Start with Why, Part I
Phillip Burns (Iota Lambda/Longwood 2008)
Coordinator of Expansion
This fall, prospective members will come to your chapter/colony/interest group and they will be interested in joining our fraternity. When they ask why they should join Theta Chi, what are you going to tell them? “We throw the best parties on campus,” “The sororities love us,” and a personal favorite “We have the best brotherhood on campus” will all be uttered at some point by a well-intentioned recruitment chairman or member of the group. And you know what? Those promises will work on some prospective members. Some men are only interested in the surface level reasons for joining a fraternity. Does this make them bad prospective members? Not at all; in fact many of these men will go on to learn about our fraternity and realize its true purpose.
What about those men on your campus who are interested in something more than a surface level fraternal experience though? Those men are not going to be swayed by claims of the coolest parties, women loving you, or having the best brotherhood. These men want to know that through investing their time and money they are going to become better people and better men because of their experience in Theta Chi. In order to bring these men into our fraternity, our chapters need to discover their WHY.
A man named Simon Sinek wrote a book called “Start with Why” which talks about the importance of an organization/company/person knowing why they do what they do rather than how or what the company does. In Sinek’s own words “People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. The goal is not to do business with everyone who needs what you have; the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” (Watch Simon’s video version of “Start with Why” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA)
Think about that in a fraternal mindset for a second: We do not want everyone who could use a fraternity (which is every man); we want those men who believe what we believe. Unfortunately too many fraternity chapters are taking anyone and it shows through their grade point average, service hours, and camaraderie. But how do you find out if these prospective members believe what you believe? To take it a step further, how do you determine what YOU believe in?
Interested in an exercise to find out what your group believes in? Do you want to know how to find out what your prospective members believe is important to them? Then come back next week for Part II of “Start with Why!”
Phillip Burns
Iota Lambda/Longwood 2008
Coordinator of Expansion
This fall, prospective members will come to your chapter/colony/interest group and they will be interested in joining our fraternity. When they ask why they should join Theta Chi, what are you going to tell them? “We throw the best parties on campus,” “The sororities love us,” and a personal favorite “We have the best brotherhood on campus” will all be uttered at some point by a well-intentioned recruitment chairman or member of the group. And you know what? Those promises will work on some prospective members. Some men are only interested in the surface level reasons for joining a fraternity. Does this make them bad prospective members? Not at all; in fact many of these men will go on to learn about our fraternity and realize its true purpose.
What about those men on your campus who are interested in something more than a surface level fraternal experience though? Those men are not going to be swayed by claims of the coolest parties, women loving you, or having the best brotherhood. These men want to know that through investing their time and money they are going to become better people and better men because of their experience in Theta Chi. In order to bring these men into our fraternity, our chapters need to discover their WHY.
A man named Simon Sinek wrote a book called “Start with Why” which talks about the importance of an organization/company/person knowing why they do what they do rather than how or what the company does. In Sinek’s own words “People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. The goal is not to do business with everyone who needs what you have; the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” (Watch Simon’s video version of “Start with Why” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA)
Think about that in a fraternal mindset for a second: We do not want everyone who could use a fraternity (which is every man); we want those men who believe what we believe. Unfortunately too many fraternity chapters are taking anyone and it shows through their grade point average, service hours, and camaraderie. But how do you find out if these prospective members believe what you believe? To take it a step further, how do you determine what YOU believe in?
