Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today I must say that again tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for today Malcolm X said that 1964 now if you happen to have the privilege at the moment to not be in full crisis mode if you happen to have
The privilege at the moment to be able to to pause and to look a little bit into the future to start preparing for tomorrow and I invite you to join me for the next hour and a special guest coming up soon to talk about the future of fraternity
And sorority I want to talk a little bit about the short-term future absolutely but I want to start by focusing on our long-term future and trends that were about to hit our industry our beloved organizations before all of this stuff happened tomorrow belongs to the people
Who prepare for it today and as it turns out the future sneaks up fast the future sneaks up real fast boy we are in a moment right now where the future is happening right in front of our face we are in a moment right now where eternity and sorority is being reinvented it’s
Being energized it is being entirely rethought because the world forced us there we were get there anyway but we’ve been hustled we’ve been pushed we’d been encouraged to hurry up and meet up with the future meet up with the needs of modern students the students of today and the students of tomorrow
Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today Malcolm X was wise in 1964 say that he was talking by the way about education being the passport to the future and his words still ring true and I believe they apply directly to us right now in this situation
Fraternity and sorority leaders students volunteers in the professionals who make up our industry I’d like to be with you all the day my name is Matt masse and for those of you who I don’t know I’m the president co-founder of a company called fired up productions and our sister
Company technophile we help return ADIZ and sororities grow our team we’ve got some of our fired up and tech defi team actually viewing this right now and in the chat feature for those of you who are viewing this live for those of you who are viewing this is recording you
Won’t be able to see the chat feature but you will be able to see the wisdom that I shared with you and congratulations on that everybody who’s participating right now I want to invite you to play with the emojis in this in this tool I want you
To and I want to invite you to play the attendee chat and I really want to focus you on the Q&A feature a little later on in our program today there is a QA moment where we will just try to answer as many of your questions as possible
So throughout feel free to throw in questions the questions that you ask will be the questions I’ve wanted to ask but couldn’t figure out a word right so thanks for being the people who put this let’s see before we really have died of home oh I know I want to ask you some
Questions I’m gonna turn off my video for a second and I want to ask you three questions here we go I got some polls I wanted to show you and maybe you could play along you could vote along with me so the first question is here comes to
What extent is your chapter council community or headquarters whoever you’re representing to what extent are you functioning right now like we’re in digital mode we’re in zoom meeting mode so what extent are you functioning right now you should be able to see the results as they’re coming in just to get
A sense of where everybody is who’s viewing us right now we got well over a hundred people we’ll probably have hundreds of people join us over the course of this particular training today check out these results that are coming in a lot of people are feeling good
Couple people feeling great good for you a lot of people feel good or mad or somewhere in between thanks to those of you who are saying we’re doing nothing thanks for being honest about that you’re not alone you just happen to be just among the few people on this particular training this
Particular digital training that are experiencing them this is of what I expected and I appreciate you sharing this with me I actually want to ask you two other questions just get a sense of where we are right now in the present before we dive into the future alright here’s another question question
Number two how prepared are you whoever you’re representing here today pick pick and pick a hat to wear how present how prepared are you for fall marketing recruitment and our growth efforts and share these results with you as well super prepared sort of prepared not very prepared nope alright let’s see what we
Got we got a lot of not very prepared and sort of prepared again not a giant surprise shout out to you who are super prepared man can’t wait to hear a little bit maybe in the chat feature you could share some of your big lessons those of
You who are not at all prepared and you feel like you’re stuck in the mud again you’re not alone you’re not alone either great great answers thanks so much for sharing your responses with me I want to ask one more question and this question is perhaps a bit more personal a bit
More intimate and I hope you understand that it is entirely optional I don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to but here it is how are you is it human actually doing right now I doing I mean like really do it be honest with each other for a moment
Just look at these come in everybody look at how look at man this is so real this is so real those of us who were fraternity sorority members those of us who were just humans living through this at the moment we are going through a range of experiences we were going
Through a range of emotional challenges and moments of confusion we’re also probably if you’re like me going through moments of excitement and opportunity and then the next moment there’s a little darkness and there’s disappointment thanks for sharing honestly I appreciate that those of you who said I need help
I’m really struggling know that you’re not alone know that you are not alone and this is a moment this is a moment where I’ve been feeling the challenge as well I’ve been feeling the pain and I’ve had moments of product a moments of excitement and I’ve been driving hard
And having good moments and and I’ve had moments of real despair to be honest with you and if you’re not well if you’re struggling know that you’re not alone and you’re gonna come out the other end of this now I want you to join me for
The rest of this hour in a hope-filled conversation where we’ll be honest with each other about the impending challenges that will face us but we’ll also be honest with each other about the absolute certainty that fraternity and sorority will in do it and so will you the Brotherhood and sisterhood is there
For you the you will be lifted up will be cared for and it may come from unexpected places but the season right now to know that you’re loved it’s no tomato to know there is not just your own Shafter not just your community or your capital but there’s entire world of
About 9 million fraternity and sorority members out there who believe in you and who are a network a web of support to catch you thanks for joining us today fired up Friday let’s dive in let’s dive in and predictive cuz nothing go wrong
But in the future I mean if I had fun as two months ago and predicted er I definitely would have guessed that a global pandemic will completely shake our foundations of fraternity school already no of course I wouldn’t have but let’s pretty sure anyway cuz I’ll share
With you my five prediction for the drew now sure this those who participated I’ll send me an email out and I’ll share with you I’ll share with you 10 total predictions that I actually came up with at the beginning here but I wanted to focus on five here and then we’ll turn
Well I have a special guest who will focus on some turn predictions alongside me toward the back end of our time together purchase folks are creating the civility in genuine our world will shift and fraternity and sorority will meet the demand for humanity because that’s what wilt out of you know 2020 before
Nineteen head 20/20 was still a year for vitriol a year for conflict you’re new here full of skepticism it’s an election year it was we were about to tear at each other one way mother now we locked ourselves in our houses for several months we’ll see how we come out of that
Fall I’m gonna guess we’re gonna be energized I’m gonna get to be we’re gonna be maybe ratings to pent-up emotion that we had stored of rain fall comes I think written sorority’s that can show up with extra humanity extra civility and extra connection we’ll be the ones
Who really show up to meet the needs of today’s students and our world is craving this right now our world is craving intimacy our world is craving real people really connecting doing them posting you know quotes about battering-ram which there’s nothing wrong with that at all but
Lovely since and for a long high the heart anywhere else in the world this is a moment for fraternities forty to shine for our humanity to be front and center for our ability our our inmates to be to be excellent at connection this future this is absolutely the
Trends as you look at it trends across like distrust across social media across marketing we know they to masive in genuine connection I’ll actually industry protein I think for turns Rory will be uniquely prepared me let’s do a second a little second second prediction webcam because it looks like it’s being
Terrible it looks like I don’t have a good connection so we’ll just turn off our what my first second I’ll come back here in a second our second prediction is culturally based organizations will be the innovators culturally organizations will be the innovators while many of us will be looking to some
Of the old big powerful behemoths of our fraternity sorority industry to lead the way where real innovation is happening is where hunger and opportunity meet and I believe hunger and opportunity are meeting right now right now with many of our culturally based organizations for a number of reasons well many culturally based organizations
Have decades and decades and over a century even of history and foundation there is a wide variety of organizations of a cultural focus that are really coming of age right now they’re graduating into their 20s and 30s as far as I’ve been in existence which means that their infrastructure is being built
And really being civilized it means that they are ready and primed to explode onto the marketplace right at the same time while the demographics of our institutions are becoming more black and are welcoming students of many different cultures who before didn’t have access to a higher education experience culturally based organizations right now
Are the ones to watch to see how they’re adapt if they’re nimble they’re quick they’re smart they’re there they’re focused they’re driven and they are hungry and they’re meeting needs of a modern student if you’re wondering where to look right now for the example I wouldn’t look to the house with the
Pillars I would look down the street to the folks who are gathering for advocacy purposes who are gathering for a cause who are focused on uplifting students who need a follow their lead this is where innovation is happening right now that’s my second prediction for the future third prediction for the future
New influencers will emerge in paternity and sorority whether we like it or not you know I talk often about marketing and about storytelling in and about taking control of the story for turns and I believe that we have for our tool out sourced the story of fraternity and
Sorority to people that even want to have control of that story we’ve allowed the media we’ve allowed Hollywood we’ve allowed journalists to tell our store to be our primary marketers then we lab Greek rank to be our primary tool to tell the story of which chapters good or
Bad now we have empowered we have created an environment where youtubers Instagram influencers and tick masters can have more of an influence over what people think about fraternity and sorority then our fraternity leaders and professionals can and it’s time for us to catch up it’s time for us to
Understand that this is our moment to take control of the story of attorneys for tea and aggressively tell powerful compelling single story about our organizations that has meaningful value connected to it listen I don’t have a problem of these influencers i fact I celebrate them good for them and I think
We need to be those influencers returnees 40 leaders we need to be the ones or understanding the front edge of media or understanding the front edge of communication and understanding where our users are and get there as fast as possible all right how many is it I did
Three so far I got I got two more two more predictions two more predictions here’s the next one people including students need rescued from pressure listen we already knew we already knew that today’s college students are dealing with more levels of anxiety depression and just overall pressure than any generation
And we continue to increase our standards matrices we continue to increase our expectations of how many events and how many service hours and how many philanthropy dollars and and sometimes that is like a quiet raising of expectations other time is blatantly you’ve got to do this to check the boxes
So that you can be defined today as we see it like that I’d argue that I just think that that pressure is gonna add up I’m gonna keep exploding in little micro ways and at some point might explode in a macro way we’ve got two leaders if
You’re if you’re tuning into a webinar on a Friday about the future of returns for tea I’m probably talking to you as a leader of the fraternity industry whether on the undergraduate side volunteer or professional it has got to be our job to figure out ways to reduce
The pressure that students are feeling we’ve got to make running fraternities already easier not harder we’ve got a help our chapters provide an experience for new members that increases their overall health including their emotional health not decreases their overall health including their mental and emotional health we’ve got to rescue
Folks from pressure this is a trend by the way that isn’t just for turns 40 this is everybody in the world is feeling this level of pressure okay my gosh every third post on my social media feeds right now is about hey are you feeling pressured to be overly
Productive during a quarantine oh my god like what kind of world do we live in the people are feeling like they’re failing and quarantine that they didn’t write a book yet like everybody relax relax and we’ve got to help create things that make make four turns 40 easier so that our students can
Relax all right last prediction I think I got one more prediction one more prediction let’s see we got you know yo this is good predictive analytics will change the way we choose members it’ll change a lot of things about returns for tea you know universities the higher ed
World is already really shifting and starting to adopt predictive analytics as a part of the way they do business predictive analytics I think I’m not I’m not a data guy but I think predictive analytics basically means let’s look at habits trends and behaviors and have good data that tells us what those
Habits trends behaviors are likely to lead to but I want you to imagine we start to do meaningful deep profile building of potential members starting as early as their sophomore junior high school we’re building deeper and deeper profiles on potential members so that we can identify factors that might indicate
High levels of risk so that we can indicate factors that might indicate high levels of need to be a leader a propensity to be a contributor a propensity to be particularly good at your particular organization you know I think you know when match.com and all the dating apps started years ago that
Seemed it seemed crazy back then and now it seems the only way to meet a new love interest is through the internet and ok the question is how is it taken as this long to figure out a matching app for fraternity listen this isn’t necessarily me advocating to this this is me
Predicting the future this is me saying this is probably coming down the pike whether you like it or not and so how can we take control of it how can we be the ones influencing it and creating what we want that to look like alright I don’t know I don’t know if that’s
Helpful those are five kind of wacky kind of fun things that get me excited about the future of fraternity and sorority and I thought it might be valuable for us to sort of things that get me excited about Praetorians forty so that it might give us a chance to
Transition into some of our more short-term predictions about the future of our organizations and it’s at this point that I actually like to welcome in a special guest a special surprise guest to fired up Friday’s Ryan O’Rourke is the executive director of the association of fraternal leadership and
Values AFL B as you all know it AFL B of course runs a couple of the major industry conferences for stew leaders including the biggest one that I know of that is the biggest internal meeting to think of that ever happens and that is a FLD central every year
Ryan is four proud fraternity man and somebody who cares very much about this industry and somebody who I just respect and you know when I think about AFL de I think about the the place in the industry that I can look to to see who’s trying to innovate who’s trying to
Create the future and Ryan and his team are always in the middle of that they’re always trying new things they’re not afraid to experiment and look forward and so Ryan I thought I’d invite you in to talk about the project that our teams have been working on together over the
Course of the last couple weeks as this stuff is all shaken out as we’ve recognized our position in the industry fired up and tech to Phi and AFL B to hopefully be a neutral place to provide some guidance as folks try to try to navigate this Cove in 1940
Absolutely Matt thank you for having me a little bit about a fov mag did a great job of telling our story but we work with close to 300 campuses from across the country now specifically on accelerating progress in fraternities and sororities and I know just looking at the chat feature several people have
Been to our experiences in the past consider themselves a part of team a fov and we appreciate everyone that’s been engaged with us over the last 10 years and we’re celebrating our 10th year here in 2020 so fired up has been a long partner of ours through helping us
Create the educational experiences that our conferences and some of our other summer institutes and things like that and we’re often in conversations Matt and I I think inadvertently have ended up on it started out as like monthly meetings just to talk about things that were happening in the fraternity and
Story experience lately it’s been more weekly if not a couple of times a week that we’ve been connecting and I would say probably within the last two weeks to three weeks really as we started to see with the potential implications of kovin 19 were Matt and I and and some
Others jet horse at the end I see some other execs from some of the fraternities and sororities have been in conversations about what we need to start looking forward and I say that with a great deal of empathy because not all of us can right now people are
Dealing with you know fear and anxiety they may be dealing with family members or friends that are that have been hit with this this virus but with the tremendous amount of empathy I think Matt and I and and fired-up techni Phi and a fov think it’s time for us to
Start thinking about the implications for recruitment coming in to the start of a new academic year so we worked on a document together it’s sort of a manifesto of sorts this will probably date both Matt and I but if you ever saw the film Jerry Maguire this is kind of
The manifesto that we’re trying to put in everyone’s mailbox to just talk about where we think changes are coming and where we need to be prepared looking over the next really four or five six months and beyond and you can access that via that QR code on your screen
Right now it’s hosted on the fire blog starting next week a fov will start releasing worksheets that connect to each of the recommendations we’ve laid out there as well but this was really it started off as a Google Doc Matt’s team and our team and
We sent it to some other people in the industry just to think about what do we need to be prepared for and how can we pivot to ensure that we are successful because I think the reality is everyone that we were projecting that membership and fraternity and see was going to
Start going down anyways all that this moment is done is accelerate that timeline and so I think a reality going into this fall is that they’re gonna be fewer people joining fraternities and sororities now how many fewer really up – what actions we start taking right now what things we start thinking about
Right now and how we get ourselves prepared for the various scenarios that are headed our way in the next couple months and so Matt I don’t know if you want to add anything on to just the the overall macro level part of that document in our intent yeah on some of
Our past fired-up Fridays we’ve certainly outlined the reality of this likely of the impact on people joining fraternities and sororities especially this fall everything from the significant economic pressure that families are gonna be feeling and whether or not they’re gonna be able to allocate financial resources to the Praetorians for the experience –
Similar mutations have been moved digital or canceled and that’s impacted some of our and initial impact – whether or not events are gonna be able to happen at the beginning of the semester and whether people are even gonna be feel comfortable living in paternity or sorority houses or engaging with us in
Groups and you know the list goes on of all these reasons that we need to be very concerned not to mention you know this isn’t just returns for tea of course this is institutions at the just a small selection of the articles that have come out in the last couple of weeks
But the impact of komen 19 on overall student enrollment and whether you know these are universities that are just scared right now about how many students are gonna come back and of course that impacts jobs that impacts real people in real ways and it impacts our organizations both at the local and the
National level and so I think it was just important for us to say listen we know both of us know about this industry enough and both of us know about the the key levers we can pull to ensure that we do everything we can to mitigate membership loss and to keep our
Organizations as healthy as possible going into this this new levels and the uncertainty so Ryan you want to talk about some of those recommendations I do – yeah and the one final thing I’d say on a macro level is we are basing all of this on really incomplete information
You know Matt Matt and I both just talked about the likelihood that the amount of people joining organizations is going to be down I think that is a good assumption but it is still an assumption and so really what we’re asking people to do is start preparing for all of those
Scenarios organizations across the board are looking at how they build their budgets and things like that and there is a chance that some things will get back to normal but I don’t think it’s gonna be very quickly and and so I think on a macro level I would just say this is our
Recommendations based on where we sit here today things could change significantly soon but I think the the overall suggestion is it’s time to start putting some scenario planning in place so that you have time to plan for whatever however this turns not only the fraternity and sorority experience but
What it looks like on college campuses so the first one and Matt touched on it really briefly but I do think it’s a really important one that we may not be realizing is going to be impacted I think our pipeline is going to be jammed up here and specific well so it’s gonna
Be jammed up and I think we need to think about how do we endure without the traditional pipeline and one really easy place to look is it our traditional summer orientations so if you think about what would be happening over the summer is you would have families from
Across the country coming to their campuses going through orientation sessions and learning about all the things that are available to them on campus there’s been a tremendous shift as I think everybody knows to moving that stuff virtually and that’s been in not just in orientation but in all
Aspects of a course works moving online things like these trainings are moving online orientations are moving online as well and I think we need to I think we’ve probably undervalued how much orientations or a pipeline for the fraternity and sorority experience and that those sessions for incoming students or tables for incoming students
And the sessions for parents have really been helpful in terms of getting people information and getting people excited about the fraternity and sorority experience I don’t know what that looks like in a virtual format it certainly has the potential to still be effective but it will certainly be different so a
Question that I would put two people out in in the space that are listening to this today is knowing that one of our biggest pipeline feeders is going to look different how do we need to adapt and I think part of what you’ll learn about I think the recommendation
Document and and how Matt and I generally roll is we’re gonna ask a lot of questions and some of which we don’t have the answers to yet but that’s one of the big questions is how are you going to endure knowing that one of those key things is going to look
Fundamentally different this summer fire don’t put out a great resource recently – about just how to recruit digitally and and how to start lead generation and things like that virtually if you’re not thinking about that stuff now I think it’s time to start thinking about it starting to have conversations with
Incoming students to the extent that that’s possible I think another enrollment trend that we’re seeing is that students in economic challenging times often stay closer to home which likely means that if you know students incoming students that are close to the campuses that you’re on students should
Be reaching out to them and again with empathy just checking on them and seeing how they’re doing but also serving as sort of like a a liaison in terms of what campus is going to look like and give them information but the point of all of this is that the pool of people
That you’re used to just showing up is not likely going to look the same this fall and so I would start thinking about how do you find different feeder systems into that pipeline because we know for sure that a few of them are going to be
Jammed up just as a result of this experience Matt I don’t know if you have anything else to add on that one I think well said here’s here’s maybe an important note I recognize that that digital recruitment and even like right now digital recruitment happening may go
Against the grain of rules or norms that are in place on a lot of college campuses and I want to be really clear Ryan and I aren’t in the everyday weeds of your college campus reality and all the nuanced reasons that those rules and norms are in place and there is nothing
Normal about right now nor will there be anything normal about this fall and so anything that is a norm that that might get in the way of innovation or if students feeling confident that they have permission to go create and to figure out a new way to do business I
Think we’ve got a rethink and I think that’s the general the general consensus is that norms are the for reason and that reason came about in history history is over we’re a future and we’re gonna have to create new norms absolutely and that that transitions
Well I think into my next point and one of the recommendations from the document is just looking at how do we remove barriers to people joining a fov had been working on some of some resources around this idea prior to the outbreak of Kobe 19 several of our board members
Are very invested in this topic as well the current way that a lot of places structure the joining process isn’t necessarily consistent with where we’re gonna see growth in higher education again this is all pre coded 19 so if you think about first-generation students you know they don’t have the same
Context in terms of traditional students that maybe are used to coming to campus early or you know sort of those always joiners that I think we talk about in this space and you think about the growth in Latin ex students on campus I’m not sure we as an industry were
For those demographic changes to begin with and so initially I think on that level the barriers to join that we have in place was something that needed to be re-evaluated I think now as we look at this moment in time if we aren’t spending time thinking about how we can
Eliminate unnecessary barriers for people to join we are going to miss an opportunity to not only ensure our viability moving forward to ensure we’re getting the right members that we want for our organizations the members that are can contribute to our organizations at the highest levels so a question may
Be what what barriers are we talking about I mean everything from the policies we set up in place the structure of how we ask people to join and specifically the economics of joining are we charging people really high registration fees our membership dues conducive for the economic impact
Of this pandemic have we prepared for tiered membership dues or anything like that that can really support what will inevitably be people coming to campus even if we get back to campus on time they’re gonna be coming back to campus after suffering really like an economic shutdown for the last several months and
So we have to think through all of those things and think about what are those barriers that we have in place and what can we responsibly remove to just increase the ability for people to join in a way that doesn’t create any friction right in a way that just allows
Them to go through the process and on cue my son is here to say hi to everybody okay somebody a little bit but he sparked about that everybody perfect we predicted the bat moment was gonna happen okay so I can’t wait to watch that recording background so take pause
Back ultimately what we need to do is figure out how do we remove those barriers to join for and that’s going to be something that you can really start reevaluating right now we don’t have to wait for additional information we can just start thinking about what are those conventional wisdom
Pieces that we’ve held in the past that have really gotten in the way of increased access to people to join and Matt I’m gonna pause for one second and I’ll be right back yeah that’s great thanks rad awesome the I’ve been thinking a lot about priority lists not I’m not talking about Panhellenic
Primary recruitment priority lists I’m talking about like building your own priority list I mean right now it feels like and maybe this is bias based on my particular point of view because I know I think about marketing recruitment in taking growth all the time but it feels
Like we all need to just put right the top of the priority list make it easy for the right people to find our organizations especially right now and then everything underneath that maybe number two or one a is there are non-negotiable health and safety guidelines that we need to make really
Clear to everybody one of the things in this report is our our best first draft at what you know sort of a short list of non-negotiables might be but part of the reason for that is I think a lot of students I work with often get confused
About which rules are the most important ones to follow wait is it is that the contact rule where I can’t wear my letters but I can I can be affiliated on my social media profiles but I can’t talk to somebody in the cafeteria or is that is that the important rule right
Now or is the important rule just don’t promise anybody a bid don’t don’t party with first-year students and don’t put people in danger take care of each other be a good human like like maybe if we named those rules it might allow us to focus on the top priorities as the foe
As opposed to focusing on some of those second deer in my opinion Matt Matt’s opinion secondary or tertiary priorities that that it’s not like those rules weren’t invented for a reason but again the time is different we’re in a new moment and so I think it’s so important
For us to look at look really critically at our prior name them really be confident what’s most important right now as we know that enroll it’s gonna go down as we know for turns 40 we don’t know what that’s gonna be like as we know that just access to
Non-greek students or incoming students is gonna be limited significantly relative to what we’re used to everything’s got to be reevaluated based on our list of most important priorities Ryan you didn’t miss much I just went our way throughout non-negotiables a little bit you want to add anymore yeah
No I that was the the second point I also happily report that the movies back on so we’re good now kelan but I think you hit the nail on the head it’s removing barriers to join without compromising the things that matter without compromising the things that ensure that we have integrity and a
Positive relationship with the campus with our members and things like that and so now it’s really a perfect time to start evaluating those things to your point and then the third thing and this is was sort of a late addition to our recommendations that we did and I think
A powerful one this moment can feel pretty out of control right and and we can feel like because we’re working in a different environment because we’re not as connected to the people that we are used to being connected with at this moment there may be a sense of trying to
Feel like what things can I now get control over and one way to do that is to make decisions and I think as we started off the session we are in a situation where we’re still just working off the best information available and that isn’t necessarily complete
Information and so I think the charge from a if I’ll be and fired up to everyone that uses that resource is that to say that there’s still time to make big decisions this is this situation is fluid new information is coming out constantly and so if you’re looking at
Big structural changes if you’re looking at timeline changes and things like that there may still be time to make those decisions so while things do feel in flux I think everyone will be most successful if we just take a pause take a breath try not to panic and try
To gather as much relevant information as possible and don’t make decisions with incomplete information because we don’t always understand what the unintended consequences of those right a decision made with the best with the best interest with the with the best of intentions may have unintended consequences that we can’t identify at
This time so if you’re looking at any of those things look it’s okay I think making a list of the big decisions that need to be made is important but just know that there’s still time to make them and collecting information the most relevant information I think is going to
Be the most important and then just in closing really quickly these are obviously recommendations based on trying to solve what we project to be some of the problems or issues that we’re gonna face but I there was an epiphany that I had recently and Matt and I haven’t even talked about this yet
Is we’re in this world of social distancing right now Matt hit on it hit it on the head when he talked about it earlier in the session as I was listening for turning and Sorority can really be the way we recover from the time of social distancing people having
Connections with one another coming together feeling camaraderie with one another fraternity and sorority definitely has a place in the post kovat 19 situation that we’re in and so in a lot of ways that makes us really hopeful I know that’s something that Matt and I have talked a lot about and our teams
Have talked a lot about is that I think the world is gonna need our students are gonna need fraternity and sorority when the dust clears from this situation and we don’t know when that’s going to be to be sure and people are in the thick of it right now certainly but the ability
To connect one on one is going to be needed now more than ever and fraternity and sorority provides an incredible opportunity for that to happen so despite the serious challenges we face I think there’s a lot of things to look hopeful for moving forward yeah I think I decided to try my best
What was the quickest way to summarize this document because I know it’s a big document and I think good for me it came down to be of grading kids between non-members you’re lucky it’s a control right now feels like all willy-nilly difficult can you do right now to help
What you can do right now is make ends and still building building that risk info couldn’t have any members of non-members that’s we need to make happen is what we think about top priorities we think about what that looks like in action it means cultivating connections connections cultivate are tight nap and
Throughout the summer fall and even to all next year the angle year is gonna be impacted in a pretty real way thanks Ryan for for jumping in and being a quick helpful guest here I appreciate absolutely helpful yeah yeah let me I don’t see if we have any questions I got
One question in here feel free to add some more questions folks if you want us to talk to city parts of that document oh by the way before I answer the question let me ask everybody do something everybody find that link go to that document go to that go to that
Release on the fired up blog wherever and I should afford it who every leader you think of in fraternities right now new by the way are part of the launch of that document haven’t even publicly posted on social media yet so you’re getting a first look at it I want you to
Share that right now openly and why and engage in conversations and then keep an eye especially on a flb Sophie posting stuff but AF lb is building some discussion guides or things that will help people have conversations around recommendations so keep an eye out for that so Ali asks
What can we be doing now for the members that are in our organizations in order to keep them engaged and keep retention up I love that question ally Ryan is it okay if I take a first stab at that and let’s see if you’ve got anything to add
Is that all right yeah please ooh all day first of all I want you to check out blog fired up comm you can go to our vlog because we’ve got some recent videos are just about to fire to fry today’s session it was an entire thing about rotating Gatling I’m Bruce
Especially not an hour’s worth of answers phantom some written resources as well the second thing and I just want to say a lien to everybody you know right now I know there’s a there’s an old instinct in fraternity and sorority and it is well we don’t we don’t need to
Go get new right now we just got we’ve got a buddy we get and get them all closer together we’re all bond we got focus on brother and sep first before we folks that we’re marketing you’re in taker and I get that instinct actually do but I’ve never
Agreed with it because I think I think one of the coolest things that builds and expresses the sense of brotherhood and sisterhood is the act of giving it away loving our organizations enough to give it away and bringing more people more energy more more ideas more perspectives more diversity into the
Folds of our organizations and so I know I just said how do you retain people and that my answer was recruit people but let me also say this you know recruitment we always we think about that meaning I don’t know rounds in balloon arches and door stacks and weird stuff that isn’t recruitment
Those are all just these strange the strange offshoots of this thing that is recruitment is just relationship building right so is retention so I want to encourage you ally and everybody listening to actively recruit your current members recruit them to your purpose recruit them to recruit them to
Your friend group that looks like handshakes and not handshakes don’t do handshakes that’s what I normally don’t do handshakes not right now that looks like text messages that looks like phone calls that looks like video meetings that looks like intentional personal intimate care reaching out to real
Humans and real specific human ways and caring for them and listening to them and lifting them up and connecting them with other brothers and sisters so check out those resources ally love the question thanks for submitting that Ryan you got anything to add or otherwise I’ll jump into my next my next
Question one really quick one Ali I think it’s a great question and I think there’s been up some thinking that has shifted on also trying to ensure that our members stay engaged and retain I think one way to do that is invite them into this situation and think about what
Are the things we need to scenario plan for what are the implications that we need to be prepared for instead of trying to make that a small group of people having that conversation or thinking through that invite the group to be a part of this moment because you
Know they care about the organization too and they care about its future and the more people you can have thinking through solutions the better I love this next question from Matthew Matthew asks I’m elected to be the recruitment director for my organization next year and I was wondering if you
Could give me some advice as someone who is going into their first recruitment season especially in such an uncertain time Matthew the advice I want to give you is for you specifically but it’s also for literally everybody listening right now shed away everything you ever knew or thought was true about the way
People join fraternities and sororities literally start with a blank piece of paper and ask yourself some really basic questions if attorneys already growth is a relationship business what do I got to do to create systemize and maximize relationships ask yourself questions like how will ask yourself questions
Like I can’t recruit who I don’t know right so how will I get to know more non-greasy students and right now literally how can I find connect with and get the name and contact info as many non-greek students as possible we’ll put a list so that I have a chance
To follow up with them ask yourself questions like well I know people don’t join organizations people join people I know this is a relationship business so how can I create experiences and interactions at the beginning throughout the summer and even at the beginning of my fall semester that results in
Authentic connection happening and then ask yourself the question what’s the information I need to know about every prospective member so that I know whether or not they’re qualified for membership in my organization and they’re aligned with the things that our organization is about and that we
Actually like them how do I learn those things and find that information out through your relationship building process there’s a there’s another fight a Friday session we did several weeks ago it’s called see see the word recruitment through fresh eyes I want to really encourage you Matthew and anybody
Else to watch that one it’s a fun one there’s also a bunch of stuff bunch of free resources at fired up comm slash free that I think can help you build your plan really build your plan despite all this notice that everything I said didn’t require face-to-face interaction
Literally everything I said outside of the time I said handshakes on accident everything I said was very much just about relationship building ins turns out we can build relationships digitally we’re doing it right now thanks for that let’s see if we have more questions where I feel free to add
Anything no I think you did a great job man pretty I don’t have any more questions in the queue right now and that’s fine because we’re about out of time anyway thanks to thanks to Haley Mangrum over in the chat feature for those of you watching live she shared
Some resources that are particularly helpful to some of those questions that were asked and I wanna I want to really really think Ryan Ryan this is I kind of asked you to do this at the last minute and to jump in and I just want to say
Thanks so much for the partnership and for you being being one of the many people out there right now who are stepping up in a moment of crisis and uncertainty and raising your hand and saying I’m gonna try to help and this this document for turns 40 will endure
Is a document that is built specifically to try to help and we know we may not be right and we may not know your real reality on the ground we know we may not understand the pressures that you’re under but we hope that this document provides perspective and some
Understanding of the industry as a whole right now and what we believe some clear priorities should be and hopefully some helpful recommendations can be Ron say anything as we close out a nest parting words no matter I think you you took care of it all but I want to send a
Thank you back to you and your whole team fired up techno Phi for the continued partnership and to echo what you said I don’t think anything that we’re suggesting is written in stone but I think we’re asking the right questions and I guess that would be the last thing
That I would leave with the audience is what are the questions that you need answered and how do you find the best most relevant information to answer them and that will put you in a good place to be successful and and make plans moving forward and at this point I think that’s
All we can do and so if I would offer you any advice at this moment it would be simply to just start thinking about what questions you need answered and that will guide where you go next Sarat thanks everybody who tuned in keep being the people who show up keep eating
The people who do the good work there a love for attorneys forward if returns will absolutely hardly endure even through all of this and maybe especially through all this this is our to shine everybody stay fired up and I’ll see you out there bye-bye Roma
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