Smaller Groups-how can you make PNMs feel chosen?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

A large percentage of PNM's are going to have their minds made up about you before they walk through your door at recruitment b/c of the rumor mill. There is no overnight solution, but I think a big part of the solution involves building chapter morale and strengthening your campus image during the school year. It's also about knowing how to rush someone, to make a personal connection with a PNM and getting her to click with you and what your chapter is all about.

Once the PNMs come into your event, they already have a perception in their heads, and you have less than 30 minutes to turn that perception around. There's a lot to be said for the notion that recruitment is "365 days a year." You have to have an internal and external PR plan for your chapter, keep members motivated and excited and spread that spirit to the rest of the Greek community.

Absolutely. I agree completely. (And this is part of why I think GLOs miss the boat on what gets communicated to smaller chapters. Instead of lifting up and focusing on the positive and trying to help make the positive shine. . .)

But for chapters going into recruitment this fall, what are some of the techniques a chapter could use to help members develop personal connections and try to click with PNMs?

If you were helping with a pre-recruitment workshop on rushing, what would you tell people?

I'd remind them not to be on the hard sell for the group. I think it's more important for a girl to feel like you really wanted to get to know her and that you liked her than it is to tell her anything in particular about your group. So if the PNM is telling you about something or interested in one topic, follow her conversational lead and her interest. Don't feel like you have to hit every possible point of interest in your house tour conversation or tell her every aspect about the philanthropy. If she wants to talk about her volunteer work, be interested in her volunteer work. Ask her about that and follow that lead. Make her feel clicked with, basically, as much as you can. And then after the party write down notes about what she was like and interested in and think about who in the group shares her interests.

Which brings me to a another point, at big chapters make some effort to make sure everyone actually knows each other well in terms of hometown, majors, interests etc. Ideally, you'd do it authentically with sisterhood activities throughout the year. But it seems like there are some stealthy out of house members who will retain some enigmatic qualities to all but their closest friends. So at the very least, play funny games in work week or give out witty bios, maybe based on fake facebook pages.

So that if PNM College-Radio-Station-Girl comes back the next round, XYZ member College Radio Station Girl can look out for her and talk to her [ETA: as a person with a shared interest] , rather than having XYZ intramural softball and BSU member tell her what XYZ means to her [ETA: in some kind of generic connectionless way].

[UGAalum94]

I know what I'm saying probably seems ridiculously obvious.

But I know that when I was nervous, I reverted to travel-guide-and-sorority-historian-giving-a-lecture mode. Luckily, it didn't happen with real PNMs that I remember, but I can remember mock rushing one of our alums, and she was either playing the part of silent PNM or as a matter of personality she was just kind of a nodder rather than a conversationalist (she was regal with white hair and seemed very aloof; it was sort of like mock rushing the queen of England ), but I got nervous and was much more worried about the stuff I was telling her being right than I was about "rushing" her.

[adrie435]

Don't 'over-rush' PNM's... If you sit for 20 minutes and talk all about how much your sorority means to you, and she's sitting there staring at you with a blank expression on her face it means you lost her somewhere. If you go up to her with 15 of your sisters everytime you see her and tell her how much you love her, it'll make you look creepy and desperate.

We're all trained to tell PNM's all about what a wonderful sisterhood we have and all the facts, etc, but I was most impressed with a sorority during recruitment when they answered whatever questions I had concisely and we spent the whole party talking about something completely random. I remember talking about shoes with one active during a recruitment party and that was the day I decided I absolutely loved them!!

It's normal to feel like you have to "sell, sell, sell" when you are the underdog, but if you over-sell yourself girls will actually become less interested in you than they may have started out (if that makes sense).

[33girl]

Originally Posted by adrie435

We're all trained to tell PNM's all about what a wonderful sisterhood we have and all the facts, etc, but I was most impressed with a sorority during recruitment when they answered whatever questions I had concisely and we spent the whole party talking about something completely random. I remember talking about shoes with one active during a recruitment party and that was the day I decided I absolutely loved them!!

It's normal to feel like you have to "sell, sell, sell" when you are the underdog, but if you over-sell yourself girls will actually become less interested in you than they may have started out (if that makes sense).

excellent point.

One of the groups I rushed I really liked...but they were SO "gung ho" they scared me. Nonstop talk about GHI activities, living in the GHI suite, GHI mixers, GHI's motto....it was a relief to go to ASA the next day and converse with normal girls who just happened to be in a sorority and who had lives outside of it, too. I was right about GHI, because one of my dormmates pledged them and they gave her crap about getting an apartment with someone from another sorority and not staying at the mixers long enough.

Honestly, the thing most pnms want is to make a connection, not hear a laundry list of your accomplishments or philanthropy events.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by adrie435

Don't 'over-rush' PNM's... If you sit for 20 minutes and talk all about how much your sorority means to you, and she's sitting there staring at you with a blank expression on her face it means you lost her somewhere. If you go up to her with 15 of your sisters everytime you see her and tell her how much you love her, it'll make you look creepy and desperate.

We're all trained to tell PNM's all about what a wonderful sisterhood we have and all the facts, etc, but I was most impressed with a sorority during recruitment when they answered whatever questions I had concisely and we spent the whole party talking about something completely random. I remember talking about shoes with one active during a recruitment party and that was the day I decided I absolutely loved them!!

It's normal to feel like you have to "sell, sell, sell" when you are the underdog, but if you over-sell yourself girls will actually become less interested in you than they may have started out (if that makes sense).

Originally Posted by 33girl

excellent point.

One of the groups I rushed I really liked...but they were SO "gung ho" they scared me. Nonstop talk about GHI activities, living in the GHI suite, GHI mixers, GHI's motto....it was a relief to go to ASA the next day and converse with normal girls who just happened to be in a sorority and who had lives outside of it, too. I was right about GHI, because one of my dormmates pledged them and they gave her crap about getting an apartment with someone from another sorority and not staying at the mixers long enough.

Honestly, the thing most pnms want is to make a connection, not hear a laundry list of your accomplishments or philanthropy events.

I think it applies even when you aren't the underdog. The less you have to consciously sell your group because instead you make people feel comfortable and at home and feel a connection to you as people the better.

At some point, usually prefs, there has to be something completely specific and wonderful about your GLO, but even then should be the authentic sisterhood which shows rather than a narrative you tell.

ETA: Carnation, what did you tell her? What did your group do for your VIPs?

[carnation]

It would be hard for me to give her advice because I haven't been in her shoes. As a Greek advisor, I've seen the pain of PNMs who had to go to parties where they didn't want to be while their friends had full schedules. I've watched the "less desirable" groups gamely try to carry on their parties with sparsely filled rooms. I've seen the hurt of those groups when they got their very short new member lists and again when half of those girls didn't bother to show up.

I really feel like the best advice will come from people who have personally and successfully dealt with this.

[UGAalum94]

I was afraid that was too narrow and perhaps self-conscious a group to expect hear much from, but I'm certainly interested to hear what the chapters formerly so struggling the PNMs cried but who have turned it all around have to say.