One of our clients recently relayed a story about a recruiting call she made.

She is an experienced hiring manager, but recently took over an office in a new part of her metro area.

She was making referral-based introductory calls to some of the high performing agents in her new market and connected with an agent who was abrupt and a little harsh in her initial response:

I don’t know why you’re calling me. I have no interest in changing brokerages before I retire!

The hiring manager responded:

I can understand how you feel.  I wouldn’t want to make a change either if I were at your stage in my career.

By using some empathy to de-escalate the situation, the hiring manager went on to have a 10-minute conversation about the market and some areas where they might be able to help each other.

Towards the end of the conversation, the agent revealed that their office was experiencing some turmoil due to some leadership changes and then said something surprising:

I’d like to help you.  Call me back in two weeks, and we’ll get together for coffee.  In the meantime, I’ll put together a list of the agents in our local market who you need to be talking to, and I’ll share it with you when we get together.

What started as a rejection turned into a remarkable opportunity to make a friend and acquire a valuable referral list of prospects in her new area.

What’s the moral of the story?

None of this would have happened if this hiring manager was not proactively attempting to initiate live connections with prospects by picking up the phone.

Yes, your recruiting strategy needs to be multi-faceted (email, social media, events, etc.).

But as long as you’re dealing with humans, the most recruiting progress will always be made in live conversations.