and

nobody seems to remember but a handful of the prospects by
name – except for the 2-3 guys everyone sort of knew were going
to pledge regardless.
With the lessons of Big Event learned, the chapter realizes
it needs to “step it up” since the rush period is half over. So they
regroup and have… another Big Event.
As rush week comes to a close, the brothers huddle in a
room together to begin the infamous voting process. A few guys
slide through with a unanimous "yes." Then, a brother slouched
on a couch at the back of the room questions a prospect’s
credibility and someone else yells out, "Yeah, I don’t even know
the kid.” Another says, “That’s what the pledge period is for.”
Finally, a brother calmly says, “Trust me, he’s a good guy.” A
few others chime in, “Yeah, give him a chance. He seems like a
good guy to me.” With that, the criteria has been set and the
chapter is now several hours deep in a hot room to determine
who is “good guy” enough to receive a bid.
Most of the small percentage of freshmen they've met are
given bids, but only half of those bids are accepted. The chapter
is shocked! However, the brothers set things at ease by
reminding themselves that – just like last semester – they got “the
best guys on campus.”
“Besides,” they say, “we’re about quality, not quantity.”

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Did anything sound familiar in that story?

If you can relate even a little, we’re laughing right along

with you. It’s OK, you’re involved with a chapter stuck in a
traditional recruitment process that we call Static Recruitment.
If you can’t completely relate to that story,
congratulations! You’re probably involved in a new chapter or,
just maybe, you’re fortunate enough to be in the tiny upper
echelon of college fraternity chapters today that practice Dynamic
Recruitment. Dynamic Recruitment is the year round proactive
process of seeking high quality men through a system built for
success.
This book is for you no matter if that story was exactly
like your reality or far from it. Good Guys is a book meant to
take your chapter from good to great, from static to dynamic, or
even from dynamic to unbelievable.
We’ve found out from our experience gained working
with fraternities at all types of schools – big, small, private,
public, urban, rural, etc. – that there are a few commonalities that
might have hit home for you in that story.

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1. Fraternities have some traditions that could be changed. A lot

of fraternities keep doing the same old things and keep
getting the same old results.

2. Many fraternities have a disease: Eventitis. Eventitis is a

nasty disease that makes all those chapters infected believe
they have to spend a lot of money and time on planning a big
event in order to make friends.

3. No matter how incredible your rush events are, not many

people come (because most non-fraternity people are scared
of fraternity events), and if they do happen to come,
NOBODY EVER JOINS SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE OF
YOUR COOL EVENT!

4. The truth about rush is that the chapter on campus who gets
the most strangers to pledge is considered the winner. This is
the epitome of old school Static Recruitment.

Our story about a typical rush period may not apply to

you and your chapter with 100% accuracy. Your chapter
probably falls somewhere on a continuum of the difference
between a fraternity chapter that practices Static Recruitment and

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a fraternity chapter committed to the ideas in this book, the

practice of Dynamic Recruitment.
Whether you realize it, your current recruitment process is
good. We know this because it was good enough to get you, and
we’re excited that you’ve decided to make it great.
Each reader of this book has different needs. Some are
desperate for recruitment help because their chapter's immediate
survival depends on it. If that's you, we suggest you take the
contents of this book pretty seriously. Some readers might be
happy with their current recruitment system. If that's you, we
recommend that you look for a couple of ideas in this book to
help you become even better. We are confident that every
fraternity chapter needs some aspect of this book.
A quality fraternity is the most under-appreciated asset on
any college campus today. There is no other opportunity for
young men that offers the breadth and depth of real-life learning
and leadership opportunities than the fraternity experience does.
We believe in the idea of fraternity, and we believe that a
revolution can begin right now – with you – to take the college
fraternity movement into the world of limitless possibilities.

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Share the Static Recruitment story with your brothers

and see which parts they identify with. Use this to lead a
conversation about implementing the changes in this
book.

 Ask the most involved leaders in the chapter about the

moment they knew they were going to join and the person
who most influenced their decision. This insight provides
wisdom into more effective ways to attract top talent.

 Think about the men who never really got involved the
way you hoped or who quit the organization early on.
Why did they join, who influenced their decision, and
what lessons can you learn from their departure to
improve your recruitment and retention efforts?

 Ask yourself and your fellow chapter brothers which

recruitment efforts actually get results. What actually
works to get quality men into your organization?

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THE EIGHT STEPS TO

LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY

We share a bond. You understand, just like we do, that

our lifelong commitment to fraternal values is rooted in the virtue
of humanity. All that is good in the world is represented in
fraternity men – sometimes anyway. You also understand, like
we do, that sometimes it can be downright hard to convince
others of your fraternity's value; getting them to join you in a
lifelong friendship can be even more difficult.
Every brother in your organization has sworn the same
oath, pledging a life-long commitment to your founding
principles and the perpetuation of your brotherhood. The
actualization of your collective commitment to living and
growing the organization determines your success as a fraternity.
In practice, that means growing the quantity and quality of your
brothers.
The systematic approach presented in this book is a
program for maximizing your potential as a world-class fraternity
chapter. The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility is often thought
of as just a recruitment model but, if you look closely, you’ll see
that it is much more than that. It is a system that builds healthy,

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self-sustaining, values-based organizations that achieve

unimaginable success.

THE EIGHT STEPS TO LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY

1. Know the Basics

2. A.C.E. your Values How Come?
3. Get Motivated

4. Know your Audience

5. Know your Product How To?
6. Develop Skills

7. Grow Wiser
8. Repeat How Long?

We provide detailed descriptions and instructions for each

of these eight steps. For now, here is a brief description of how
The Eight Steps can work together.
Steps 1, 2, and 3 are the “How come?” steps. Effective
chapters always begin by understanding their purpose and
developing their own motivation to achieve desired outcomes.
They systematically maximize their chapter’s total membership
based on their founding purpose and shared values. Once the
foundation is set (Step 1), members have agreed to Achieving,

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Communicating, and Expecting congruent values-based

behaviors (Step 2), and they have a unifying dream providing
motivational fuel (Step 3), they can then take action to grow the
quantity and quality of their chapter brothers.
Next we learn “How to” with Steps 4, 5, and 6. These
steps help us develop an understanding of our target audience
(Step 4), a deeper knowledge of the value we provide (Step 5),
and the interpersonal skills necessary to confidently communicate
the organization’s values and value to the public (Step 6).
Finally, Steps 7 and 8, the “How long” steps, remind us
that long-term sustained growth and success requires us to
constantly seek wisdom from external and internal sources (Step
7). Furthermore, long term success is supported by the
implementation of repeatable systems and training that instill
positive patterns of behavior in all of our members (Step 8).
This eight step system guides you in a sequential learning
experience that develops patterns of behavior – habits – for you
and your members. As soon as you are familiar with this
program, you must do two things:

1. Practice the principles by putting your plan into action. Go

do it!
2. Share the program with someone else as it was taught to you.
Teach it!

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May you enter the world of limitless possibility fearlessly

and with total disregard for the impossible.

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THE STAGE IS SET

With the principles we have given you, the stage is now set
for you to:

 Have an enormous pool of prospects to choose from when

building your chapter's membership.

 Expand your chapter to a size you've never imagined.

 Improve your chapter's image and influence on campus.

 Have more money to do more fun things as a chapter.

 Simplify your job as a recruiting member of the chapter

(especially if you are the Recruitment Chairman).

 Increase the quality of your members so that you can be

proud of each and every one of them.

 Better yourself

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This list of benefits is just the start of what The Eight

Steps to Limitless Possibility can do for you. But all of the
information, training, tips, and tools provided in this book are for
naught unless you and your chapter choose to internalize them,
and put them into practice. Understand that this is a real
opportunity for personal and chapter growth, but the choice is
absolutely yours. In other words:

Your opportunity is
N O W H E R E.

What’s your interpretation of this statement? Is your

opportunity Nowhere or Now Here?

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“If you want to change some

things in your life, you’ve got to
change some things in your
life.”

~Dexter Yager~

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STEP 1: KNOW THE BASICS

Major League Baseball is a complex business, but one

thing you hear "expert" analysts talking about all the time is the
fact that the best teams are built on "pitching and defense."
That's quite a statement considering no runs are scored by either
pitchers or fielders while they're on defense. Yet, you hear time
after time that the experts believe "pitching and defense" to be the
fundamentals of a great baseball team.
The suggestion is, then, that when a General Manager
builds a baseball team, he should first focus on getting great
pitching and great defense – then and only then, should he
consider anything else. Home run hitters, base stealers, new
stadiums, fancy uniforms, and the flavor of cotton candy sold by
the vendors are all secondary details when compared to "pitching
and defense." A great baseball team knows the basic components
that are necessary to win a championship and they focus on
making those basic components – the fundamentals – remarkable.
Even if you're not a baseball fan, you can probably think
of parts of your life in which it is important to first focus on the
fundamentals – to Know the Basics. So in our fraternity context,
before we get into the details of how to build a healthy
organization through effective recruitment strategies, we first

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must understand the very basic fundamentals of fraternities – our

organizations' core composition.
The first step in The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility,
Know the Basics, asks you to consider your very make-up as an
organization. What makes it tick? What basic needs do you have
as a chapter? What has kept you around this long?
The answers to these questions are simpler than you
might think. There are two basic needs that make your fraternity
tick. There are two basic things that were there at the genesis of
the organization and that have kept your fraternity around for
decades: People and Purpose. Your chapter, just like your
organization’s founding chapter, needs a bunch of dudes and a
reason to get together. If your chapter only had one of these,
what would it be?
A group of dudes without a purpose is just a boys club for
hanging out.
A purpose without people to fulfill it is just a fluffy idea
floating around in space.
Put these two things together though – people and
purpose – and what do you get? You get an organization just like
your fraternity. What makes any organization unique is its
specific purpose and the unique individuals that come together,
committed to that purpose.

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The process looks something like this: Recruit members,

they develop together through the purpose of the organization;
those new members recruit more members, and then they develop
together through the purpose of the organization. It is an endless
cycle, as long as it isn’t ignored, and your very lifeblood as a
fraternity. This is your very nature, the way that the organization
is made.
It only makes sense, then, that this basic, natural set of
needs created by the cycle of membership should be concentrated
upon and fulfilled before other needs of the organization’s own
hierarchy. If you focus on recruitment and individual character
development more than you focus on what’s going to be on next
semester’s rush T-shirts and who hooked-up with whom at the
last social event, you’ll start seeing significant positive change.
Aren’t the fundamentals of people and purpose like the
fundamentals of pitching and defense in baseball?
This is pretty simple stuff, we know, but ask yourself this
question. What percentage of time at your last chapter meeting
was spent talking specifically about a real plan to get more
members, and/or how best to develop the character of your
current membership so that you will have a higher quality
organization? Our experience has shown us that almost all failed
fraternity chapters can trace their failure back to a lack of focus
on people and purpose.

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HOW ARE YOU SPENDING YOUR ENERGY?

The Pareto Principle, a brilliantly simple truism from a

brilliant economist, states that 80% of the results of any
organization usually come from 20% of the effort. Your
challenge is, can you flip that upside down?
If you spent 80% of your chapter’s energy on the areas of
your needs that currently receive about 20% (People and
Purpose), wouldn’t your chapter’s quantity of quality members
increase dramatically? And if that happened, wouldn’t many of
the major headaches chapter leaders experience disappear
because you’d have more guys, better guys (who fulfill their
commitments, pay their dues, and don’t embarrass you), more
money, more time, and more sororities that want to hang out with
you? Sounds good, right?
You’ve probably seen chapters on your campus or within
your organization that have been closed or reorganized. Almost
every time that happens it is because the chapter has strayed from
the basics – recruiting the right people and staying true to the
purpose of the organization.
Step 1, Know the Basics, is pretty simple, but important
nonetheless. We often take for granted the very things that give
our fraternity life. Shift your focus. Get more people to achieve
the fraternity’s purpose. Do what matters first.

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Evaluate your next chapter meeting. What percentage of

time is spent specifically on results producing recruitment
activities and fulfillment of the chapter's purpose? Are
you as focused as you should be on these basic things?

 Evaluate your chapter's budget. What percentage of

money is spent on things that actually grow the chapter in
quantity and quality? How much money is fizzled away
on less important things?

 Evaluate your recruitment efforts during the 10 weeks

after rush. Are you meeting just as many prospects? Are
you putting the same amount of effort into developing
relationships with prospective members? Are you
extending invitations for membership all semester long?
Remember the Pareto Principle.

 Empower your chapter’s Secretary to maintain a journal

keeping track of time and resources to make sure that the
focus is on the basics – people and purpose.

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“When the values of an

organization disappear, the
value of an organization
disappears.”

~unknown~

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STEP 2: A.C.E. YOUR

VALUES

Step 2 is about the quality of your current and future

members. It is also about whether your chapter abides by the
“truth in advertising” law.
In this step, your organization re-commits to Achieving,
Communicating, and Expecting (A.C.E.) the values of the
fraternity. Doing what you say you’ll do as an organization is
vital for successful recruitment. After all, who would join a
group of hypocrites, liars or con-artists?
In order to not exemplify any of those unflattering terms
you must actively exemplify the fraternal values you do espouse.
Those values are displayed internally through your rituals,
teachings, and code of conduct. Externally, those values are
announced loudly through your publications, history and mission
statement. People outside of your organization have a
predetermined idea of what you are supposed to represent, so you
are expected to do what you say you will do. All you have to do
as an organization is A.C.E. your values!

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1. Achieving

To achieve one’s values, one must first know and

embrace them. Once you have pried open the secret
closet, blown the dust off the ritual book, and taken a
peek inside, take the time to consider what changes in
your organization and personal life need to be made in
order to know that you are ACHIEVING what your
founders hoped for. If you aren’t working to achieve your
fraternity’s values, you may be leading your prospective
members into something they aren’t expecting.

2. Communicating

Your words, your outward appearances, and your actions

are clearly COMMUNICATING your beliefs. Every
minute of every day your members are sending messages
to the world about what a fraternity man that wears your
letters is all about. This is great, if the message is on
target with your stated purpose. What is your chapter
communicating?

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3. Expecting

You must also EXPECT the values that you espouse as an

organization of your members, and especially of yourself.
This means holding each other accountable to the pledges
that you make as brothers. Prospective members can tell
when a chapter lacks integrity. Do you actually hold your
members accountable to the things you say are expected
of them?

In recruitment, when you A.C.E. your values, you:

 Create a better public image
 Get more brothers involved in recruitment.
 Prepare your brothers to help others understand your
organization (because you understand it).
 Separate your chapter from other “frats” on campus.
 Establish a benchmark for identifying quality new
members.

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SHARE YOUR RITUAL WITH NON-MEMBERS

The thought of sharing your esoteric ritual with non-

members probably makes you uneasy, maybe even a little
queasy. We know. It’s OK, and we’ll explain.
At one time, early on, being a secret society was a
necessary part of most fraternities’ survival. Unfortunately
today, uncertainty about which parts of the fraternity are esoteric
coupled with a fear of being the one to let out ancient secrets has
created a hush so powerful that most fraternity men rarely tell
prospective members anything at all about what their
organization stands for. Worse yet, fraternity men got so good at
keeping secrets that many of our own brothers can’t even
communicate the fraternity’s meaning to one another. But, you
can change that.
Respect the fraternity’s esoteric rituals and traditions (the
ones from your founders, not the ones from the 1980’s that
involve paddles and livestock). This is an important part of your
history. However, you also have to build your ability to
communicate your core values through words and actions. To
help clarify, consider the differences between your fraternity’s
ceremony, ritual, and values.

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CEREMONY/RITUAL/VALUES

It is important to ensure we are working with the same

terminology as the term values, as we use it, can often be
confused with some other common terms. When these eight
steps talk about communicating organizational values, it isn’t
meant to encourage your members to break their pledges of
secrecy about esoteric, ritualistic material.
There is a distinct difference between the secret
CEREMONIES of the fraternity, the RITUALIZED performance
of those ceremonies (periodic reverently performed ceremonies),
and the VALUES that form the backbone of the organization.
The words in the ceremonies are only one way to express
the values of your fraternity. In fact those ceremonies encourage
you to communicate your values through your actions and your
character. Even more than that, your ritualistic ceremonies
encourage you to literally share the meaning of your organization
with others, so that they might find the same value as you have
and join.
The ideals, principles, guiding statements, and rules of the
organization as identified and set in stone by the founders are
called values. A system for creating commitment to these values
and communicating a consistent message was established and is
called ceremony. Through the ceremony you express what

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should already be known from your behaviors. The hidden

message of the ceremony which tells new candidates the values
of your lives that you act out on a daily basis is called ritual. The
decisions you make everyday in response to your values separate
you from the masses. Hence the fraternal motto, “live your
ritual” – suggesting “live your values.”

Values ideas, ideals, rules for living, principles

Ritual actions, patterns of behavior, expressions
Ceremony performance, event, play, theater

The commitment to living your values is the foundation

of your fraternity’s past, present, and future. In a time when the
public eye is always watching and the media is quick to provide
headlines boasting our fraternal misfortunes, administrators,
parents, and students are looking critically at fraternities and
asking the question, “What value do you bring to our
community?” Your ability, or inability, to perpetuate the
timeless values of your ritual will determine your fate, be it
prosperity or extinction.
The next time your chapter is sitting around at the end of
rush week voting on who should be deemed worthy of getting
into the chapter consider the fact that your organization’s ritual
probably did not demand that you were the perfect man before

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

you were allowed entry into its sacred walls. Most fraternities
are actually based on one simple criterion for membership:
commitment.
If someday you get a chance to sit down with your ritual
book (by the way, the lock on your ritual closet isn’t there to keep
you out), glance in there to see what commitment you have made.
You’ll find out that all your fraternity asks of its brothers during
the pledge process and during their membership is for a
commitment to Achieving, Communicating, and Expecting the
values of the organization. Essentially, most fraternities are open
to any man who is willing to raise his right hand, and say, “Yeah,
I’ll be your brother for life, act like a decent human being, do
nice things for my brothers and the community, pay my dues and
not be an idiot.”
There are a few challenges, however, that come along
with that seemingly simple commitment. You have to know that
you’re asking that same commitment from all your brothers. You
have to communicate that commitment to prospective new
members before they join. And, you have to actually live up to
your end of the bargain; if one of your brothers breaks that
commitment, you must hold them accountable for their actions.
Fraternity is really pretty simple. You promise something
to a bunch of guys. They promise the same back to you. Then

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 GOOD GUYS

you hold each other to that promise. If someone breaks the

promise, they don’t get to play anymore. Simple.

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

VALUES-BASED SELECTION CRITERIA

Does your chapter have a written set of criteria determining

what to look for in a new member? Break away from the
“Good Guy” mentality and implement a “Values Based
Selection Criteria.” Display these criteria during rush events
(prospective members should know what you are looking for),
use them to decide who is qualified to receive a bid, and make
new members aware that they were chosen based on their
achievements and character within these standards.

Values Standards
________________________ _________________________
________________________ _________________________
________________________ _________________________
________________________ _________________________
________________________ _________________________
________________________ _________________________
Examples:
Academic Excellence Has 3.0 or above

Community Service Has a history of service

including 4+ hrs/mo last year

Friendship Has a meaningful

relationship with 3+ brothers
who will speak on his behalf

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 GOOD GUYS

NEW MEMBER COMMITMENTS

What commitments do you ask of your new members? What

must each member commit to in order to be your brother?

________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Examples:
 Pay your dues in full and on-time.
 Hold a leadership position in at least one other
organization on campus.
 Attend weekly chapter meetings.

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

VALUES CASE STUDIES

From the following case studies based on actual events,

evaluate the situation and assess the members’ activities and
decisions based on your core values as well as those of your
fraternity. Ask yourself, how will this situation support or
compromise our core values? How will I react? Are my
chapter's recruitment efforts values-based? Pose these questions
to your members and see how the responses differ.

o John is the service chairman of your organization. He has

been excited all semester about combining rush with service
by holding an event during rush week that raises money to
support the local Boys and Girls Club. At your chapter
meeting, John stands up to announce that the chapter will be
sponsoring a bikini car wash at a gas station on the edge of
campus. A different organization did a similar event with
sorority girls last semester and raised over $1000 in just one
day, plus they got a bunch of new members.

o Pete is a 5th year senior with the most experience in your

chapter. He has a great idea for a recruitment/new member
activity that he did before he pledged. Pete comes to you
with a list of 25 tasks that he will be challenging the chapter’s

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 GOOD GUYS

prospective members to complete. The list includes some

educational tasks such as looking up questions on the
chapter’s history in the library and getting personal
information from brothers, but also includes some
“adventures,” as Pete referred to them, such as having girls
submit their undergarments and stealing a composite picture
from a rival fraternity.

o The chapter needs a fun place to go that will attract new

prospects during the week’s rush events. Bob’s girlfriend
works at Hooters and she can get the group a huge discount
on food. He reminds all the brothers that last year’s Hooters
trip was the best turnout of any event they hosted, and this
year will be even bigger at only 1/2 the cost.

o To show chapter unity and promote the organization’s name,

Derrick, an art major, has designed “the coolest rush T-shirts
ever.” The front displays the fraternity letters and symbols.
The back boasts a large picture of a farmer and a bikini girl
on a tractor tilling a field with the caption reading, “Pullin’
hoes since 1848.”

o Mike is a great brother and a pretty good student. Last year

Mike took the same History class with the same professor that

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

one of the chapter's newest pledges, Bill, is currently taking.

Bill’s history midterm is tomorrow morning so he tells the
brothers he cannot join them at the Thursday night event with
XYZ sorority. Mike says, “wait here” and returns a few
minutes later with a copy of the midterm. He gives it to Bill
and says, “Now there’s no excuse for you not to come have a
great time with us.”

o One of the perks of being an upperclassman is having the

option to live off campus. This year, two of the chapter’s
seniors, Kyle and Stan, live in an amazing apartment where
they often host parties for brothers and friends. Since the
alcohol policies have tightened recently in the chapter house,
Kyle comes to the rescue with the announcement that he and
Stan will host unrestricted parties for brothers and prospective
new members to help get recruitment numbers up this
semester.

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Does your chapter have a written set of criteria for a

prospective new member to receive a bid? Is it more than
just being a “good guy?” Get the chapter together and
determine your values-based selection criteria.

 Are values important? Some brothers argue that the

challenge of upholding your collective commitment to an
agreed upon values system defines “fraternity.” Go find
your ritual book and read it to understand what every
brother has sworn to live by. Think about how that
commitment effects the men you recruit.

 Schedule a debriefing session for ALL brothers after any

new member ritual ceremony. Use this time to answer
questions, discuss the ceremony, identify values, and talk
about how/why the chapter exemplifies these founding
beliefs.

 Use the Case Studies we’ve provided to spark challenging,

values-based discussions with your brothers.

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

S.P.A.M.

Have you ever had the pleasant opportunity of cracking

open an ice cold can of meat? That’s right, we’re talking about
canned, spiced, efficient, delicious pork and ham cubes.
What comes to mind when we mention “S.P.A.M?” Go
ahead, make your own list of words that you think of when you
hear “S.P.A.M.” Don’t just limit yourself to the strange meat
product, what about email spam?
Typically, when we ask those questions, we get responses
that include the following terms and statements:
Yuck
Disgusting
Canned mush
Annoying
Gelatinous goo
Nasty
Mystery meat
Repetitive
“Not much substance”
Stinky
“Yum, I love that stuff.” (There’s always one person)
“What is it?”

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 GOOD GUYS

“A can of nothing”
“What do those letters mean anyway?”
“Leftovers stuffed together”
“You could eat it, but you probably don’t want to”
“It’s technically food, but… gross”
“I’d rather eat a steak”
“I’d rather eat my own arm”
Most people have a very clear opinion of S.P.A.M. and,
most often, it’s not a good one. Ironically, the overwhelming
majority of Americans have never even tried it. They just
“know” it’s not for them.
Now, here's a different question. Do you have anyone on
your campus that is anti-Greek? Duh… We know you do.
Here’s a better question. Do you think a few of those words
listed above describing salty meat products and billions of
annoying emails might be similar to the words that your anti-
Greek classmates would use to describe the fraternities on your
campus?
Go ahead and read the list again.
It’s not a fun analogy, but sadly it works. Many of the
fraternities you’ll encounter around the country actually are
rather disgusting, annoying, canned meat, without much
substance, living together in a mysterious box with strange letters
on the front that nobody understands.

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Now consider how those anti-Greek folks might describe

your recruitment efforts: repetitive, in your face, strange,
annoying tactics to con people into joining something they don’t
actually want. Sounds a lot like email spam, don't you think?
Now imagine what a dozen S.P.A.M. cans might resemble
if we lined them up next to one another… Yep, Fraternity Row
on your campus. A bunch of houses lined up that all look the
same, with strange letters on the outside and smelly gelatinous
goo for members on the inside. Similarly, the majority of
Americans have never tried fraternity either, and their
preconceived notion is that they “know” what it’s all about and
they know it’s not for them.

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 GOOD GUYS

S.P.A.M. Village

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

Anyway, it’s just an analogy. The real lesson here is in

the acronym with which S.P.A.M. provides us. That acronym
describes the reasons for 95% of your fraternity’s recruitment
problems, and consequently, organizational quality problems.
Your recruitment results could dramatically increase with
improvement in these four areas: Skills, Product knowledge,
Audience understanding, and Motivation.
With these four road blocks identified, we can get our
arms around the recruitment problem and begin addressing the
real issues at hand. The reasons you are not at your peak
performance is not because the administration is against you,
another fraternity uses dirty rush antics, the IFC dropped the ball
during rush week, you don’t have a house, or any other excuse.
These are beyond your control. The only reason you haven’t
tripled your membership is because your members did not have
the Skill, Product knowledge, Audience understanding, or
Motivation necessary to succeed. These are things within your
control.

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STOP S.P.A.M.’ING YOUR CAMPUS

Skills
Having the ability to communicate, socialize, and
effectively grow the membership.

Product Knowledge
Having a firm understanding of your fraternity, its
value to its members, and its value to the community.

Audience Understanding
Having the awareness of who you want, where he is,
and how to find him.

Motivation
Having the drive to do what is necessary to get the
results you desire.

Recruitment excellence is on the other side of

mastering these four core areas.

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NEW PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR

Have you ever been driving in your car, gotten almost to

your destination, and realized you have no idea what occurred
during the last 10 minutes of the trip? Have you ever brushed
your teeth without giving it any thought at all or tied your shoes
without even looking? These are all tasks that took deep
concentration and repetitive error when you first learned them.
Now you are doing them without thought. This is called a pattern
of behavior.
Patterns of behavior are habits formed –voluntarily or
involuntarily – from repetition. You can control a learned
behavior such as smoking cigarettes, just as you can control
behaviors like reading a book before going to bed or shaking
hands with strangers. How you make these a repetitive need in
your life is up to you, but all can be learned and controlled.
Patterns of behavior are present in your life all day, everyday, at
your will. When you learn to take charge of these forces you
begin taking hold of a powerful force in your daily life.
Psychologists have determined that it takes about 21 days
to make or break a habit. In less than a month’s time, you could
employ new patterns of behavior in your life to transform
fraternity recruitment into a seamless part of your day – like tying
your shoes. There is no need to spend all of your money and

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time on big rush events only to get a handful of men. The Eight
Steps process empowers you to spread out the effort and spend a
lot less money by implementing a system that incorporates the
development of positive patterns of behavior in your members.
Patterns of behavior to improve your recruitment results
start with reading this book, practicing the ideas in this book
everyday for the next 21 days, teaching the ideas in this book to
at least one other person, and then re-reading the book again to
see what else you may have missed.
We will provide new ideas to use as your patterns of
behavior which will overcome your S.P.A.M. issues (lack of
Skills, Product knowledge, Audience understanding and
Motivation). You have to commit to trying these new behaviors,
and practicing them. Let’s start with Motivation.

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

“The world makes way for the

man who knows where he is
going.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

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STEP 3: GET MOTIVATED

Every chapter of every fraternity, from their founding

class to their alumni group, deals with motivation problems,
especially when it comes to motivating members to actively do
their part to recruit new people. Remember, motivation is not
something you fix, it’s something you manage.
The most important thing to understand about motivating
others in a group is that most people will work as hard as their
dream is important to them. In other words, they are motivated
by their desires, not yours.
To this end, there is something you can do to motivate
your brothers to get fully involved in recruitment and to do their
part to grow your organization to its fullest potential. Build a
dream.
There is a lot of technical psychology stuff we could
throw at you about external and internal motivation, and positive
and negative motivation, and how it’s really all about some
strange attachment to your Oedipus complex, but we won’t get
into that. Instead, just consider this. Have you ever had a dream?
Not a daydream or even a REM induced dream, but one of those
dreams that made you believe that you would do anything to
achieve it?

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Maybe you had the dream of making the basketball team

while everyone around you said you were too short or too slow.
Maybe you had the dream of attending your future college, but
people around you said there was no way you could get admitted
there. Maybe you just had a dream of dating that one young lady
you’d had your eye on for so long.
You know what we mean. We're talking about a big,
motivating, powerful dream that pulls you toward it; one that
means so much to you that you would do anything to achieve it.
Do you know the individual dreams of your chapter
brothers?

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A LESSON ON MOTIVATION

Jake hated rush. Every semester the Rush Chairman

would try to get everyone excited about these fake events where
everyone acted all nice just to impress a bunch of freshmen.
Anyway, Jake wasn't very good at meeting new people and
having chit-chat conversations.
Rush week was coming up and Jake was dreading it
again. He considered it to be the Rush Chairman's job to recruit
new guys and, even if he was supposed to help out, why should
he? The chapter always did alright without his help and there
just never seemed to be any point in trying.
Jake was sitting around with his buddy, Ted, one
afternoon talking about how awesome the upcoming football
season was going to be. They attended a Big 10 school and their
team was supposed to be incredible this year. As they were
talking about how much fun the tailgate parties were going to be
and how cool the new student section of the stadium was, Ted
had a thought…
"Wouldn't it be cool if we could fill up half the student
section with our brothers? Imagine if our chapter had about 400
guys in it, and we all showed up wearing the same T-shirt. We'd
be on national television and the whole world could see our
domination of this campus.

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"You know, Jake, all we'd have to do is have each guy

meet like five or six people a day for a week. We could like triple
the size of our chapter if we just did it right."
Well, Jake had never considered that it might really be
that simple and he had never imagined their chapter dominating
a section of the football stadium. How cool would it be to be that
powerful on campus? Maybe he would be a little more involved
during rush this semester.
And the dream was started…

Does your organization have a dream right now? Does

your chapter have something to shoot for? Do your members
have a powerful, compelling reason to do the sometimes menial
tasks it takes to make your recruitment efforts successful? Have
you determined what, as a fraternity chapter, is important enough
for all of you to work toward… so important, in fact, that it
doesn’t matter how much effort is necessary, it will get done?
There is a phenomenon in the fraternity world called
“Post-Chartering Blues.” This happens when a newly chartered
group has worked for a long time to achieve their status as a
“chapter.” All of the group’s efforts have been focused on
working to fulfill their dream of becoming an official chapter.
Once all the pieces are in place and the group is officially
chartered as a chapter, the “Post-Chartering Blues” set in. The

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group becomes apathetic, bored, and typically smaller. There is a

chance that several members will drop out or lose touch with the
chapter. Often, the group suddenly stops performing at its
highest level.
Almost all new groups experience this phenomenon if
they are not counseled through the experience. The cause is very
simple. THE GROUP’S ONLY DREAM WAS TO BECOME A
CHARTERED CHAPTER. Once that dream was fulfilled, there
was nothing else left to work for; there was no MOTIVATION!
The reason for a chapter dream is obvious: You need
something to work for. This is what drives your motivation.
Once you’ve developed your dream in detail (the rest of this step
can help you do that) and you know that you’ll do whatever it
takes to achieve that dream as a chapter, you’ll find that your
brothers will actually show up to events and activities, you’ll find
you have more volunteers, you’ll find that your boys will actually
do what they said they would do, and they are more than happy to
do all these things because the dream is as important to them as it
is to you.

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BUILD YOUR DREAM

Choosing to build your dream takes two key principles:

1. There can be no limits on your dream. Imagine a world of

limitless possibilities.

2. Choose a positive attitude. Choose an attitude of “Yes we

can!”

Now, it is time to build your dream. Take some time for

yourself right now to write down your own dream. There are
some questions on the following pages to help you through this
exercise. Once you’ve written down your personal dream,
you’ve completed the first part of the process. Next, do this
exercise with your entire chapter, with your new member
education classes, and even with your potential members to see
what it is that gets them motivated.
There will be no more excuses as to why your chapter
brothers are not motivated to do their part in recruitment. You
will have the dream that drives your efforts from here forward.
To begin the exercise, start to imagine those late night
conversations that you’ve had with other members of your

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chapter. Remember those conversations? They start with:

“Wouldn’t it be great if our chapter....” You fill in the blank.

That’s the beginning of a dream.

Now take it further.

Pull out a few blank sheets of paper and answer the

following questions. Spend some time pushing yourself to
brainstorm (with no limitations... limitless possibilities) all the
details of your dream. The bigger the better.

What would your chapter be able to HAVE if it had as many

high quality men as it wanted?
(Think about tangible things that you can touch.)

What would your chapter be able to DO because of all those

high quality men?
(Think about activities, trips, events, and other stuff you can do.)

What would your chapter BECOME as a result of having as

many high quality men as it wanted?
(Think about how you will see yourself as a result of your fulfilled
dream. How will others see you? What does your chapter
become once your dream is achieved?)

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 GOOD GUYS

A long time ago a young man had a dream to start your

fraternity. Look what has happened since then!
What do you dream about? Are you brave enough to
dream bigger and better than your contemporaries? Are you
smart enough to share your dream with your brothers and write it
down like your founders did?

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DREAM BUILDERS

Some people are great at dreaming big. Others need a little

help. Consider doing the following with your chapter brothers
to help build your dream as big as it can be.

 Take a road trip to the biggest chapter in your fraternity

at another college or university.
 Attend a national or regional fraternity event.
 Find a fraternity’s chapter composite picture that has
100 men or more in it and post a copy of it in your
house or meeting area.
 Calculate what your chapter’s budget could be if it had
three times the members it has today.
 Calculate the service hours and philanthropic dollars
that a chapter twice your current size could accumulate.
 Take a tour of a fraternity house that holds 80 or more
men.
 Call your fraternity’s national headquarters and ask
them to tell you about the biggest and best chapters in
the country.

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PLEASURE VS. PAIN PRINCIPLE

Eighteenth century British philosopher Jeremy Bentham

first introduced the Pleasure/Pain Principle when he suggested
that all men act in accordance with the pursuit of pleasure or the
avoidance of pain.
Within the context of fraternity, we can motivate
ourselves and others by not only building big pleasurable dreams,
but also by attaching exciting rewards and painful consequences
to the actualization of those dreams.
As a recruitment example, a brother might choose you as
his “accountability buddy” and agree to introduce himself to five
new men on campus for five consecutive days. He turns over his
video games to you and may only reclaim them after the
completion of his goal. The keys to making this form of
motivation work are 1) a true accountability buddy, 2) a
worthwhile attainable goal, 3) an exciting reward and painful
consequence, and 4) check points of progress along the way.

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THE CURE FOR APATHY IS RECRUITMENT

Once upon a time, a farmer gave each of his three sons a

baby mule and a plot of land. Years later, the brothers sat
together discussing the lazy, stubborn disposition of their
animals.
The first brother complained, “I got so fed up I bought a
whip and beat my mule until he obeyed me.”
The second brother replied, “I tried the whip but learned
that dangling a carrot in front of him is slightly more effective.”
The youngest brother calmly interrupted, “I use neither
the whip nor the carrot and enjoy pleasant rides to and from the
marketplace.”
“How is this possible?” cried the elder brothers.
“I traded my mule for a horse.”

Consider the time you invest in trying to find carrots and

sticks to use on the asses in your chapter. With a fraction of that
time, how many “horses” could you personally recruit that would
eagerly lead the chapter the way you do?
Always leave the door open to your apathetic members;
invite them to get more involved and praise them when they do
so. However, be mindful that the best solution to your apathy
problems is usually excited, passionate, quality new members.

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Spend an upcoming chapter meeting or retreat building

your chapter’s collective dream. Start by letting
individual members build their fraternal dream. Then,
do it collectively to see what everyone wants to achieve
together.

 Realize that each brother is motivated by something

entirely unique. If you want to motivate your brothers, or
hold them accountable, ask them what the best way to do
that is. Develop a spreadsheet of each brother’s Pains and
Pleasures based on their own recommendations.

 Use the Have, Do, Become exercise for everything you

truly want to achieve (maybe a degree or a job) and post
your written dream on your bathroom mirror for daily
review. Harvard studies have shown this to be extremely
powerful.

 Build recruitment teams of 2-5 brothers to support each

other and serve as accountability buddies.

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“What we see depends mainly

on what we look for.”

~John Lubbock~

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What do you see?

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 MATTSON  ORENDI

STEP 4: KNOW YOUR

AUDIENCE

Before we start Step 4, take a moment to consider this

scenario and the question at the end of it.

Your Campus President's Speech

The president of your school is about to announce his top

initiative – a plan to dramatically enhance student life. He has
called together a group of 100 non-Greek, male students that
perfectly match the school’s demographic mix. There is an
overwhelming feeling of anticipation as the importance of this
message has been rumored for days. Several long minutes pass.
The lecture room’s large doors open abruptly as the President
enters and walks quickly toward the podium with a stern
expression of importance on his face. After looking over the
audience one time, he begins …

Thank you for joining me today. What I am about to

present to you, I hope you will consider a great honor and
therefore give much thought. From a campus of many, you are a

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few – hand selected by those who think you to be of high

character, exemplary leadership, and extraordinary potential.
Our community, our nation, and even the world are in a
time of great change and challenge. This school has a rich
history of excellence, producing some of America’s premier
leaders. Beginning immediately, we will aggressively move
forward toward creating a culture that consistently produces
world class achievement.
It is the philosophy of this institution to build our model
for success from the ground up. Therefore, the future of this
movement will begin with you. An organization of our top
undergraduates will be assembled by students, for students – an
organization deeply rooted in core values and built in
partnership with those peers whom you deem worthy to share
such an honor.
The challenges will be many, but the rewards will be
eternal. Know that this task brings with it great honor that will
yield for you life-long relationships and personal growth. Your
best efforts will be supported by the university, faculty, staff, and
community. And, as a result, you will have made an impact far
beyond your temporary stay as an undergraduate.
If you wish to explore this opportunity in further detail, I
ask that you rejoin me in this same room in half an hour. Thank
you.

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Based on the realities of your campus, how many of the

100 men will return?

Interested Men: _______________________

(Remember this number; you’re going to use it again in just a few

minutes)

Now, one more bit of knowledge before we go too much

further. A while back some researchers determined that on
average, most college campuses have three types of men that
show up on the first day of their freshman year.

 “Always Joiners.” Statistically, 15% of men report being

“likely to join a fraternity” when surveyed early in their
freshmen year.

 “Never Joiners.” An estimated 15% of the male population

is adamantly opposed to joining Greek life. These fraternity-
haters would not accept a bid if it came with a Porsche and
tickets to the Super Bowl.

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 “Maybe Joiners.” Approximately 70% of the male

population does not know or does not care a whole lot about
fraternities. They could be convinced to join if it was
proposed the right way.

THREE TYPES OF PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS

Always Joiners = 15%

Never Joiners = 15%
Maybe Joiners = 70%

Which group are you targeting?

So, we’ve got three types of people. Remember those

percentages, because we’ll need to use them in a minute. It’s
probably worth mentioning that you might be like us. When we
showed up at college, we said, “There’s no way I’m ever joining
one of those dumb frats.” Now we’re writing a book about
fraternities. While we thought we were “Never Joiners” we were
actually “Maybe Joiners,” but we just didn’t know it.

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Alright, time for some math.

Who loves math? You? Great! You’ll really enjoy this
next bit of fun we’ve provided for you. Take out your pencil and
calculator and try the equations found on the next two pages out
for size.

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Write down the population of your undergraduate student

body on Line A

Line A

Subtract the number of female students from your student

body population, and put the number of males on Line B.

- # of women on campus

Line B

Great! Now, subtract the number of men already in

fraternities on your campus from Line B, and put the
answer on Line C.

- # of Current Fraternity Men

Line C

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Great! Now, from Line C, subtract 15% (“Never

Joiners”), and write that new number on Line D.

- 15%

Line D

Line D is your prospective pool of membership. Now, use this

number for the next part of the math fun.

Remember that number you came up with after “The

President’s Speech?” Write that number down on line E.

% Line E

Use your calculator to figure out what Line E times Line

D equals, and put the solution on Line F. (For instance, if
Line D says 200 and, Line E says 25%, then Line F equals
50)

____________ Line F

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This exercise demonstrates that if you were to present

your fraternity to prospective members in the same meaningful
way that the president presented his new campus organization to
those 100 male students, you would have dramatically improved
interest. On your campus, the number of men on line F would be
interested in a conversation about the benefits of fraternity life.
We’ve done this hundreds of times with all types of
campuses. If your math isn’t showing you that you’ve got a lot
more potential than you are currently achieving, you probably did
your math wrong. Most chapters find out that they could be
getting dozens, if not hundreds (sometimes even thousands), of
new members each year. Or at least they could have that many
people to choose from.
Regardless of your school’s size, location, Greek
population, and so on, this equation shows that there is a lot of
potential out there for your organization. You just have to go
find it. The results are hidden within the “maybe joiners.” They
won’t come to you. You have to go to them.

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MATH EXAMPLE

Take this example of a campus with:

 5,000 Total Students
 50% Female Population
 300 Fraternity Men
 15% Never Joiners
 40% would come back after President's Speech
5,000 – 50% = 2,500
2,500 – 300 = 2,200
2,200 – 15% = 1,870
1,870 x 40% = 748

Each chapter on this campus has the potential to recruit

748 people this semester. What if they could get just 10% of
their potential to join in one semester (74 guys!)?

Remember, even if you don’t want that many members

in your chapter, Quantity drives Quality. The more prospects
you have the more chance you have to get the highest quality
members into your chapter.

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So, how do you find those people? That's a great

question.
SIX WAYS TO FIND
PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS

Here's a quick, important reminder: You can't recruit

those you haven't met.
There is a lot to recruiting great guys, and we’ll get to all
of that, but it is absolutely true that you just plain can’t recruit
who you don’t know. Maybe you could, but that wouldn’t get the
quality results you are looking for. So, here are six ways that you
can get NAMES. That’s all we’re talking about here. We need
to get the names of as many people as possible on a list (we’ll
call that a “Names List”), from there we can work on building the
relationship, and maybe, if all the stars align, we can ask some of
them to join. First we need to get a ton of names on a list.
We like to say that quantity drives quality. The more
names you can accumulate, the better chance you’ll have of
getting high quality members.
There are six general ways to maximize your list of
prospective members’ names. Ask yourself if your chapter is
using all of these methods as effectively as possible. Or, as one
member put it, “are you running on all six cylinders?”

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IS YOUR CHAPTER RUNNING ON

ALL 6 CYLINDERS?

1. Referrals
2. Summer Recruitment
3. Member Positioning
4. Membership Drives
5. Marketing For Names
6. Rush

1. Referrals
Begin by using the “Mind Joggers” we’ve provided near
the end of this chapter to get referrals from yourself and current
members. The average member can generate 50+ names with
minimal effort. Ask for referrals of top undergraduates from
sorority leaders, faculty members, administrators, alumni
brothers, and other organization leaders. Also, consider using
new technology with websites that link new friends together.

2. Summer Recruitment
Each campus is a bit different, but all have some potential
for summer recruitment. Consider leveraging incoming freshman
lists from the Admissions Department. Tap into freshmen
prospects through guidance counselors at targeted high schools.
Also think about using regional events for incoming students,
such as orientations or information sessions, as ways to be the

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first to meet future students. If you have a short list of

incoming/returning student prospects, home visits are another
great way to set your fraternity apart from others and show that
you are really interested in those gentlemen. Remember, the goal
is simple, meet them and start building a friendship.

3. Member Positioning
Every member of the chapter should be involved in
multiple campus organizations and leadership roles. Encourage
members to get involved in residence life, admissions work,
orientation programs, campus tours, recreation
center/intramurals, and so forth. Use rosters and contact sheets
from these activities to build your Names List.

4. Membership Drives
Rush week is not the only time to have a membership
drive, and those drives can take various forms. Consider making
a post-rush push, mid-semester drive, or end of the semester
clean up. Many chapters find success with techniques such as
dorm storming, “5 for 5”, information tables, activities fairs, and
move in/out days.
“5 for 5” is simple, and it’s one of the most effective ways
we’ve found to dramatically increase your Names List. If you do

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“5 for 5,” there is a good chance you’ll get more men through this
effort than you’ve ever gotten from one of your big rush events.
“5 for 5” is a challenge. Are you willing to meet, just
meet, 5 new men a day for the next 5 days?
If you are willing to take that challenge, and make that
commitment, you alone can grow your fraternity’s prospective
membership pool by 25 people. If 4 of your brothers take that
challenge with you, then your chapter will grow its prospect list
by 125 people within only 5 days. How many of your big rush
events have ever resulted in personal conversations with 100+
men? Start "5 for 5" today and you'll see results
immediately.

5. Marketing for Names

The important thing to remember about marketing is that
an effort that does not produce names can be good for public
relations, but without names, you’ve got no real results. Market
your chapter in ways that will put names on the list. Consider
promoting academic scholarships, hosting a banquet, sports
league involvement, soliciting for involvement in a
service/philanthropy opportunity, parent solicitations, and other
similar opportunities.

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6. Rush
Traditional campus-organized “rush” is the most
commonly used method for gathering names. Participate in the
programming and maximize its potential, but realize that you are
reaching only a very small percentage of your prospect pool
during this traditional, static, and formal rush process.
Remember to gather names throughout the process. This is a
great way to pump up your Names List with men who have
already expressed interest in Greek life. Don’t forget to revisit
last year’s rush list for quality men who have not yet joined a
fraternity.

Whatever methods you end up using to build your Names

List, Step 4 is really about seeing your chapter’s potential and
shifting your efforts to build as many personal relationships as
possible with the men on your campus. Success, beyond your
expectations, is available right now. And that’s without even
mentioning the non-traditional members that could join your
organization if asked: graduate students, professors, university
staff, local gentlemen, your members’ fathers, the Chief of
Police, the campus religious leaders, and many others.
You have limitless potential.

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MIND JOGGERS

Creating your own Names List is the critical first step in

developing a successful recruitment system. The larger the
Names List gets, the more successful you’ll become. You’ll have
a greater opportunity to recruit more QUALITY individuals when
you increase the size of your prospective membership pool. Put
EVERYONE on the Names List!

Here’s how it’s done:

Write down everyone you know on the Names List. Use
this list of mind joggers to ensure you have exhausted your
network of connections. DO NOT PREJUDGE ANYONE. Put
everyone on the list. Now is not the time to decide if someone is
qualified for membership.
Pull out a big piece of paper (or create a simple computer
spreadsheet) and get ready to write down names. You may want
to use the space at the end of this book to start your Names List.

Turn the page, and GO!

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Write down all the…

Men you know who…
 Are scholars
 Are leaders on campus
 Are service minded
 Are loyal
 Are gentlemen
 Want to succeed in life
 Value family and friends
 Make you laugh

Men you know who…

 Were/are in your freshman hall (all of them)
 Currently live on your floor or in your building
 Are on your sports team (all of them)
 Are on your intramural teams
 Are in the same clubs/organizations you are (get a
roster)
 Exemplify pride in your school
 Are residence life advisors on campus
 Work with you at your job(s)
 Spend all their time in the computer lab
 Spend all their time in the library
 Are spiritually driven

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 Sit with you at lunch/dinner

 Sit within 2 tables of you at lunch/dinner
 Sit within 10 seats of you in class (do this for every
class)
 Sat within 10 seats of you in class last semester (do
this for every class)
 Are already an officer for another group on campus
 Workout in the gym/weight room
 Always sit in the front of the class
 Have traveled abroad
 Did not get accepted into/dropped out of another
fraternity

Now check the following resources for additional names:

 Your cell phone speed dial listing
 Your written address book/Palm Pilot
 Student directory
 List of all freshman males (from admissions
office/student affairs)
 Rosters for clubs and organizations
 IFC sign up sheets (prior years as well)
 Last year’s yearbook
 Housing lists
 Rosters for athletics/sports teams

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 Invitation lists from socials, formals, and etc.

 Email lists/list serves
 Instant message buddy lists

Men you may not have considered…

 Seniors you know
 Commuters
 Adult students
 Professors
 Your freshman year RA
 Graduate students
 ROTC cadets
 International students
 That guy who never leaves his room
 University professionals/staff
 Your closest friend’s friends

GREAT JOB!

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RECRUITS RECRUITING

Who knows more freshmen than other freshmen? Who is

more excited about your fraternity than your newest members or
eager prospects?
Empower your prospects and new members with the
message that they are the future of your fraternity. Let them
know that now is the time for them to start being a leader. Ask
them to look everywhere, including their classes, dorm, and
teams, to find the men they want to join them on their fraternal
adventure. Ask them to help build their own new member class.
Some chapters even go a step further and require their
newest members to recruit at least one other new member before
being initiated.
As an example, a fraternity chapter of 35 brothers at a
mid-size Ohio school used the ideas in this book to recruit 22
men in the early part of one year’s fall semester. Two months
later, they were ready to initiate 35 new men into the organization
(doubling the size of their chapter).
How did they do it? When asked how they went from 22
pledges to 35 initiates, they replied, “We were taught that we can
recruit year-round. So we told our pledge class to recruit another
class of men who they want to be their brothers. It turns out
they’re better recruiters than we are.”

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Use the equation for calculating your school’s pool of

prospects with your chapter. Once your members see the
numbers, teach them about the six cylinders and how to
get those “maybe joiners.”

 Make a 5 day growth plan with 4 of your best friends in

the fraternity. Commit to "5 for 5." Determine some
sorority women and other classmates, professors, staff,
and others from whom you could ask for referrals. Run
through the Mind Joggers and figure out all the other
small ways you could grow your chapter in just 5 days.

 Start a real Names List. Develop a spreadsheet using

your favorite database software (Microsoft Excel® is
fine), and include a column for names, phone numbers,
email addresses, notes, and etc. You can find an example
online at: http://www.PhiredUp.com/

 Empower your new members and even your aspiring

prospects to recruit right away.

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“Knowledge is a process of
piling up facts; wisdom lies in
their simplification.”

~Martin Fischer~

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STEP 5: KNOW YOUR

PRODUCT

So far we’ve tackled Steps 1 and 2, which set the

foundation for a successful chapter. Then, we hit Steps 3 and 4,
which explained the M (Motivation) and A (Audience
understanding) in our S.P.A.M. acronym. Now, we’ve got four
more steps left in which to cover Product knowledge, Skills, and
some other ideas that’ll help you keep up your success for years
and years to come.
Moving on to Step 5, the Know Your Product step, brings
up a story we heard recently. It’s about a door-to-door vacuum
salesman (yeah, we didn’t think people actually did that anymore
either). Anyway, the salesman had just started the job and so far
nobody had answered their doors when he had knocked. Finally,
it looked like he was going to get lucky with the next house on
his route. He could hear the sound of a woman inside shouting,
and he thought, just maybe, that he could swoop in and save the
day.
The vacuum salesman knocked on the door. The woman
clumsily opened it and greeted him with a kind smile that barely
hid her frustrated, furled brow. She was curvy and attractive, but

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that’s a different part of the story that we won’t get into right
now.
“Hi there,” she said. “Sorry about the mess and the
shouting. My vacuum cleaner just broke, I can’t fix it, and I’m
all worked up. How can I help you?”
Well, obviously, the salesman had hit the jackpot. So, he
sprung into action. “Ma’am, I’m here to help. I’m a vacuum
salesman, and I’d like to sell you this vacuum.”
“How nice,” she said, looking interested in the vacuum
and the salesman. “Obviously, I’m a lady in need of your
services, but I’ll need to know a little about this vacuum first.”
This was the vacuum salesman’s first time, remember,
and he hadn’t prepared quite as much as maybe he should have.
“Ma’am, well… uhh… as you can see here, the vacuum I have
to sell you is… uh… well, it’s green. And… uhh… well, it
sucks.”
That’s the end of the story. We didn’t say it was a good
one. But, we might be able to learn a valuable lesson from our
young vacuum salesman friend. If you don’t know your product,
you're probably not going to be able to sell it. In our fraternity
context, if you don’t know the value and benefits of your
fraternity and you don’t know what sets your fraternity apart
from all the other organizations on campus, then you’ll probably

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have a very hard time convincing people to join it – even those

who need it most.
Imagine for a moment that you are in an elevator within a
very tall building on your campus. You’re all alone in that
elevator until another guy steps in right at the last minute on your
way down to the first floor. The guy who just jumped on the
elevator with you happens to be the one guy on campus that you
think exemplifies what a perfect brother in your fraternity would
be like – except none of your guys really know him well and
you’ve never really hung out with him. You’ve always assumed
he wasn’t interested in joining a fraternity.
This guy is President of three organizations on campus
(including the student government), he’s extremely popular, great
at sports, has tons of smart and attractive people that follow him
around, and he’s just an all-around good guy.
So there you are on the elevator, with about 30 seconds
until you reach the bottom floor, when he says, “Hey, you’re in
that fraternity right? Tell me, what’s that all about?”
Quick, what’s your response?
If you said something like, “Well… uhh… we’re the
green house on the corner and… uhh… we’ve got the tightest
brotherhood on campus,” you might as well have been the
vacuum salesman exclaiming how his product sucks.

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There is one major question that Step 5 asks:

1. Can you help a prospective member see how

membership in the fraternity will benefit him?
(This means knowing how to communicate the
VALUE of your organization.)

We talk a lot about values in the plural sense in the

fraternity world, but unfortunately we don’t often talk about just
pure value. What value do you offer your members? What value
does your organization offer you? Why is it worth the
investment of time, energy, passion and money to join your
organization? What is the ROI (return on investment)?
If you start to answer those questions with statements like,
“We have an awesome intramural football team,” or “We have
the nicest house on campus,” or “We do all sorts of service and
philanthropy work,” or even, “We have the tightest brotherhood
on campus” then we have bad news for you. That's not going to
be worth the investment for most prospective members.
First of all, all of those statements, and those that sound
similar to them, are exactly what every other fraternity on your
campus is saying. Secondly, those statements are explaining
features and people don’t invest their money, time, energy, or

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passion into features. People invest in the benefits that the

features of your organization provide to them.
The difference between a feature and a benefit is
sometimes a little fuzzy, but it might help to refer back to our
vacuum salesman friend. If he had mentioned that his vacuum
was green, it sucks, it has hoses in the back, and a long cord to
plug into the wall, he would have been explaining the features of
his machine. In order to help him explain the benefits instead of
the features, we might encourage him to mention that it reduces
the nice lady’s cleaning time by 50%, which gives her more time
to spend with her hobbies. Also, the long cord and hoses on the
machine are ergonomically designed to reduce back strain, which
makes cleaning less painful.
The nice lady probably wouldn’t buy green sucky hoses
and cords, but she might buy more time with her hobbies and a
less painful back.
Next time you have a big rush event on campus where
you publicly and proudly display your IM basketball trophies,
photo albums, and banners, ask yourself if you’re displaying
features or benefits. If you tell a passerby about your sweet
basketball team or that killer party last semester, you’re
explaining features. They won’t invest their time into those
features, because they’re yours, not theirs. Instead, ask them
what they want to get out of their college experience and help

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them see how they can benefit from what your fraternity has to
offer.

Identity Crisis?

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One other important task to accomplish in Step 5 is to

learn how to handle excuses. You’ve got to know your product
well enough to be able to get around all those excuses which
inevitably pop up when asking your prospective members to join.
You know what the excuses will be for not joining your
fraternity. You've heard them before because they're the same
every semester. What you need to do is be prepared with a
surefire way to get past these excuses.
Feel * Felt * Found. These three little words will guide
your honest, authentic, quality responses and provide a
framework for handling these excuses in the future.
Take one of the most common excuses, for example. “I
don’t want to get hazed.” Upon hearing this, you might respond:
“I know how you feel. I felt the same way before I joined.
I was really scared by all the hazing I had seen in movies and on
television. What I found, however, was that these guys are
actually the opposite of all that. We’re actually against hazing.
We work really hard to get it out of our fraternity community and
our new member education program is really just based on
learning how to be a good leader.”
It is important to tell the truth in your response and to
speak from your experience. Now think, if you can prepare every
member of your chapter with those three words, and they all

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practiced and prepared to combat these excuses, wouldn’t you be

able to hang on to a lot more prospects?
No doubt you’ll encounter excuses like these and the
following examples. But be prepared to get to the heart of the
prospect's concerns by using quality responses. Remember Feel
* Felt * Found. You'll be amazed at the results.

TOP 10 EXCUSES FOR

NOT JOINING YOUR CHAPTER

1. I don't want to get hazed.

2. I can't afford it.
3. My parents don't want me to join.
4. I have to focus on my studies.
5. Upperclassmen don't join fraternities.
6. I don’t want to be a stereotype.
7. I don’t want to live in a fraternity house.
8. I don’t want to be one of those “drunken frat guys.”
9. I don't have the time.
10. I have other friends already.

Step 5 is simple. Understand the value that your

fraternity has to offer, and be prepared to be able to share that
with anyone who wants to hear about it.

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QUALITY RESPONSE EXAMPLES

I don’t want to get hazed.

a. Hazing is unacceptable and strictly forbidden in our
fraternity.
b. Let me introduce you to our newest initiates. Feel free
to ask them about any details of their pledge period.
c. Here is our pledge education program outlining
everything we do.

I can't afford it.

a. Do you know how much it costs?
b. May I show you exactly how much it costs and how that
compares to other college expenses?
c. If we could arrange a payment plan, would that make a
difference?

My parents don't want me to join.

a. What is it they do not approve of?
b. Why do you think they feel that way?
c. Have they met any of the members in this fraternity?
d. Would you be willing to help me arrange an opportunity
for them to meet some of the members/members’
parents/chapter advisor?

I’ve got to focus on my studies.

a. What are your concerns?
b. Did you know the chapter has minimum standards for
maintaining membership in the organization, an
academic excellence program, and a program to reward
scholastic achievement?
c. May I introduce you to our scholarship chairman?

You can create responses for the rest of the concerns.

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Build your chapter’s “Elevator Pitch.” In 30 seconds, can

you verbalize the value and benefits of being a member of
your fraternity?

 Read through your chapter’s website, brochures, T-shirts,

and any other written materials to make sure that they
refer to the benefits of membership, not just the features.

 Prepare quality responses to the Top 10 Excuses for not

joining (try putting them on flashcards). Make sure all of
your members do the same and, then, practice them
together regularly.

 Remember back when you told your parents and other

special family members about joining the fraternity. How
did you explain it to them? Often that's the best way to
explain it to others.

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“A true friend is the most

precious of all possessions and
the one we take the least thought
about acquiring.”
~La Rochefoucauld~

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STEP 6: DEVELOP SKILLS

Warning. This section of the book is one of the longest,

but it is also one of the most important. You’re going to work on
your people skills, which we all know can be a little scary. Don’t
worry, you’ll be fine. We won’t be too hard on you. Be prepared
to learn, take your time, and don’t forget to practice.
To begin with, you already know that the best men on
your campus are probably not going to approach you about
joining the fraternity. So, you must be wondering, “How exactly
do I meet them?” This step, if practiced, can magically transform
your members into recruitment machines by teaching them some
basic people skills along with some advanced techniques to take
your recruiting to the next level.
Remember, the more people you meet, the better your
chapter will be.

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THE MAGIC OF MEETING PEOPLE

Let’s start with a magic trick… You can make anyone in

the world concentrate entirely on you, submit their full name, and
reveal critical, personal information at your will. All you have to
do is look at them first, walk within five feet of where they are,
and stick out your right hand. Say the magic words, “Hi, I’m
Bob Smith.” (Substitute your own name for maximum effect)
And… PRESTO! A personal conversation begins and the
information begins pouring out. By an unknown force, the other
guy grasps your hand, begins shaking it, and offers more
information about himself than you could have bargained for.
Ridiculous? This is the single most effective skill of top
performing statesmen, salesmen, philanthropists, journalists, and
even professional recruiters. It may not be much of a “magic
trick,” but it is the best way to meet a new friend. After all, that’s
all we are interested in during this early stage. We aren’t talking
about the fraternity or trying to sell our organization to anyone.
All we want to know is if this person is someone we’d like to
learn more about. That means having a basic conversation with
him.
Once you’ve introduced yourselves to one another, you’re no
longer strangers, so loosen up! You may, however, need a couple

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of good kick off lines to get the conversation rolling. To help

out, here are a few options:

• Comment on something he’s wearing, carrying, or doing:

“I noticed the cleats in your bag, are you on the soccer team?”

• Comment on a current or upcoming event that you may have

in common:
“Did you see the concert on campus this past weekend?"

• Ask for assistance with something you’re doing or

somewhere you’re going:
“I’m looking for a few volunteers to help a group I’m with raise
money for a local humane society. Do you know anyone who
might be interested in something like that?”

Now, before we go much further, here's a quick question:

Have you ever met a beautiful woman for the second or third
time, been interested in getting to know more about her, but you
couldn’t remember her name? It happens all the time. We’ll
meet someone – especially if it’s someone we’re interested in –
and we’ll introduce ourselves, and immediately our mind
wanders off to what we’re going to say next so that we can seem
cool. The problem is that we never hear the other person’s name,

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and by the time we realize this snafu, it is too late to do anything

about it and maintain that all important sense of pride.
So, when you’re out there making friends, don’t forget
that his name is the most important word in his vocabulary.
Learning that one single word makes all the difference in the
world to him, and he will remember you for it. Invest your
energy and concentration into memorizing his name.
Here’s the best way to do that. After he says his name,
repeat it in your next sentence, think of it again in your head,
associate it with something about him (to help it "stick"), and
then use it again when you say “good-bye.”

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CONVERSING FOR RESULTS

Congratulations! You’re half way there.

So far, you’ve approached somebody that you would
normally walk right past, and you’ve used the secret magic trick
to break the ice and learn a little about them. You know the most
important word in their language. Your lead-in question got you
started. But there always seems to be that awkward moment of
silence when nobody knows exactly what to say, right? Stay
confident, you can forget about that F*’n problem from now on.
The best way to remain confident is to control the
conversation. The best way to control the conversation is to
monopolize the listening. The best way to monopolize the
listening is to ask open-ended questions about him. The best way
to communicate that you really care about someone is to intently
listen to them speak – and the best part is that you don’t have to
do much talking at all.
Check out the Five F*’n ways to Master Conversation on
the next page.
The object of these F*’n ways to master conversation is to
provide you with open-ended question topics that build rapport
and establish common interests or experiences. Stay in control,
offer a little about yourself, and always go back to talking about
him.

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FIVE F*’N WAYS

TO MASTER CONVERSATION

Just ask about …

Family/Friends
How do you know John? How close are you with your
family? Who else is on the team? How did you guys meet?
How does your family feel about …?

Favorites
I love Tony’s Pizza, what do you normally order?
Which classes are your favorites?
Which sports teams do you follow?

Firsts
What do you think of Freshman Seminar so far?
How is your first week of classes going? What was your first
impression of this place?

Fun
I love poker too, how often do you play cards? What other
card games do you know? Where do you guys usually hang
out on the weekends? What else are you involved in outside
of class?

From
Where are you from? How did you end up here?
Where do you live now? How often do you get back to
Florida? What was it like growing up in…?

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Great job! You’ve survived a few minutes of good

conversation with a complete stranger. It’s time to bring the
discussion to a temporary close. Remember, you are leading the
conversation. While your opening line worked great to get the
conversation going, we need a similar line to transition out of the
conversation without cutting off the new relationship forever.
Remember, the idea is to get back together in the near future.
Try something like this:

• I’d love to keep talking with you, but I need to get going.
Maybe we can grab lunch together sometime.
• Thanks for the information, maybe we can talk more later.
• I have some other commitments I need to get to, let’s talk
again soon.

Warning! Critical point! This is not the time to exit.

Leaving the conversation without any contact information or a
time to meet up again leaves you with nothing to show for your
efforts. It’s imperative that you walk away with an appointment
and/or a way to reach your new friend. To help do this tactfully,
here’s another magic trick:

You say, “Before I get going, here’s my contact

information. [Write it down on a scrap piece of paper

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with him in front of you.] Give me a call if you’d like to

get together [while offering your information to him].
Hey, do you have a number where I can reach you?”

Abra Cadabra! You have contact information for another

prospect – and your Names List just grew. You’re becoming
quite a recruitment Houdini. Another great option is to invite
him to an upcoming activity. For example:

You say, “What time are you eating dinner tonight? [He
responds, “6 o’clock.”] I’m going to be at the food court
with some friends around 6 o’clock. You have to eat,
don't you? [It’s OK to ask questions you already know
the answers to.] Great, since I’m going to be on campus
around that time anyway, I’ll drop by your dorm around
5:45 to pick you up. What room number are you in?
[The question wasn’t, “Do you want me to pick you up?”
The question was, "What room number are you in?"]
Here’s my phone number in case your plans change.
What’s the best way I can reach you when we’re on our
way?” [You just got his contact info. Great job.]

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Magic trick #3: Get your top hat and rabbit ready for this
one. You’re about to double or even triple your productivity with
two sentences. Here they come…
You say, “Do you have a roommate?" [You know he
does if he lives in a dorm]. "Why don’t you go ahead and
invite him along with you?” [He’s thinking, “Great, I
don’t have to meet a group of strangers by myself, what a
nice guy.” You’re thinking “Bingo, I just hit the two-for-
one jackpot.”]

At the conclusion of your meal, event, study group,

gathering, or whatever you choose to use as the meet-and-greet
session for introducing your new friend(s) to your current friends
(brothers), you’ll need to do another transition. Don’t over think
it. You already have his contact info (if you don’t, get it now),
all you need to do is invite him to join you and more of your cool
friends for the next gathering.
Always set up a follow up meeting, pick him up if
possible, and make a follow up phone call after the meeting.
Getting that commitment to another meeting is critical. It’s a
little more work than you may be used to, but then again the
results are going to be a lot bigger than you’re used to as well.

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BEYOND THE FIRST MEETING

Now, here is where we could include a section discussing

how to be a good friend. That would be a long section, though,
and you probably have managed to make one or two friends on
your own over the course of your life, so we’ll spare you. But
remember, that’s all you have to do at this point. Make a friend.
Be a friend. Hang out. Do normal stuff with all these new
people you’ve met. Involve your fraternity brothers in the fun
stuff you and your new friends do. Involve your new friends in
the fun stuff your fraternity brothers do. Don’t overcomplicate
things. You don’t need a huge event, a paintball outing, or a
raging party to make friends. Just do normal friend stuff.

Reminder:
Effective Big
Recruitment ≠ Event
If you need help thinking of normal friend stuff, try some
of the ideas we’ve included on the next page. Doing these every
day activities can take the place of your huge rush events or, at
least, compliment your huge rush events throughout the rest of
the year. Do activities, not events. You’ll save money, you’ll get
to know your prospective members more closely, and you’ll seem

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more like a normal person instead of a scary frat guy who only
knows how to talk to people when he’s at a kegger.

NORMAL FRIENDLY ACTIVITIES

 Poker Night
 Breakfast/Coffee/Lunch/Dinner (Everybody has to
eat!)
 Flag Football
 Watching Sports
 Bar/Party (We’re not talking about recruiting at a bar or
party, we’re talking about being a friend, and doing
normal stuff.)
 Service/Philanthropy Events
 Study (There’s a novel idea)
 Video Games
 Social Events
 Bowling
 Movies
 Hiking
 Laundry
 Other Campus Activities
 Just “Hanging Out”

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You get the idea. Do normal activities together. That’s

how real friendships are formed. The skills you need to recruit
people into your organization are oddly similar to the skills you
need to recruit a date for next weekend. You do things like
introduce yourself, remember their name, talk about normal stuff,
ask for their number, and set up a time to meet again soon. You
wouldn’t immediately ask your prospective date on your first
meeting to join you at a barbecue where there’ll be about 20 other
prospective mates that you’ll be judging to deem their worthiness
of your manhood. No, you would do normal things and get to
know the person. It’s really pretty simple.
At some point, you’ll develop your relationship enough
that you and the chapter brothers are ready to ask this prospective
member to join. This is great news. It can be a long process to
build this relationship to the point where you, the chapter and the
prospect would be comfortable asking for a lifetime commitment
to/from everyone involved. The Ask, which is discussed later in
this book, is a delicate matter and must be handled with care.

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PRE-CLOSE

Welcome to a world of 100% bid acceptance.

We’ll provide you with a nice model to use when asking
someone to join your organization, but first let us explain
something that will make your ask 100% successful. It’s called a
“Pre-Close.” A Pre-Close is a tactic that you can employ to
guarantee that you never again offer an invitation of membership
to a prospect and have that invitation declined. That’s right,
nobody will ever say "no" to your chapter’s formal bid again.
Isn’t that how it should be? An invitation to be your
fraternity brother for life is something that should be handled
with the utmost care. That’s a big commitment you’re willing to
make and a really big commitment that the prospect is willing to
make. Never again should you invite someone to join your
organization if there is a chance they might say no. The Pre-
Close solves that problem.
The Pre-Close is a simple question that, when paired with
the quality responses you prepared in Step 5 (remember Feel *
Felt * Found), helps you greatly increase the number of men in
your chapter. Here’s the question: “If we were to ask you to join
the fraternity right now, would there be any reason you’d say
no?”

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It’s a beautiful thing, that Pre-Close. Once you ask it, the
prospect can either say that they’re completely ready to join, or
they can voice their concerns. If they voice their concerns, you
turn to your Feel * Felt * Found statements and help them
understand how great of an opportunity it is that you’re offering.
The other amazing thing about the Pre-Close is that it
allows you to recruit men all year long – even on campuses that
have deferred recruitment policies. Your university may not
allow you to extend bids to freshmen during certain parts of the
year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become their friend.
Recruit year-round, but if your campus has restrictions, save the
formal bid for the appropriate time of the year.
The Pre-Close is a tactic that you should employ in a
separate conversation, prior to extending a bid to a prospect.
Make sure you give the prospect plenty of time to truly come to
grips with their concerns.

PRE-CLOSE

The Secret to 100% Bid Acceptance

“If we were to ask you to join the fraternity right

now, would there be any reason you’d say no?”

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THEY WON’T JOIN IF YOU DON’T ASK

So, now that we have that little tool in our toolbox, we’ll
explain how you should ask your prospects to join your
fraternity.

THE FIVE STAGES OF A GREAT ASK

1. Small talk & transition

2. Ownership questions
3. Pre-close
4. Quality responses
5. Close/formal bid

Helpful Hints to Make Your Ask Successful:

 Do not initially approach him with more than one other
member.

 Keep the environment comfortable for him on his terms.

Do not ask him at the bar, club, or in the fraternity house.

 Dress appropriately. If you want to be taken seriously,

dress and act the part.

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 Practice before the meeting. Know how to answer

common questions and objections by reviewing your
preparations – try role-playing.

 Be real! This is not a cold call or sales meeting. You’re

about to ask one of your best friends to join your family
of brothers.

 Compliment him on the qualities of his character that

make him stand out.

 Keep the conversation about him.

 Remember, Feel * Felt * Found. Empathize. His

commitment is just on the other side of his concerns.
Help him get over those concerns with quality responses.

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What an Ask Might Look Like:

Small Talk:
• This is simple, anytime you go to ask someone to join
your organization, start with normal, friendly small talk.
(For reference, review the previous section, “5 F*’n Ways
to Master Conversation”)

Transition statement:
• “We could talk about ____ all day, but there is something
I really wanted to talk with you about.”

Ownership questions:
• “I think the fraternity has been through a lot this year. If
you were leading a group like this, what do you think
you would do?”
• “You are one of the best men I have ever known. I think it
would be an honor for me to call you my fraternity
brother someday. What do you think?”
• “I think you’re a strong individual with a lot of potential.
A leader with character and a passion for helping others.
I want you to know that I’ve got a lot of respect for you.
Those are the same qualities our fraternity looks for in its
members. What do you think it would take for us to
attract more men like yourself?”

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• “You know the fraternity is one of the most important

parts of my life, right? I’ve talked with the brothers and
they think you’re the type of person that we need as we
move forward to the next level. What do you think?”

Pre-close:
• “John, if the fraternity extended you a bid for
membership, what concerns might prevent you from
saying yes?”

Quality Responses
• “I know how you feel. I felt the same way. Let me share
with you what I found...”
• “Did I completely answer that question for you? Do you
still feel like that concern would prohibit you from joining
the group? Considering that, is there any other concern
that would prevent you from saying yes?”

Close/Formal Bid:
• “John, this is a big night. The main reason I came over
to see you is because I’m representing my entire fraternity
to ask you an important question. We would like to
formally extend to you a bid for membership to our sacred
fraternity. Will you accept our proposal?”

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Great job! The Ask is the most important part of this

entire step. After all, how many people have never joined
because you’ve never asked them?

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A NOTE ON PUBLIC RELATIONS

You have probably noticed that the focus of Step 6 was

on interpersonal relationship building as opposed to mass
marketing or building relationships with the public. You're
absolutely correct in that assessment.
The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility profess the power
of personal relationships and suggest a shift away from
depending on things like posters, chalking campus, rush T-shirts,
mailings, events and etc. These can be very valuable in
developing the image of the organization, but should not be
relied upon for growing and developing the membership.
You can't imagine Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest
coaches in football history, recruiting members for his
championship teams by putting up posters and having the guys
wear T-shirts that say "Join the Packers – We get chicks!" You
can't imagine the CEO of a Fortune 500 company recruiting a top
VP with chalk on the sidewalks of business schools or by holding
a pig roast in the quad. So, if you want to have a top level
organization, do what top level organizations do – build personal
relationships.

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SOME P.R. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

 If you were to create a t-shirt that expressed everything

that you stand for, what would it say on it?

 How many members in your chapter right now joined

because of printed material that they saw? Is that why
you joined?

 What do the events that you hold to attract new

members say about you? What do they say about your
organization? What do they say about your brothers
across the country?

 What three words best represent everything that your

organization stands for? How could you use those on
your promotional materials?

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Practice your skills at a social function. Again, the same

skills you need to recruit a new brother are the skills you
need to get a date this weekend. Go to a social function, a
public area, or an event, and practice the skills taught in
Step 6.

 Incorporate Step 6 interpersonal skills training into your

membership education program. What more valuable
skills could you teach your brothers than how to build
positive relationships?

 Ask one of your alumni brothers who has a successful

career in sales to come back to the chapter to provide an
evening of sales skills training. You’ll find out that Step 6
applies beyond your collegiate years.

 Identify a couple of small activities that your members

enjoy doing together. Do them on the same nights every
week. Use these activities as opportunities to introduce
prospects to your friends and build strong relationships.

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“Good people are good because

they’ve come to wisdom
through failure. We get very
little wisdom from success, you
know.”
~ William Saroyan~

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STEP 7: GROW WISER

The pursuit of wisdom, Step 7, is the most influential,

life-altering step of this eight step system. It requires the most
endurance, but it yields the greatest returns.
Wisdom, as a value, has been a major part of our
fraternity life. Many fraternities, like our own, challenge their
members to pursue wisdom for the greater good of mankind. It is
a value we share as an interfraternal community. And it is at the
heart of Step 7.
But, what does wisdom have to do with recruitment?
Great question.
There is this fraternity we know that has existed for more
than 140 years. Their founders were brilliant gentlemen who
were the epitome of what a great man should be. It was 140
years ago that this fraternity was founded, and it was about 140
years ago that this fraternity created its traditions, habits, and
patterns of recruitment behavior. They built their recruitment
system about 140 years ago, and with only slight changes, it has
stayed the same ever since.
So, here we are now, 140 years later, and we’ve got this
fraternity that has existed pretty well for all that time. They’ve

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built chapters all over the country and they have a proud tradition
of important alumni. They are a good organization.
Somewhere along the line, however, this fraternity
reached a plateau of how much they could grow. It has been
decades since that plateau was originally reached and, since that
time, they’ve maintained a constant state of goodness, not
greatness, just goodness
Is this 140-year-old fraternity doing things wrong?
More importantly, could it be doing things better?
What’s missing?
What’s missing, according to this eight step system, is
wisdom. This fraternity, while it has been successful, never
looked beyond its own traditions, habits and patterns of behavior
for new ways to grow. They never sought out a book on
fraternity recruitment, for example. They also never brought in
assistance from outside their fraternal walls. They believed that
their founders knew best and they should just keep doing what
they’d always done.
As we’ve already learned, if you keep on doing what
you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always
gotten.
For your recruitment efforts to yield greater results, you
and your chapter need to regularly seek out new recruitment

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wisdom. You need to learn lessons and make adjustments – just

like you do when you grow wiser in your personal life.
Do you repeat your mistakes or do you learn from them
and move forward?
Wisdom is attained in two ways, lessons learned through
personal experience and lessons learned through the experiences
of others.
"Lessons learned through personal experience" is really
just a euphemism for "failure." That's right; we're promoting
failure in this section of the book. Learn to see your failures in
life as stepping stones to success. The more times you fail, the
more you'll be prepared for success. That is a lesson learned best
by experience, but we would be remiss to not mention it.
What recruitment tactics have you tried that have failed?
Which recruitment tactics get only mediocre results? Are you
growing wiser?
Besides using your own personal failure as a learning
mechanism, you can also gain wisdom through the experience of
others. By seeking wisdom from the experience of others, you
minimize the mistakes you have to make personally through
internalizing the best practices of those who are qualified to offer
you advice.
The key is to be smart enough, and brave enough to ask
for advice from the right people.

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A wise man would never ask the accountant to perform

surgery nor would he ask the doctor for advice on balancing his
checkbook. Likewise, he does not ask his unqualified friends,
family, or alumni members for advice on effective recruitment or
fraternity management practices. He asks experts that can help
him.
As you're looking to create a revolution of limitless
possibility within your organization, remember that the people
who tell you something is impossible are the people who gave up
too soon.
The best way to get qualified advice on recruitment or
personal performance is from “experts.” Do this in three ways:

1. Mentoring
The advice of a professional is priceless in saving you time,
money, and energy. Ask those who know to be your mentors.
Seek out a personal fan club of qualified superstars invested
in your personal and chapter success. Find other chapters on
your campus or in your fraternity that are committed to
limitless possibilities and mentor each other. Ask a
successful business leader to serve as your chapter's "Success
Advisor." Ask someone who recruits or does sales for a
living to help you re-shape your chapter’s business model.
Make your mentor(s) a part of your daily life.

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2. Reading
There is no replacement for the magic of internalized
literature. This process may only be accomplished through
the written word. And come to find out, there are a lot of
books out there that can help a fraternity with recruitment,
they just don’t necessarily say “rush” on the front. We
recommend reading for a minimum of 20 minutes each day
(even if it’s forced) from the list of Recommended
Recruitment Readings on the following pages. Perhaps there
is nothing more powerful than knowing that a ¼ inch thick
book can bestow upon you the life’s work of the world’s most
accomplished men. If given the opportunity to meet the
world’s greatest man, what would be the value of one hour of
his time? What business and world leaders can you read
about to pick up tips on growing a strong organization?

3. Outside Learning
Attending conferences, seminars, workshops, speaker series
and continuing/outside educational programs can be one of
the best ways to truly grow wiser. It really comes down to
exposing yourself to as many people, ideas and opportunities
as you can. Try to put yourself in positions which allow you
to see how other fraternities, organizations or businesses
grow and become successful, and then try to adapt those

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lessons for your own use. Attend your fraternity's regional

and national events. Go to the non-mandatory lectures on
campus. Find out about other student organizations'
leadership events on campus or nearby (and don’t forget to
ask the people you meet how they recruit). Ask your student
life professionals for their recommendations.

Becoming a recruiter with the necessary wisdom to get

results takes a commitment to seeking out knowledge from
beyond your normal circles, as well as considering how it applies
to your needs. It is equally important to TEACH and USE these
learned principles and techniques. The wisdom gained
immediately begins to transform you and your chapter.
We have become successful business owners, consultants,
and authors due mostly to the fact that we read the words of
people smarter than us as often as possible. Remember, we used
to be really bad at recruitment, but then we learned through our
own experiences and the experiences of others that there were
amazing recruitment possibilities sitting right beneath our nose –
we just needed to be willing to seek out that wisdom.

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Wisdom Thoughts

“People who don’t read are no better off than those who
don’t know how”
Mark Twain

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my

education.”
Mark Twain

“You’ll be the same person in five years as you are today

with two exceptions: the people you associate with, and
the books that you read.”
Charley Jones

“When the learner is ready, the teacher will be revealed.”

Lao Tzu

Try some of the books on the Recommended Recruitment

Reading list found on the following pages. And don’t worry,
most of them come in an audio version.

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RECOMMENDED RECRUITMENT READING

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie

7 Habits of Highly Successful People

Stephen Covey

The Magic of Thinking Big

David Schwartz

Remember Every Name, Every Time

Benjamin Levy

The Fine Art of Small Talk

Debra Fine

The Art of Possibility

Zander & Zander

Good to Great
Jim Collins

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The Four Agreements

Don Miguel Ruiz

The Sky is Not the Limit. You Are.

Bob Davies, M.S.

You Can Make It Happen

Stedman Graham

Secrets of Closing the Sale

Zig Ziglar

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell

21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Maxwell & Ziglar

Think and Grow Rich

Napoleon Hill

Purple Cow
Seth Godin

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Give this reading list to your friends and family as holiday

gift ideas. Better yet, use the library on campus.

 Commit 20 minutes every day to readings from the

Recommended Recruitment Reading list.

 Ask your student life professionals or national

headquarters staff about any upcoming conferences,
workshops, or seminars that could improve your chapter.

 Make two lists. On one list, write down everything that

you think your chapter could use some advice on. On the
second list, write down every person that you know who is
either smarter than you or has more experience than you.
Finish the second list by writing down two or three
famous people you admire and would like to meet. Try to
match the needs on the first list to the wisdom of the
people on the second list, and ask for their mentoring.
Yes, ask even the famous people.

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“We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit.”
~Aristotle~

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STEP 8: REPEAT

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It really is good advice.

Sometimes you need to do things more than once for them
to be truly effective. Imagine if you had shampooed your hair
once upon a time, but then never bothered to do it again.
Shampoo only works because you keep doing it over and over
until it is a part of your daily routine.
The same goes for these eight steps. They only produce
results if you take them beyond these pages and put them into
practice. And they only create a revolution of recruitment
success in your chapter if you build them into a repeatable system
that becomes part of the chapter’s culture. Step 8 is about taking
each of the steps, doing the little things that it takes to make
change, and then making that the chapter’s unique growth
system. A system that gets repeated year after year, semester
after semester, week after week, and day after day.
Step 8 is where you transform from learner into teacher.
This information should be shared with as many people as you
can find within the next 48 hours. The sooner you talk about the
ideas you've learned in this book, the sooner your limitless results
begin to materialize.

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Be mindful that this program is designed to improve the

quality and quantity of your chapter to the degree of your
choosing. When the lessons, exercises, and overall program are
practiced daily, you will see a transformation. The work you are
putting in will suddenly seem second nature – no more difficult
than finding the cafeteria, tying your shoes, or singing your
favorite song. How is this possible?
You are experiencing a change in your habits or patterns
of behavior. Those things that once took full concentration to
accomplish are now becoming routine activities.
Remember when you first learned how to drive a car?
The first few times required determined focus as you surveyed
the road, double checked instruments, and carefully evaluated
every decision you were about to make with two hands firmly
gripping the wheel at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock. Fast forward just
three months and you have the radio blasting, a cell phone in one
hand, and you’re driving with your knee while eating a Big
Mac™.
You should feel excited as you realize the same
transformation is about to happen to your chapter’s recruitment
process and, subsequently, to your chapter’s potential for
greatness. Where you once sat helpless, waiting for the next
semester’s rush you now stand empowered and ready to triple
your productivity at any time of the year.

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Step 8 simply suggests that the key to making this whole

thing work is to make it a part of your chapter's system, re-think
your chapter's business model, and include these eight steps in
the new draft.
We believe that there is an exciting world waiting out
there for you and your fraternity chapters, with exciting realities.
Large, prosperous chapters full of involved and dedicated
gentlemen, working to better the lives of each other and the
communities that surround them are within reach. Your chapter
can quickly become the most influential force on your campus
and in your community. All it takes is the right mindset and a
great plan – we have the plan, do you have the mindset?
A “great plan,” however, means that attracting the best
men on your campus takes more than a box of chalk, a stack of
fliers, or an expensive tab for Buffalo wings. Instead consider
treating your chapter like a Fortune 500 Fraternity. It is highly
unlikely that Bill Gates would search for Microsoft®’s next top
Vice President by posting an ad in USA Today for free pizza at
his place or have his employees wear clever T-shirts displaying
exposed women and alcohol slogans. As ridiculous as that
sounds, many campuses have seen these embarrassing attempts
by fraternities to attract their best leaders in a similar manner.
Take McDonald’s™ for example. This is a company that
started small (just like your fraternity did), but grew to be one of

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the most influential corporations in history. Though their

advertising has always been top notch, anyone will tell you that
McDonald’s true success came from a simple business plan. Any
McDonald’s you visit for a hamburger and milkshake looks just
like most other McDonald’s that you’ve visited. McDonald’s put
a plan in place. It was a plan that was simple, repeatable, and
offered anyone the opportunity to start a franchise of their own
and succeed (as long as they followed the business plan). Now,
McDonald’s is everywhere, and probably every single fraternity
brother you have shares with you the incredible possibility of a
Happy Meal™ and a Coke® just by going down the block to visit
their neighborhood Ronald McDonald™.
Every great business and organization talks about the
same key ingredients – having the right people and executing the
right plan. Fraternity chapters are no different. You have a great
team of brothers to start the process. The Eight Steps to
Limitless Possibility provides you with the framework for
making your chapter’s system (business plan) for recruitment and
long-term success. This is the system that can make your chapter
the most influential, successful, and exciting group of young men
your campus has ever seen.

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ROUND TABLE

To effectively implement this new model for limitless

possibility, there's a good chance you're going to need some help.
Many fraternities we have worked with in the past have gotten
too caught up in leadership positions, titles, policies and
committees -- especially when it comes to recruitment. These
chapters are so used to putting all of the responsibility on the
Recruitment Chairman’s shoulders that they don’t know any
other way of doing things. Creating a Round Table solves that
problem.
A Round Table is simple. Get like-minded people
together to meet regularly and work together toward your new
possibilities. For instance, if you and two other people like the
ideas presented in this book, get together for a weekly meeting
and start your own revolution. You don't need your whole
chapter on board in order to get things started. Remember
Margaret Mead's statement, "Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only
thing that ever has."
We know that Pareto’s Principle holds true in most
organizations and that 20% of the members produce 80% of the
results. This Round Table idea is intended for those members

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who fit into the 20% category of your chapter, those 20% that are
willing to hold up their end of the bargain.
Now, maybe your organization is an exception in that
more than 20% are ready to rock and roll. If so, you’re way
ahead of the game. If not, then the others better hop on board
quickly because GREATNESS doesn’t wait around for
mediocrity!

Purpose of the Round Table:

 Mentor the general chapter members with ongoing support
and continually try to get their commitment to be a part of the
round table.

 Constantly promote and teach The Eight Steps to Limitless

Possibility to all members.

 Hold each other accountable to the eight step system, getting

names ON the list, getting names OFF the list, and ongoing
education.

 Most importantly, continue to build the organization’s dream!

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We've even developed an agenda for you to use during

your first (and every) Round Table meeting. These eight
questions will guide your Round Table meetings.

8 ROUND TABLE QUESTIONS

1. What percentage of time is our organization spending

on the basics (People and Purpose)? How can we
improve that percentage of time?
2. How have you lived the organization’s purpose this
week (A.C.E. your values)?
3. What did you do this week to feed your WILD
DREAM for the fraternity?
4. Where will you meet your 5 new people tomorrow?
5. How has this organization enhanced your life this
week?
6. Who are your 5 new prospects today?
7. What have you read/learned lately that could help the
organization?
8. When and where are we meeting next?

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DO IT.
Experience the limitless possibilities that await your chapter right
away by applying the ideas provided here:

 Organize your Round Table. If you notice a few other

guys who also seem interested in a recruiting revolution
for your chapter, ask them to read this book and then to
join you for informal Round Table meetings once a week.
Use the 8 Round Table Questions to guide your meeting.

 Use The Eight Steps to guide a new member education

program. Plug in your own chapter and campus details,
and see how quickly a curriculum to truly prepare
brothers is born out of The Eight Steps. Better yet, build
a whole membership education program that lasts until
your members graduate – and even beyond.

 Use The Eight Steps to guide your chapter’s strategic

planning for the next year.

 Let this book do the work for you. Ask two of your
brothers to read it. Watch them get excited.

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WHO DOES ALL THIS?

You may be thinking to yourself that, “All this

information is really nice, and seems like a good idea, but isn’t it
all supposed to be the job of the Recruitment Chairman? Isn’t
this just making the Recruitment Chairman's job harder?”
Fair questions. To put it plainly, however, the answers
are NO and NO. This eight step system is NOT just for the
Recruitment Chairman of your chapter. Furthermore, this eight
step system actually makes the job of Recruitment Chairman
easier.
The only way to make this system really work requires at
least a small group of your chapter members committed to
changing your current system. The Recruitment Chairman can
then become the “manager” of the process. It should NOT be the
recruitment chairman’s job to meet everyone going on the Names
List. Your results won't be that great if you take that approach
with this new process. The Recruitment Chairman should take
the lead in managing all the members of the chapter (or at least
The Round Table) and ensuring that they are doing their simple,
daily habits that will lead to your chapter’s success.

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Your Recruitment Chairman can guide your members

through all the activities in this book. It should be the
Recruitment Chairman’s job to ensure that recruitment efforts are
at the top of the chapter’s priority list.
This book outlines patterns of behavior that each member
of your chapter can adopt. If you want greater results, you must
do greater things than you're currently doing. Challenge your
chapter to redefine the role of Recruitment Chairman and to
redefine the role each brother plays in the year round recruitment
process.

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THE EIGHT STEPS

IN REVIEW

The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility provides a

framework for your fraternity's recruitment revolution. Follow
the tips listed in this book, ask yourself the tough questions, and
make The Eight Steps your chapter's system of operation.
Step 1 reminds you to focus your energy on the two basic
fundamentals of your organization: People and Purpose. Get a
lot of high quality brothers and make sure everyone is dedicated
to your chapter's purpose.
Step 2 promotes Achieving, Communicating, and
Expecting your fraternity's values in everything that you do as an
organization. If you skip Step 2, you're just another boys club
causing trouble for the rest of us.
Step 3 pushes you to build your chapter's dream. Get
your brothers to build a recruitment dream that is so big that they
will do whatever it takes – everyday – to make it a reality. The
motivation to do the small things right is based on building a big
enough dream.
Step 4 stretches your understanding of your potential
audience and helps you understand where you can find the

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thousands of future brothers that are sitting out there waiting to

be asked.
Step 5 implores you to know your product before you go
out and try to sell it. Understand and be able to communicate the
value and benefits of your organization, so that when the
opportunity arises, you can sell anyone on how great it is to be in
your fraternity.
Step 6 builds your interpersonal skills so that you can be
confident going out into the world, shaking hands, developing
friendships, and recruiting brothers.
Step 7 teaches you that to improve you must be willing to
learn the lessons that make you wiser. Recruitment results will
stay the same unless you continually seek out new ideas, new
strategies, and new systems to take your chapter from mediocre
performance to amazing results.
Step 8 instructs you to repeatedly do the little things to
unearth big results. Build a new system for your chapter in
which each member is taught and re-taught each component of
The Eight Steps. This system ensures success for not just this
semester, but for years and years to come.
Each step is necessary. They depend upon each other.
Do them all and watch your results grow exponentially.

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THE EIGHT STEPS TO LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY

1. Know the Basics

2. A.C.E. your Values How Come?
3. Get Motivated

4. Know your Audience

5. Know your Product How To?
6. Develop Skills

7. Grow Wiser
How Long?
8. Repeat

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FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS
Often, people who talk with us about The Eight Steps to
Limitless Possibility ask certain questions over and over again.
Here are the most common questions we’ve been asked, along
with some quick answers. These might help as you start to share
these ideas with others in your chapter or on your campus.

Question: Where do I start?

Answer: What can you do in the next 24 hours that makes a
difference? The process starts with baby steps. Start with small
changes and the big ones will follow. We recommend beginning
by dream building, assembling your round table, teaching others
this recruitment system, and creating your Names List.

Question: What if I don’t want a big chapter?

Answer: Quantity drives Quality. It doesn’t matter if you want
to grow 40 times larger or stay the same size. Your chapter
benefits from simply having more men from which to choose.

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Question: How can I ever get my guys to do any of this?

Answer: Leave the door open for all, but get started with just a
few. What impact could your top five men have if they each
recruited five men like themselves? The Round Table concept
works great for a practical answer to this question.

Question: What if our chapter needs to work on internal

issues first?
Answer: Remember the basics. People and Purpose. Save
managing your mules for later. New leaders and new members
will solve almost all of your problems. The answer to most
fraternity problems is recruitment.

Question: I know all this already. What’s the point?

Answer: To know and not to do is not to know.

Question: Where do I go for more information?

Answer: http://www.PhiredUp.com/

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DO IT.

Throughout this book, we have provided suggestions for

putting The Eight Steps to Limitless Possibility into action. Now
is the time to do it. The change that is possible may not be
incredibly easy, but it really is as simple as DOING IT. We’ve
just provided a system that achieves results as long as you work
the system. The choice is truly yours.
Most personal fitness trainers suggest that the hardest part
of any exercise program is getting started! The same is true of
this program. It takes several days or even weeks to see
significant results from working out in the gym. And, even with
small rewards and improvements along the way, it takes
approximately 21 days for the gym to become a pattern of
behavior or habit. Similarly, the hardest part of this program is
just getting started and making it through the first stages of
developing a pattern of behavior. The key is to build momentum,
one day and one step at a time, and soon the body will feel
deprived by NOT going to the gym – or, in this case, doing the
things that will make your fraternity great.

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THE EIGHT STEP PROCESS IS SIMPLE:

1. Understand what your fraternity is and how it works.

2. Commit to your purpose, then A.C.E. it.
3. Dream of what you could be, and let that motivate you,
your chapter members, and your potential members.
4. Identify your fraternity’s potential: Who do you want
with you and who is available?
5. Know what you're offering, and know how to
communicate it.
6. Do the little things to get who and what you want.
7. Continually grow wiser.
8. Repeat the process over and over.

Get started right now and follow this system. You'll find
that the possibilities truly are limitless.
May all your dreams be achieved!

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Matthew Mattson is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

of Phired Up Productions, LLC. Leveraging a Master’s degree in
Training and Performance Improvement, and a background in
public relations, collegiate admissions, fraternity expansion,
human performance improvement, and nonprofit leadership
education, Matt combines his passion for wisdom with a firm
sense of integrity to effectively inspire thousands of
organizational members toward their pinnacle of achievement.

Joshua Orendi is the co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of

Phired Up Productions. Applying successful backgrounds in
education, business-networking, fraternity expansion, corporate
management, and executive recruitment, Josh delivers a fun but
demanding style of training that empowers individuals with the
belief and skill necessary to achieve limitless possibility.

Phired Up Productions provides recruitment solutions and

performance improvement services uniquely designed for college
fraternity men and other customers. Our integrated menu of
services delivers results through three delivery methods:
Performance consulting, experiential programming, and
support publications.

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Our mission is targeted especially for customers that

desire a higher quantity of higher quality individuals involved in
their organization – and who are interested in long-term, limitless
success.
Josh Orendi and Matt Mattson founded Phired Up
Productions in 2002. Since then, the team has grown to include a
full spectrum of experts from many fields who all share a passion
for igniting minds and improving the performance of
organizational leaders.
We specialize in helping college student organizations
including fraternities and sororities; service groups; cultural and
religious organizations; admissions, housing and orientation
groups; and other student associations.
Outside of our main collegiate market, we partner with
community organizations, including business and commerce
groups, charities and not-for-profits, gender and cultural issue
groups, fraternal organizations, businesses, and religious
institutions.

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YOUR NEW RECRUITMENT

PLAN
Remember:
By failing to plan, you’re planning to fail

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