Recruiting 101 - Current Methods

Real Life

One of the common problems in this game is advertising your co-op to find players that fit into your model. This is a loaded statement with lots of goodies to unpack; advertising, finding players, fit, and defining your model. Fit will figure itself out if you can do the others well.

Do to the common trend of poor fit and poor leadership, there are a lot of frustrated and wounded farmers that have left and started their own coops only to find out that it is a lot more difficult then they thought.

What you will quickly realize is that online gaming is not that different then real life. The leadership skills that you would need to lead an organization to success are also needed to lead your coop to success. There is a reason that more then 85% of the 500 largest companies in the USA have invested into Leadership and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) training for their leadership. Why EQ? Because EQ is the foundation that soft skills (people skills) and connecting with people are built upon. Makes me curious if game developers would invest in teaching leadership and management skills to their players if it meant the middle class would be more engaged, play more and hence watch more ads... Most people in the business world, running a success business, wouldn't just hang a help wanted sign on the door and hire the fist person that walks in. Yet, that is what we have been reduced to; the turn over is brutal and the fit is dismal. Along the same vein, how many people would rent a space, start a business and then ask “What are we going to do to make money?” No. You have a plan first. You know what you hope to accomplish, who your client are and how you will run your business. A good leader will change and adapt to empower and utilize the strengths of their team. Success starts with with a vision, mission, focus and plan to get there. Why do people think success will magically happen when you throw 30 strangers together in a coop? Today, we start with advertising. There are currently 3 methods available:

In Game List Advertising (or hoping to) on the list in game. There is an algorithm that basically ensures only high participation co-ops make the list. On the surface this is good because you don't want inactive or dead coops on the list. The problem is the list is dominated by very strong teams looking for 1 or 2 final players to round out their team. The continual removal of poor fit players keeps them occupying these spots and other teams from making the list. From Big Farm "The list that appears in game is created at random with a few determining factors. One of these factors is activity. The more active your cooperative is, the more likely you are to appear on the first page. Make sure that all of your co-op members are logging in every day to chat, send loyalty points, do projects and generally play the game! This will increase your chance of being on the front page. It is important to note that any inactive players will be pulling down your average, one very active player cannot make up for an inactive one. So, if you have any players that do not participate, it would be best to remove them from your cooperative." Basically, have people on, active, chatting and your min level at 9. Way way way back when, we did a 'say hi' day, where everybody was asked to say hi when they logged on. The kick in the teeth is that making it to the list generally yields a less then a 10% retention rate. 20 in, 18 out... Facebook Pages You are probably* further ahead to advertise on a Facebook page or fan site, and the better your description of your co-op (leadership structure, project schedule, expectations, etc), the higher your retention rate will be. Somebody looking for “big projects while they work co-op” will leave if do corn and eggs all morning. Facebook also gives you the opportunity to connect with your potential farmer before they join. The problem with Facebook is that your advert falls down the wall quickly, and there is no way to fairly pin them. *I personally have never had success with my one (pathetic) ad on Facebook, but I know others that have had decent success attracting quality farmers. Word of Mouth Most of my success has been friends of friends, making friends and networking. My last 10 players have been the result of keeping my eyes open in the community and connecting with people or following up on a farmer I had to dismiss (went inactive). 3 farmers brought 7 friends. All 3 took effort and time to build relationships. They are quality players and we needed to make sure their needs (and is some cases, those they left) were taken care of. The 9 on my waiting list are also the fruit of relationships. For this to work, you need to be active in the larger community and you need to lead a successful coop that friends want to join. Success isn't defined by your tournament level. Success is defined by the happiness of your co-op. All three of these methods are not sufficient to meet the needs of the greater farming community. Check out Recruiting 201, where we will look at the problem that prevents a better system of advertising and finding coops.

Happy Farming! Smart