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10 Years of Phired Up

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

How do you change the world? How do you matter? We’ve always taught that 1) you find a powerful purpose, a cause, that inspires you, and then 2) you gather high quality people together around that cause to help you achieve it. Well, we still have a lot more work to do, but it feels like we’ve spent the last 10 years doing something that matters. And we’ve been able to do that for one reason — because of the people we’ve gathered together around the purpose of growing cause-based groups.

Today marks the official date that we started Phired Up Productions… 10 years ago. We filed the paperwork to make our crazy little idea a reality. Since then, the journey has been an indescribably fun, challenging, hilarious, creative, joyful, wild ride. We’re really proud of the work we’ve done.

Part of us would like to write a "10 Years In Review" novel in this space to celebrate all our accomplishments and tell all our stories. But a bigger part of us wants to do something much more important. We’d like to say THANK YOU!

THANK YOU, first, to Meggan and Denise, our amazing wives. What you’ve put up with, supported, celebrated, and cared about over the past 10 years is heroic. We love you. We built this company so that we could make an impact on the world, but also so we could do work that our kids would be proud of — Elliotte, Josie, and Autumn, we hope you’re proud and thanks for acting mildly impressed when your Daddy tells you he "changes the world through people and purpose" for a living.

It’s no coincidence that our company’s founder’s day is the same date as that of our fraternity’s, Alpha Sigma Phi. Our company was born from brotherhood. The values, perspective, work ethic, and relationships that we’ve built the company on were all learned from our experience as members of our great organization. So THANK YOU to all our brothers who have taught us so much.

THANK YOU to our "Phamily." Jess, Woody, Colleen, Vince, Megan, Shira, and KJ. And all those who have helped us along the way as members of the Phired Up staff — Ed, Rick, Dennis, Matt, Branden, Meghan, Doug, and Nick. Thanks to all of your family members, too, who have been such an important part of our lives.

And to the campus professionals, fraternity/sorority staff and volunteers, organizational leaders, alumni advisors, and chapter members… THANK YOU for trusting us, for putting in the work, and for sharing the life changing experience of organizational membership - especially Greek life - with others. We’re forever grateful for your willingness to partner, your creative problem solving, your passion for your work, and your friendship. We hope that many of you see us as we see you — not as buyer/seller, but as friends who care about the same thing and are willing to work together to make a change.

THANK YOU to AFA, FEA, NIC, NPC, AFLV, NGLA, SEPC, SEIFC, and PFA. Thank you to the NIC, NPC, NPHC, NAPA, NALFO, and MGC. If you don’t know what any of those letters mean, just trust us that these associations and umbrella groups provide a forum for us to connect with like-minded people, and they are filled with brilliant volunteers and staff members who care about making the world a better place. All those initials represent the space where we do our work, and we’re grateful for their open doors.

THANK YOU to our mentors and industry colleagues who have taught us so much about life, business, and relationships. From the very beginning people you may or may not know like Pete Smithhisler, Karyn Nishimura Sneath, Ginny Carrol, Dan Bureau, TJ Sullivan, Tom Hinkley, Drew Thawley, John Shertzer, and SO MANY OTHERS have been examples for us to emulate.

O.K. that’s enough. Back to work. We’re far more focused on the next 10 100 years. There’s lots to do. So, we’ll go back to helping people find purpose and purpose filled groups find people. But one more time, let us say to YOU…

THANK YOU!

Posted in Phired Up News, Random Thoughts | No Comments »

S.P.A.M. & Greek Recruitment

Monday, October 8th, 2012

jumping-spam-x1 Phired Up celebrates its 10th birthday this year. We’re pretty excited about that, and it has us reviewing the evolution of our message.

Not too long ago, S.P.A.M. was a centerpiece of our fraternity/sorority recruitment curriculum (we rarely teach it anymore). We thought now would be a good time to share publicly, for the first time on our blog, the S.P.A.M. message. Also, keep an eye out on social media and this blog for some other fun S.P.A.M. themed cartoons, pictures, and more. Just for fun.

Here’s an explanation that can be found in slightly altered form in our books, Good Guys and I Heart Recruitment .

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?”
“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 and sororities 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.

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/Sorority 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.

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 organization’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 Greek Council dropped the ball during formal recruitment 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.

P.S. We have always been a big fan of real SPAM . We’ve cracked open "fresh" cans of that yummy stuff with lots of audiences. A couple of us have even visited the SPAM Museum (a must see). Thanks to all our supporters who have enjoyed a can or two of SPAM with us over the years.

Tags: fraternal
Posted in Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips | No Comments »

Food/Recruitment Pyramid (And FORMAL RECRUITMENT PREP PACK Announcement)

Friday, July 13th, 2012

by Shira Tober

Let’s think of recruitment as the Food Pyramid. The foods at the bottom are the ones that should be most frequently consumed and the top are the consumed sporadically. Meeting more people and making more friends is at the bottom of the Recruitment Pyramid, or otherwise known as the foundation. And for women, the cherry on top is Formal Recruitment.

Here’s why the cherry is on top: it only happens in small amounts (once a year), its great at getting women who are interested in sororities into sororities, and the success of Formal Recruitment is reliant on the mastery of the bottom tiers, i.e. RELATIONSHIPS & VALUES.

Still, it can be delicious if done right.

sorority-recruitment-pyramid1 ANNOUNCEMENT: Later this summer the Women’s Division of Phired Up Productions will be releasing a new Formal Recruitment resource to help chapters prepare for formalized recruitment. The Formal Recruitment Prep Pack will include books, Dare Cards, activities, challenges, and step-by-step instructions to make sure chapters having a solid recruitment foundation and work their way up the Recruitment Pyramid to the cherry on top, a successful Formal Recruitment.

If you want more information about the Formal Recruitment Prep Pack or how you can purchase it for your chapters, E-mail Shira@PhiredUp.com .

Tags: fraternal
Posted in Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips, Sorority Specific | No Comments »

Coffee with an Executive Coach - 3 Things Successful Groups Must Have

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

by Josh Orendi

mike-donahue I just met with Michael Donahue at a Panera Bread in Carmel, Indiana. He’s a well respected Executive Coach for top businesses and entrepreneurs in the Indianapolis area (he’s also a Delta Upsilon from Northern Illinois). Mike told me his job requires him to recruit top talent, coach for performance, and facilitate a small group of talented people to form a "fraternity-like bond" of trust and support. He said, "there are a few choices I have made that have most certainly changed my life for the better … pledging DU was one of them. The lessons I learned back in the DU house have served me all through life."

Mike has a few decades of wisdom that I was hungry to tap into. I listened. I learned. I took notes. One note in particular was too important for me to keep to myself. He shared a lesson with me about his business that applies directly to building successful chapters/teams/groups. He said, "There are three things that must be present to have a successful group. Only three! These three are critical, non-negotiable …"

1. Shared Purpose
2. Investment Back into the Group
3. Demand Performance with Accountability

"My CEO groups remind me of my fraternity experience … there is deep trust and respect. We come together because we share a commitment to helping every member reach his/her goals and become a better person." Mike went on to tell me, "The magic of what I do is in the group itself, not in me. A great group is more powerful than any individual relationship … the group has wisdom and holds each other accountable. It takes courage to tell someone that they’re full of BS or that they aren’t living up to their potential as a leader. You have to be willing to experience a little stomach acid. That’s what the members of high performing groups do. They hold each other accountable to high standards."

Those three bullet points are perfect conversation nuggets when you talk to a potential member about the commitment of joining your organization. As for me, I have a meeting on the calendar to meet his CEO group. It’s a cool feeling to be back on this side of the experience being recruited as a potential member. Wish me luck.

Tags: fraternal
Posted in Guest Bloggers, Phired Up News, Random Thoughts, Recruitment Tips, Sorority Specific | No Comments »

NEW #1, ALABAMA TAKES OVER AS NATION’S LARGEST GREEK COMMUNITY

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Dynamic Recruitment Spotlight, June 2012

by Josh Orendi

Wait! You thought University of Illinois was the largest fraternity and sorority community in the nation? Us, too. It looks like there’s a new #1. Roll Tide!

In fall 2011, 7,217 Alabama students proudly wore Greek letters. That’s 28% of the student population on a campus of nearly 27,000 undergrads. To be fair to our friends at Illinois, Alabama does not have the most chapters. The Illini still hold that record. Alabama has 55 chapters and growing … fast.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Kat Gillan, Director of Greek Affairs, and Dr. Lowell Davis, Assistant Dean of Students. They gave us the inside story on how Alabama’s fraternity and sorority community has more than doubled in size over the last 14 years to become the largest Greek campus in the country.

Phired Up: More than doubled! Really?
Bama: It’s true. We’re growing fast. We’ve more than doubled, nearly tripled in size since 1998. We’re relentless about tracking around here. I can give you just about any number you can think of in the last 10 years.

Phired Up: I’d love to see the big picture numbers.
Bama: Here you go.

2011- 2012 Alabama Fraternity & Sorority Community by the Numbers:
26,234 undergraduate student population
7,217 total students in Greek letter organizations
32% of women are affiliated with a sorority
23% of men are affiliated with a fraternity
32 fraternities
24 sororities
98 members average fraternity chapter size
267 members average sorority chapter size (formal recruitment groups)
24 of 27 IFC chapters housed (23 average house capacity)
18 of 18 NPC sororities are housed

Phired Up: With growth like this you must be the target of a lot of expansion and extension inquiries.
Bama: Yes, and we embrace it! On the women’s side, Delta Gamma (Fall 2011) and Alpha Phi (Fall 2008) recently colonized and we’re eager to open for more sorority extension. On the men’s side, we have 6 national fraternities scheduled to expand in the next 4 semesters.

Phired Up: Are you scared about growing too fast?
Bama: No. We focus on supporting our existing groups, but we also value what new colonies bring to our campus. We’d love to have more sororities, but housing is proving to be a challenge since we don’t have existing buildings large enough to hold them. On the fraternity side, we honor the NIC Standards of open expansion and work with the national fraternity headquarters to create plans that will allow them to better communicate with each other. That way we can help maximize their success when they believe it’s the right time for their organization to be on our campus.

Phired Up: No doubt we have people reading this article who can’t imagine the size of your average chapters or scale of your total community, but can you speak to the “quality” of your groups?
Bama: I believe that we’re a case study proving that “quality” and “quantity” are not mutually exclusive. For example, our sorority women have had a GPA above the all-women’s GPA for 84 consecutive years. Our fraternities and sororities rallied together after the April 27, 2011, tornadoes to establish what became UA Greek Relief – a project that contributed more than 1/3 of the total relief to Alabama families and volunteers in the early weeks of the disaster. Individual chapters and the UA community as a whole have been recognized for excellence by national organizations and association award panels. From the classroom to the chapter house and from the community to the brotherhood/sisterhood experience, we’re proud of what we’re seeing.

Phired Up: How big are the largest groups?
Bama: At their largest, Alpha Tau Omega had around 180 men on their chapter roster and Phi Mu had 302 members. The men’s groups will add approximately 30 members in the fall. The average sorority will take a new member class of around 100 women.

Phired Up: That thud you heard was my chin hitting the table. 302 members? 100 new members!!?
Bama: [courtesy laughing] Those are big numbers. We know. Our office is putting a lot of emphasis on new member education and making sure every member has a quality brotherhood/sisterhood experience.

Phired Up: How big are the houses?
Bama: The newest sorority houses that were recently built are around 40,000 square feet and sleep roughly 70 women. Most of the men’s facilities are around 27,000 square feet and sleep at least 20 members. 12 new chapter houses have been built on campus since 2008 and nearly every existing chapter house has undergone some level of renovation.

Phired Up: 12 new chapter houses have been built in less than 5 years! How is that possible?
Bama: The University of Alabama really partners with Greek life in this area. The University views these houses as additional on-campus housing and has added around 500 new beds to Greek Housing. With increased memberships, the Alumni housing corporations can develop business plans that allow them to financially support the housing projects.

Phired Up: My chin was already on the table, now my eyes are bugging out. Seriously!?
Bama: It’s happened fast but it didn’t happen overnight. We’ve been preparing for growth. The University of Alabama is very pro-Greek. We believe in the fraternal movement all the way up the chain of command. We also have amazing Greek alumni and strong vendor partnerships. For example, Pennington and Company has led nearly every chapter fundraising campaign in the last decade. They were an important part of helping us craft our current policies. More recently Laurus group has done a few, too. We count on our business partners, alumni volunteers, undergraduates, headquarters, and university staff all working together. It’s working.

Bama: We gotta jump in and highlight something we’re really proud of. An honorary member of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Dr. Robert Witt [former University President and now UA System Chancellor], is a recent recipient of the NIC Laurel Wreath Award, and UA’s interim President, Dr. Judy Bonner, a member of the Beta Psi Chapter at UA, was instrumental in Delta Gamma’s recent colonization. We are so blessed to have an administration that is so supportive of Greek life. That’s critical! So much of our success would be impossible to re-create without the support we see from the upper administration.

Phired Up: You mentioned “university staff.” Do you have a large team of campus professionals charged with supporting Greek life?
Bama: [chuckling] No. We have 3 full-time professional staff members funded by the University and 2 graduate students funded by our Councils.

Phired Up: How are you able to do so much with so few staff members?
Bama: We work really hard, but we also lean heavily on our partnerships with other campus departments. For example, I think a major part of our growth is due to our close relationship with the Admissions team.

Phired Up: Tell me about that.
Bama: Here are three examples.

1. Our office collaborates with the UA Office of Undergraduate Admissions and members of the Greek Governing Councils to host out-of-state recruitment events in Texas, Florida, and Georgia. These Greek-specific events introduce hundreds of incoming students and their parents to our fraternity/sorority members and the idea of joining a Greek organization.

2. Greek Preview Day has become a huge success, and is now an annual tradition that potential members look forward to attending each year. This year our IFC and Panhellenic Councils hosted 3,001 incoming students and their parents, providing a weekend full of house tours, meals, information sharing, and building relationships.

3. The Regional Recruiters who work in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions always help our office identify potential members. When prospective students indicate to their Recruiter that they are interested in Greek life, those students are offered the opportunity to meet with someone from our trained team of Greek Ambassadors. Last year UA Greek Ambassadors toured 339 students around campus, walked them through Greek housing, and talked to them about the recruitment process.

Phired Up: You’re building a recruitment machine. How many new members will join this year?
Bama: We’re projecting and planning for 2500+ new members to join the UA Greek community.

Phired Up: Does everyone join in the fall?
Bama: The women use a formally structured recruitment process in the fall. Release Figure Methodology (RFM), which was first implemented in 2005, has worked wonders for our campus. Since 2009, all Panhellenic sororities are consistently achieving Quota and Total. The IFC men’s process is not formal at all. Most of the fraternities recruit throughout the spring and give bids in the summer. Incoming students, transfer students, and even upperclassmen can either choose to hold their bids, accept it or decline it. Our only requirement is that pledging cannot officially begin until the fall semester and no program may last longer than 8 weeks. Our NPHC and UGC organizations host Membership Intake throughout the year.

Phired Up: So every new member joins in the fall?
Bama: No, but most men join early in the year. There is also a smaller spring recruitment push in January and February. Some chapters choose to recruit throughout the year.

Phired Up: How big do you think the Greek Community can get?
Bama: We’re a growing institution. The goal is for UA to reach 35,000 students by 2020. Our projection is that fraternities and sororities will grow at least as fast as student enrollment. The Greek Community brings a lot of value to our students, alumni, community, and the culture of The University of Alabama experience. Given that, there are no plans of slowing down anytime soon.

Phired Up: Roll Tide.
Bama: Roll Tide!

Interview Date: June 11, 2012
Interview Conducted By: Josh Orendi, Josh@PhiredUp.com
Interviewing Kat Gillan and Dr Lowell Davis

Do you think your growth story is worthy of a Spotlight Interview? Contact us at Info@PhiredUp.com.

Dynamic Recruitment Spotlight Archives:
•    How Alcohol (or the lack thereof) is Helping One Fraternity Grow Fast
•    Meet the Fastest Growing Fraternity in the Nation: Alpha Sigma Phi 60% Growth Rate Per Year!
•    Social Media Cards – High Point University
•    Sigma Tau Gamma Expansion Recruits 62 Men at Purdue University
•    19 to 90 in 18 Months? (Alpha Gamma Rho, LSU)

Posted in For Student Life Pros, Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips | No Comments »

Start a Conversation

Monday, June 11th, 2012

tshirt-1-btp Last week at our BE THE PERSON | 2012 event, we gave all our participants T-shirts.

Of course we did. Any event that involves a group of college students and/or professionals MUST have T-shirts, right? It seems that way, but our T-shirts were meant to do one thing a little differently than most "event" T-shirts. They were meant to start a conversation.

Finish this sentence, "The world would be better if…"

Do your T-shirts, posters, sidewalk chalkings (see pics here ), advertisements, and marketing strategies start conversations? Do they lead to interactions.

We want to give a HUGE shout out to our sponsor and friend GREEK101 . This is a reputable company that produces high quality goods for our marketplace, and who BELIEVES IN THE BEST OF COLLEGIATE LIFE. GREEK101 sponsored the T-shirts for BE THE PERSON | 2012 out of the goodness of their hearts and we are incredibly appreciative of their support. Check them out for your future "conversation starting" needs…

Tags: Add new tag, college, fraternal
Posted in Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips | No Comments »

How Alcohol (or the lack thereof) is Helping One Fraternity Grow Fast

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

by Josh Orendi

PDTLogo_PMS539_Tag
What if an entire national fraternity chose to operate 100% alcohol free? I can imagine the heated reactions of undergrads and alumni. Seriously. Try to picture it – a nationwide vote to abolish alcohol from every chapter house across the country. Next, imagine if that organization had the fortitude to stick with their alcohol free decision for over a decade. Who would want to join? Would current members stay? Is alcohol-free housing a death sentence or a bold, sustainable reinvention of fraternity? Thanks to Phi Delta Theta , we have the answer.

I scheduled time to talk with Associate Executive Vice President Sean Wagner and Director of Expansion Demarcko Butler to ask them about the impact of bold decisions in recent years at Phi Delt and to see if they plan to shake things up again anytime soon. What I learned is there’s more than a story of alcohol-free housing. This is a fraternity with a history of doing things differently, leading by example, and YES they are preparing to go big again….

Phired Up: Let’s start with the numbers. How did alcohol-free housing impact recruitment?
Phi Delt: Here are some benchmark numbers…

1997: Alcohol free decision was made.
2000: Alcohol free policy fully adopted.
2000 - 2012: 23% annual increase in new members and 16% increase per year in initiates
2012: We’re up 14% from last year and reached 4000 new members this year for the first time in over 20 years.

Perhaps the most impressive number of all is that our average colony/chapter size is 64 members. That’s significant since the national average hovers around the low to mid 40’s.

Phired Up: Are you experiencing positive growth trends with your expansion efforts?
Phi Delt: Yes. We have installed 60 chapters since 2000. In the last year we’ve installed 8 new groups at an average size of 41 new members.

Phired Up: What implications did that historic alcohol-free decision have on the organization other than recruitment?
Phi Delt: Ed Whipple, who is currently a fellow for NASPA and formerly was the VP of Student Affairs at BGSU and a former President of our General Council, did some significant research for us both at our 5-year anniversary in 2005 and an update to mark the 10th anniversary in 2010. Without getting into all of the details, beyond recruitment, some of the most impressive findings included an increased GPA as now 25% of our chapters are tops on their campus in the classroom and an increase in alumni involvement as we now have 55% more alumni involved with our chapters than we did in 1997 when the policy was introduced.

Phired Up: The alumni involvement piece is really interesting. Tell me more about that.
Phi Delt: We heard from alumni in the past that they weren’t getting involved because our houses weren’t a place they felt comfortable spending their time as a professional. Now they’re giving both their time and treasure. Alumni giving is at an all-time high. Since 1997 when the policy was introduced and today, our Foundation has experienced its best years including last year which was our 2nd highest in total contributions. Also, while we don’t track local giving, Pennington and Company has helped our local house corporations raise $7.5 million between 2005 and today.

In addition to our houses being nicer, they are also safer; we averaged 12.3 alcohol claims prior to 2000 and today we average less than three a year. Liability insurance costs have come down substantially offering a much more affordable experience for our members. Today the average insurance rate for fraternities hovers around $160 per member; our rate is almost half that at $78 when you factor in both initiated and new members.

Phired Up: If numbers are up and Phi Delt is experiencing all these additional benefits, why aren’t more fraternities following your example on alcohol?
Phi Delt: That’s a question you’d have to ask them, but it has obviously worked for us and we’re very proud of the results. In the meantime, we’re very happy to have created a bit of a niche. All Greek letter organizations were roughly founded on similar principles but by taking alcohol directly out of our value proposition from a living environment standpoint, we’re happy to be offering an opportunity that our EVP Bob Biggs famously calls a “learning-living laboratory.”

Phired Up: Is alcohol-free housing the biggest reason Phi Delt has grown so consistently?
Phi Delt: More than anything I believe that by removing alcohol from our facilities we have been able to focus on things that make us a better organization. While there is still a great deal of risk management education that we do and incidents do come up, our chapters, volunteers, and staff no longer regularly focus on incidents involving alcohol we have all been able to broaden our focus.

From a chapter standpoint, we hear from our members that they have gotten outside of their houses for social activity and have become more involved on their campus which has helped build relationships and bigger Phikeia (that’s what we call our new members) classes. From a staff standpoint, our collective hand in the increased numbers is due to the programming that we’ve been able to do because we haven’t been constantly “putting out fires.” This includes creating new recruitment training, online education, a new branding campaign, alumni loyalty program, a large virtual footprint in social media, the Iron Phi program, and much more.

Phired Up: Tell me more about Iron Phi. A lot of readers may not be familiar with that program.
Phi Delt: The Iron Phi program is homegrown, born out of the MBA program and brain of long-time staff member Steve Good. Steve’s great idea was to harness the tremendous enthusiasm and pride that we have for Lou Gehrig as arguably our most famous alumnus and a partnership with The ALS Association, and channel that into a program that challenges our members to take on an athletic challenge and raise money for the fight against ALS and the Phi Delta Theta Foundation. It’s working! We’ve raised approximately $310k since February 2010 while giving Phis a chance to do some good and work towards a personal goal.

[Sean] I wouldn’t call myself a runner, but I participated with a number of staff members in a relay team during Cincinnati’s Flying Pig Marathon in 2010 and raised $1000 while doing it. Demarkco is still trying to earn his Iron Phi Stripes…..

Phired Up: When I talk to the technology vendors servicing national fraternities, most point to Phi Delt as being an early leader from website development and social media adoption to webinars and online education. What’s the story?
Phi Delt: In technology our recipe for success has been to experiment and to follow the trends. We thank the folks at the Group Interactive Networks (GIN) for helping us cut our teeth on our chapter website templates in 2007. We learned through that while our undergraduate members were using technology every day in everything that they do, they didn’t necessarily know how to use it in their fraternity experience. From there we set out to do our best to serve as a model example from a General Fraternity standpoint. This included going for it with Facebook and everything else that has come along since, including Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, and more. If our members are using it to connect to their world, we need to at least attempt to see if it makes sense to as tool to connect them to Phi Delt. By doing this we’re sharing best practices with chapters so they know better how to use the web for connecting with potential new members and their constituents.

Online education was a similar thing, our advisers were using online education for professional training and we were still sending them paper manuals. We needed to catch-up. Now we have a Chapter Advisory Board Certification program for 8 different positions. Since we launched it in March of 2011 we’ve had 498 advisers certified.

Phired Up: I keep seeing blue Phi Delt marketing materials with “Become the Greatest Version of Yourself” on campuses, social media, t-shirts. Tell me the full story behind the new branding campaign.
Phi Delt: Our governing board, the General Council, provided the tremendous leadership in 2010 to introduce a strategic plan in 2010 called Phi Delt 2020 that has six comprehensive initiatives, but we knew quickly in order to talk about what we wanted to do, we needed to get our messaging down. We feel like we always had a great story to tell, but didn’t necessarily do a good job at telling it.

To find our voice we wanted to find some folks outside of the industry, so we hired Pocket Hercules out of Minneapolis. Their principles Jack Supple and Jason Smith had worked on a little brand called Harley Davidson before starting what they call “The Pocket.” After quite a bit of internal and environmental research, they came up with “Become the Greatest Version of Yourself” as our tagline and the “Sword and Shield” as our primary external logo. The tagline was rooted in the research and feedback that our prospective, current, and alumni members provided along with sorority women that spoke to Phi Delt building better men. This was understood whether they knew it personally or had experienced through interacting with our members. We liked the line because it wasn’t boasting or being over the top with alcohol-free housing, it was aspirational and described the opportunity you’re getting when you sign a Phi Delt bid card. This isn’t something that is for everyone, but an experience that top tier students on campus seek out to help them develop an individual.

Once the key assets were determined we set out to build a campaign that included an overhaul to our web presence, recruitment materials, and how we would communicate about ourselves in all ways. To ensure that we had the brand in the hands of our chapter members as quickly as possible, we worked with a company called Advanced Online to build the PhiDeltStore to provide branded recruitment items and apparel. We are still in the process of assessing the roll-out, but anecdotally the feedback couldn’t be better from our members and constituents. The next wave in branding for us will be to use the brand in such a way that that we are generating demand and creating better overall awareness of the organization outside of our core audience.

Phired Up: Back to the alcohol-free and recruitment conversation … Demarcko, your job is literally to recruit hundreds of men into new colonies of the organization every year. How do you tell a guy that he can’t have a beer in his room if he wants to become a Phi Delt?
Phi Delt: When an expansion project starts, our process is to recruit the highest caliber men in the areas of academics, involvement, service, athletics, etc. Those individuals are either already on board with the policy of alcohol-free housing or they see it as an added bonus toward them continuing to make an impact at their particular institution.

Phired Up: Most national fraternities are proud to recruit 25 – 35 new members into a colony. Is the same true for Phi Delt given the added restriction on alcohol?
Phi Delt: Our minimum standard for recruitment is at least 40 men. The expansion team looks for the “never joiners” and of course the “maybe joiners”. We use Dynamic Recruitment with a focus on the first cylinder (referrals) – sororities, coaches, faculty, etc. Our expansion team has literally interviewed hundreds of college men. We quickly realized that the best people are no longer looking for the fraternity to be a drinking club. The students who are attracted to Phi Delta Theta want to “Become the Greatest Version of Themselves!” They want to defy the stereotypes that their campus has already in Greek Life. We are looking for “fraternity men” NOT “frat stars.”

Phired Up: It’s clear that Phi Delt isn’t afraid to be different, make bold choices, and stick with them for the long haul. What do we have to look forward to from Phi Delt in the next few years?
Phi Delt: Our mantra around here is that the Phi Delt 2020 plan is our “north star.” We have gotten laser focused. If a new proposal doesn’t fit into one of our strategic initiatives, we aren’t doing it! You can expect Phi Delt to further emphasize chapter growth and retention, a standardized new member program that leverages new technologies, enhanced branding efforts, and programming in the networking and mentoring space. We’re doing all of this while ramping up our fundraising efforts with a goal of $20 million by 2020. Alcohol-free housing helped us get where we are today and Phi Delt 2020 is the plan shaping the course for our future.

Phired Up: Demarcko, wanna go grab a beer with me?
Phi Delt: Sure, but not in a Phi Delt chapter house.

Article Written By: Josh Orendi, CEO, Phired Up Productions (www.PhiredUp.com)
Interviewing: Sean Wagner & Demarcko Butler of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity (www.PhiDeltaTheta.org)
Published May 23, 2012

Tags: fraternal
Posted in For Student Life Pros, Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips | No Comments »

FRATERNITY SUMMER RECRUITMENT CHALLENGE!

Monday, May 21st, 2012

READ THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT & RULES, and WATCH THE VIDEO HERE !

by Vince Fabra

summer-challenge I’m Phired Up for the #SummerRecruitmentChallenge .

Summer is here! Students have certainly earned their summer break, balancing their school work, campus involvement and personal relationships for the past nine months. Now that the spring semester has come to a close, it’s time to focus on recruitment during the summer. However, for most college students, it seems laughable to put the words “focus” and “summer” in the same sentence. That is why we created the #SummerRecruitmentChallenge .

What motivates people? In particular, what motivates fraternity men? (“Not a damn thing!” answers the frustrated chapter president) We believe that competition, challenges and rewards for a job well done are motivation for college-aged fraternity men.

The #SummerRecruitmentChallenge will be a fun, exciting and beneficial 8-week summer long competition. Every fraternity chapter in the country is invited to participate. The focus will be on three key areas of summer recruitment.

Putting names onto your names list.
Hosting values based activities and events.
Helping your university get students Phired Up for the fall semester.

Each week, we will tweet out (@PhiredUp ) a weekly goal or challenge. The one chapter that best completes all weekly challenge for 8 weeks, will be awarded a Phired Up Recruitment Scholarship to be given to one of their new members in the fall.

Let’s show the twitterverse what real fraternity men do during May, June and July! Let’s be the leading example of year-round-recruitment! And let’s build real relationships through summer recruitment and welcome thousands of men into the fraternity community this fall!

For more information, READ THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT & RULES, and WATCH THE VIDEO HERE !

Tags: fraternal
Posted in Phired Up News, Recruitment Tips | No Comments »

Meet the Fastest Growing Fraternity in the Nation … Alpha Sigma Phi, 60% Growth Rate Per Year!

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

[This post is one of several in a series of "Recruitment Spotlight" articles highlighting successful organizational growth]

by Josh Orendi

alpha_sigma_phi_seal_72dpi If your reaction to that title was “really!??” or “how is that possible” or “Alpha Sigma who?” you’re not alone. It’s hard to believe that a fraternity founded in 1845 could fly under the interfraternal radar with barely 50 chapters for the last 100 years then suddenly explode on the scene by nearly doubling its chapter count and more than doubling total membership in the last 3 years (that was not a typo, go back and read the last sentence again). Alpha Sig is challenging the status quo of what fraternity growth is supposed to look like. Their high-octane expansion is paired with an innovative support model that is producing sustainable, record breaking results.

I sat down at Starbucks in Carmel, Indiana for an early Wednesday morning interview with Alpha Sig’s Executive Director, Gordy Heminger, and the Director of Chapter & Colony Development, Matt Humberger. These guys are the real deal – full of intensity, passion, focus, and a unified vision. It turns out that’s true of their personal lives as well as their business lives. As I walked in the coffee shop I immediately noticed they were in a forward leaning, heated discussion and to my surprise, they were wearing gym clothes and hoodies complete with Alpha Sigma Phi embroidered baseball caps….

Phired Up: Good morning.

Alpha Sig: [Matt] Hey, Josh, do you know what major league baseball team has the longest streak of failing to make the post season?

Phired Up: I’m guessing you know I’m from Pittsburgh … the Pirates?

Alpha Sig: [Matt] Good guess, but no. They’re the third worst. It’s actually the Washington Nationals. They haven’t made the playoffs in 28 years! Most people wouldn’t guess that because they changed cities from Montreal in 2005…. I love baseball season. By the way, thanks for agreeing to meet with us an hour earlier than our original time.

Phired Up: My pleasure. Are you guys heading to the office from here (sarcastically)?

Alpha Sig: [Gordy] Not until I hit the gym. (looks at his phone) Personal trainer is meeting me in 32 minutes.

Phired Up: I didn’t realize I was on the clock. In that case, let’s jump in. Are the rumors true? I heard a well informed volunteer say 60% growth per year and that Alpha Sigma Phi has doubled in the last three years?

Alpha Sig: (devilish grin) Yes. We’re really proud of the hard work that our undergraduates, professional staff, and volunteers put in the last few years. We’re experiencing unprecedented growth. Here, we brought you the numbers:

Total New Members

2008/09 – 854

2009/10 – 1282

2010/11 – 1330

2011/12 – 923 (Fall only); will be over 1700 new members this year

Total Chapters/Colonies/Interest Groups

2009 – 64

2010 – 76

2011 – 85

2012 – 100

Growth Projection

2013 – 16 new groups

2014 – 16 new groups

2015 – 20 new groups

2016 - 20 new groups

Phired Up: I’m pretty sure these numbers make Alpha Sig the fastest growing fraternity in the country! How did you accomplish in 3 years what hasn’t been done in the organization’s previous 165 years?

Alpha Sig: Our board and staff are focusing our resources – human and financial – on supported growth. In the past we were stretched too thin. Today, we choose to use volunteers or outsource anything that we can’t do with excellence on our own.

Phired Up: You said, “supported growth.” What did you mean by that?

Alpha Sig: We’re proud of the numbers, but Alpha Sig is not a fraternity that goes everywhere and recruits anyone. We have a targeted, intentional approach and we take pride in the experience we provide for each member. Our chapters are receiving unprecedented levels of training and volunteer support.

Phired Up: Are you leveraging technology to do more with less or is there something else?

Alpha Sig: Technology has certainly helped. We were the first NIC fraternity offering cutting edge, online member education through our partnership with Big Fish. Also, we were the first national organization to provide every chapter with a free account with WebGreek for website services and backend chapter management. Oh, and Facebook has been huge. But, mostly we’ve gotten better at connecting our base of alumni with our chapters in a way that both are excited to work together. Our volunteers have taken over doing a lot of things the headquarters staff used to be responsible for – and quite frankly they’re better at it than we ever were. Technology helps but we never forget that we’re in a relationship business.

Phired Up: Tell me more about the volunteer and training pieces.

Alpha Sig: 62% of chapters and colonies attended our Burns Leadership Institute, 97% of chapters attended Academy of Leadership, and the Elevate conference became more professional in design while quadrupling its impact to reach nearly 250 undergraduate members. We’ve responded to the growing needs of our growing membership by more than doubling our professional staff and growing our volunteer network. In fact, the fraternity has increased the number of recognized chapter advisory boards from two in 2009 to 50+ in 2012. The coolest part of that statistic is that our chapter advisory boards now require 6 volunteers as opposed to a requirement of 3 in the past. Only a handful of chapters just have one advisor so even the chapters that don’t have a recognized chapter advisory board have more than one volunteer involved in supporting the group. Our standards and support model are increasing at the same time we are increasing our membership.

Phired Up: So this isn’t all about getting as big as you can as quick as you can through expansion?

Alpha Sig: No! We’re serving our current chapters at a high level and offering hands on recruitment help to those in need. Since 2009 we’ve helped 7 chapters with a headquarters led recruitment. We’re working hard to make sure our growth is sustainable for new and existing chapters. In fact, our retention rates are up in our expansion efforts from roughly 75% in 2009 to nearly 93% this past year. To be blunt, we’re recruiting better men at the same time we’re recruiting more men, and we’re giving them all a better fraternity experience.

Back Story & Disclosure: Phired Up co-founders Matt Mattson & Josh Orendi served on the Alpha Sigma Phi national fraternity staff as Leadership Consultants and Directors of Expansion between 1999-2002. Gordy was a Leadership Consultant on the professional staff (and Josh’s roommate) from 1999-2000.

Phired Up: Why now? Gordy, what is Alpha Sig doing different now than when you and I served on staff after college – let alone the 150+ years before then?

Alpha Sig: Here’s one big difference: We rarely hire guys right out of college. Today, Alpha Sig’s consultant team includes a guy with a law degree, a past employee in sales, and a guy with business experience. We only have one staff member that joined staff straight from his undergrad experience. Five members of our team have master’s degrees and Four members of our headquarters staff have masters degrees in higher education … three are former Greek Advisors. That’s important since 87% of our chapters received visits from headquarters this academic year.

Phired Up: What!? That hiring model is so different from what Alpha Sig used to do, and it’s very different from the traditional consultant/expansion model of other fraternity headquarters.

Alpha Sig: We’re hiring professionals to do professional work. We’ve recently hired two staff members who are not members – Tabatha Sarco and Danny Miller. We like that type of diversity of thought and experience. We think the number of staff members we have with higher education degrees and Greek advising backgrounds puts us in a position to better understand how we can improve upon the partnerships we have with our host institutions.

Phired Up: I feel like Alpha Sig has been under the interfraternal radar. How have you been able to keep all this success and change a secret?

Alpha Sig: We haven’t been trying to keep it a secret. We just weren’t talking about it. We wanted to wait until we had evidence and a story to tell before we started sharing what we’ve learned. And, to be completely honest, we’ve just been too busy doing the work to realize others didn’t know what we were doing.

Phired Up: Is there anything you know today that you wish you had known three years ago?

Alpha Sig: I wish we would have started with our 4 step process for expansion from the beginning.

Phired Up: Four step process. What is that?

Alpha Sig: We have a 4 stage business model for new groups. There are benchmarks with each step. The biggest change was moving initiation before chartering. We stopped treating colonies and interest groups like “pledges” for 2 years before they could charter. Now we train and educate new groups the same way we want them to educate new members. We’re modeling the way so they’re operating like a successful Alpha Sig chapter from the very beginning.

Phired Up: Let me tee one up for you. Hundreds of campus professionals are likely to read this article. Why should a campus pursue Alpha Sig for expansion?

Alpha Sig: Expansion – when done right – is good for the entire fraternity community. Here are three things we like to share with campuses we’re considering for expansion. 1) We have a track record of success so the IFC and campus can feel confident we’ll produce results in quantity and quality. 2) We have a five year support model for new groups so schools know we’re committed for the long haul. 3) Alpha Sig is committed to deep campus partnerships – so much so that we have four staff members with professional higher education backgrounds.

Phired Up: I’ve heard you talk about the last few years as “transformative” for Alpha Sigma Phi. What has been the biggest challenge?

Alpha Sig: Getting people to believe has been harder than we imagined. Our own alumni have been some of the hardest to win over. We’ve literally had conversations that sound like they belong in an undergrad chapter meeting. Long time alumni volunteers have told me, “I don’t want us to get too big … we’ll have to sacrifice brotherhood/quality.” In my opinion, they’re not choosing to see opportunities. They’re letting our past or fear of the future control our destiny. Fear is hard to overcome! I believe one measure of our success as an organization is the number of men’s lives we are positively impacting. When we grow, we fulfill our mission. Alpha Sig’s motto is “To Better The Man.” If we can give the gift of fraternity and better more men’s lives, the only question we should be asking is “why aren’t we doing more of that.”

Phired Up: What next? Now that you’ve made such a big splash in such a short period of time, what’s next?

Alpha Sig: This is very much the beginning, not the end. We’re just getting started. Now that we have a winning formula – high caliber staff, strong alumni support, great campus partnerships, and a consistent recruitment system – we’re ready to step on the gas. On top of the seven re-organized chapters, we’ve opened 41 groups since 2009 and the goal is to have 180 chapters and colonies by the end of 2016. That’s roughly 10 per semester. We know we still have a lot to learn and our model will continue to evolve.

Phired Up: If Alpha Sig can turn around a franchise that’s nearly two centuries old, do you think my Pittsburgh Pirates can see a playoff birth in 2012?

Alpha Sig: You’re probably better off hoping the Washington Nationals have another rough year.

Phired Up: That’s cruel.

Written by: Josh Orendi

Interview Date: March 28, 2012

Interviewer: Josh Orendi

Interviewed: Matt Humberger, Gordy Heminger

Tags: fraternal
Posted in Phired Up News | No Comments »

3 #Hashtags

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

by Matt Mattson

If you’re one of the approximately 500,000,000 (!) Twitter users in the world, or you watch TV and have noticed the little pound-sign-thingy in the bottom corner of some of your favorite shows, you know what “hashtags” are. Phired Up is driving a worldwide online conversation about Dynamic Recruitment and Social Excellence through a few hashtags and we thought we’d help you understand a) how you can participate, and b) how they all tie together.

#DynamicRecruitment: Search this hashtag frequently to see tips, links, and ideas focused on the “science” of organizational growth — Dynamic Recruitment. You’ll see ideas for networking, choosing people to join your group, building relationships with prospective members, and all the elements of organizational recruitment.

Please add to the discussion! Drop the #DynamicRecruitment hashtag on stories of groups growing, examples of Dynamic Recruitment in action, ideas to add names to your Names List, and more! We especially like one-line-words-of-wisdom from your perspective. Join the #DynamicRecruitment conversation.

#SocialExcellence: Search this hashtag often to see tips, links, and ideas about the “art” of organizational growth — Social Excellence. We’ve written before about how Dynamic Recruitment and Social Excellence tie together (here). This hashtag will reveal to you an ongoing conversation about how handshakes lead to conversations, conversations lead to relationships, relationships lead to collaboration, collaboration leads to organization, and organizations change the world. Lots of words of wisdom based on the philosophy shared in our book Social Excellence: We Dare You; How Handshakes Can Change The World.

Please add to the discussion by hashtagging #SocialExcellence with everyday examples of #Curiosity, #Generosity, #Authenticity, and #Vulnerability. Share stories and ideas about ways people can connect on a deeper level, care about each other more, build more meaningful relationships, and collaborate with one another so that we can all find a way to truly matter to the world.

#BeThePerson: Search this hashtag to explore the momentary choices we can all make every day to #BeThePerson who exemplifies #SocialExcellence. This hashtag was born from this resource (75+ #BeThePerson statements) which was built via Twitter and Facebook. We’re constantly seeking more statements like this, so please share yours. These simple, small, momentary choices are what add up to our habits and eventually our lifestyle. Share your momentary choices and choose #SocialExcellence.

#BeThePerson is also the hashtag for our exciting event happening this summer – BE THE PERSON | 2012. The event itself is about those momentary choices…

We cordially invite you to join these conversations with us on Twitter. You can find us at @PhiredUp. We look forward to your #Hashtags.

Tags: college, fraternal, world
Posted in Phired Up News, Random Thoughts, Recruitment Tips, Social Excellence | No Comments »