In the first article of this series, I told you how crucial it is to identify who your ideal teammate is, and in the second article I talked about some ideas on where to find that person and how to carry yourself in dealing with people. These were not idle exercises. This last article in the series brings these two ideas together in the form of your recruiting pitch or call.
Are you seeking newer players or seasoned veterans? Is your team an open community more focused on fun and relaxation or possibly more interested in competition and training? Are you running a strictly PvP or PvE team or possibly both? Or, maybe you’re only focusing on a particular in-game faction. Whatever qualities, skills, or interests you would like your teammates to have, you must write them down somewhere. Once you have that figured out you must turn those characteristics into a pitch, and once you have your pitch you must play Johnny Appleseed and spread it around.
I have a pitch that I have been working on for years. I have honed it, polished it, changed it with the changing games but at its core it attracts the exact type of player I look for.
First, I state what kind of attitude I am seeking in a player. Second, I state some minimum requirements for entry (attitude is part of this) such as a microphone, age, etc.. Third, I give some brief points on the types of activities a prospective member can expect to find themselves participating in. Lastly, I tell them how to join or where to go to find out more information about our team. That's it.
It's very simple and short but what it does is creates a desire in the person with those qualities and desires (or someone who wants to be part of a team of players with those qualities) to find out more.
Many players will hunt around different forums looking for a team to join. This is great because we can typically create a small ad and post it in the proper place for those prospects to see.
There are some generalizations that I employ when crafting and posting my team sales-pitch (sorry, that is exactly what it is). Some of you will take these gems and put them to use while others will skip past them… consider yourself forewarned.
So you now have your pitch and are ready to spread it around for players join your team. But where should you put it? This is going to take some time in the beginning but once you get it setup it's usually just a matter of maintenance. You need to find the official website(s) for your game and as many unofficial fan-sites as you can find. Find all the competition (i.e. ladder, leagues, etc…) websites you can, and any generic game forums too. Some examples of generic game forums are IGN, GameSpy, or FPS Admin. There are many more out there.
Be careful where you post. Most forums have rules about posting and in particular are fussy about teams recruiting players and where you can post it. I have been banned from forums for not reading their posting rules. This exercise usually takes me a few days of searching and sifting through candidate websites, but in the end I usually come up with a list of 2-10 website forums where I post my pitch.
Make sure when you post that you specify that you want to be notified of any replies. Some boards have this feature defaulted to off. I've often had people post questions or comments in my thread and if I didn't have notifications turned on I would have never known about it.
Keep track of where you post and tell your teammates where you post. Some might actually pitch in and help keep your recruiting threads bumped.
After you have posted your recruiting ad you have to stay on top of it to get the maximum benefit. For the first couple days you should revisit the forums where your posts are at. Is your post still on the front page of the forum? If not, you need to bump it. Be careful and be sure to know each forum's bumping policy.
In time it will be apparent which forums are getting traffic and which are not. The ones that get heavy traffic should be looked at and bumped frequently. Why? Because if you're recruiting post is not on the first page of the forum your chances of recruiting players from it goes down significantly.
As I mentioned above, you should notify your current team members of where you posted so that they can also bump threads and help keep them on the front page. I typically do this by creating a post in my own forums with links to each post that I've made. This makes it easy and accessible to all your members.
Also, if possible you want to use something like Google Analytics to see which threads are bringing traffic to your website. You want to be double sure you attend to the websites that are coming from your most highly trafficked posts. You will only know this if you have a way to see how people come to your website.
You cannot out run the Law of Diminishing Players. Like taxes and death it is here to stay and will never go away no matter how long your team has been active or how large it is. It is simply a matter of whether you are engaging your airfoil (recruiting) or not. Are you rising above, using the Law as a touchstone to future greatness? Or, are you stagnating by not recruiting new members and allowing your player base to dwindle away? There is no in-between, no grey, only black or white. If you are playing a game or games that are dying and the community is small, then you may want to consider moving to a newer more vibrant game. There is only so much you can do when a game is in its final phase.
It is vital that you determine exactly who you want to join your team then craft a pitch for that player and entice them to visit your website or game server. It is vital that you are active and are active in server. If you don't have regular team activity yet, then you must stubbornly resolve to create it yourself. Time and again you will hear me preach how you are the key to the success of your team. No one else. Your daily positive actions are what separate your team from glory and from becoming digital dust.
Maxim #17 - Enthusiasm for your game mixed with initiative produces the fuel that fires growth in a team.
Maxim #32 - No one here gets paid, we are a volunteer army. Therefore, there is absolutely no room for "primma donnas."
Maxim #34 - 80% of the work in TAW is done by 20% of the membership. Always try to improve these odds.
Sometime after I developed my Maxim's 1.0 I realized a proven tactic for recruiting massive numbers, at the same time as others were learning this same idea... When I first wrote this article I didn't include the tactic, and I thought it was so powerful that I should put it here in case you don't know about it. I know that some of you reading this know it, so this is not for you. :) Here it is...
Often times, in a game's forums there will be clan recruiting sub forums or threads. Sometimes admin's are nice enough to even divide sub forums into CLAN RECRUITING and those LOOKING FOR A CLAN. Here is the point... when someone expresses an interest in joining a community, usually the first team to respond to the person that is looking will recruit that person.
So, in practice, the team that contacts the prospect first will most likely recruit them... Another way to say it is the faster you can talk to the players who just posted that they are looking the greater the odds of bringing them into this team rather than another. And coupled with this idea is the fact that the faster you can get them into Teamspeak the greater the chances of them sticking around.
Awesome!
Thanks for the feedback Maverick
As usuall creat indept information that is usefull for all
Every Battalion Command positions in the Arma Division have been asked to have a read through all 3 parts, and I've only received positive feedback from it so far, thanks for posting this, Fox!
Great feedback Deceded. Please post back with anecdotes of results when they arrive!
Great read, Fox. I can't tell you how many times people have underestimated the necessity of recruiting in my previous experience. I'd say everyone ought to give this a good read.
Hello TAW, The second installment of the Leadership Blog was from the archives the Fox Den, authored