With most successful recruiting, people go through three stages: KNOW, LIKE and TRUST. As simple as this sounds, most people rush through a hiring process and lose opportunities with recruits because part or all of these stages are skipped or done in the wrong order. If you want people to seriously consider joining you and your organization, they have to get to KNOW you before they will ever LIKE you, and without liking you, they will never TRUST you.

Here’s how KNOW, LIKE, TRUST can work for you:

• KNOW Stage: Starting with the very first meeting, you and whomever you are meeting are in the KNOW stage. You share backgrounds, find common ground in philosophy and exchange stories. You get to KNOW each other. Without KNOWing each other, it’s difficult to connect and have someone really take the time to want to LIKE you.
• LIKE Stage: People begin to LIKE as they learn about aspects of your business relevant to their own interests. The LIKE stage revolves around candidates learning about each aspect of your company, culture, leadership, value proposition, geographic expertise and functional similarities to their own business.
• TRUST Stage: Once they KNOW and LIKE you, TRUST is developed in follow through. This means doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you will do it and how you said it would be done. This tends to manifest itself when it comes time to formalize the relationship and put things in writing. Offer letters are a formality, but what they really accomplish is memorializing what you said would happen. TRUST is established and the beginning of your working relationship begins with a sound foundation.

Not all people or organizations think long term when sitting across the table from production through individuals or teams. Some people want to close a deal after the first meeting, but this challenges long-term retention and defining the validity of there being a Model-Match. In the end, people will appreciate that you took the time to develop a viable relationship by going through the three stages.

Let me know how this topic impacts your business. Hammerhouse — a leading strategic and development growth partner — will continue to strive to create value by reporting on the trends and best business practices in our industry. If you want to find out more, give us a call. If someone has forwarded this RESULTS to you and you would like to start receiving these personally, please visit our website www.teamhammerhouse.net and sign up under our Contact Us page. We would like to invite you to join our group on LinkedIn: Mortgage Recruiting for Managers  & Leaders – Best Practices and Techniques for Recruiting Producers.