By: Expansion Coordinator Alex Koehler, Mount Union ’07
Air. Filled. Chocolate.
Nothing new. In fact, Nestle began distributing the Aero bar in the UK by the mid-1930s. But were any of you flabbergasted by Hershey’s release of the “Air Delight” bar a few years ago? I was. I vowed to never buy one…
..but now it is the only thing I want, and I never broke my vow. I still haven’t tried it.
Let’s look at it critically. By putting air in the bar, there is less chocolate. We are paying the same amount of money as a regular Hershey bar for less chocolate. Prices of cocoa and sugar are high, and by packaging and selling less chocolate, you are helping the company. By default you are paying for air. Right?
Probably.
Great marketing can make even the most brilliant of minds think about things differently (so obviously it could change my simple mind). With some clever wordsmithing and framing things in a different manner, you create demand.
You aren’t paying for air. You’re paying for an experience.
If I remember correctly, I saw a Hershey Air Delights advertisement during a Super Bowl in the past few years. It was your typical commercial structure: “Watch as something conceptual happens. Here is what it is. Are you interested?”
Most people saw it, and probably didn’t give it much thought. Clearly, I did – enough to make a statement that I would never buy it.
Then I read this article from Inc. Read the different “pitches” and tell me you don’t want to try aerated chocolate. They are suggesting that time and money is best spent framing their product as an entirely new and different experience. They suggest framing it as something elegant, exclusive. They suggest framing regular chocolate as “ordinary”. Now I want it.
I can’t tell you if aerated chocolate has been a market success or not, but that isn’t the point. The point is that you can make someone who once vowed to not buy something have an intense desire to try it.
Similarly, Phi Kappa Tau’s “product” is experience and people. As a leader, how are you incorporating this in your marketing strategies?
The commercial was passive; “Here is what we are doing. Are you interested?”
The pitches were all aggressive; they involved taking the product to the potential customer and helping them understand it’s value.
In other words:
Are you spending time and money on recruitment t-shirts, flyers and passive events? Or are you taking Phi Tau to potential members, building relationships and helping them understand fraternity? Just take them to lunch. Show them around town. Be the freakin’ man.
Try the latter approach. You will make some believers out of people who once swore they wouldn’t try it.
Tweetable Moment:
Great marketing is aggressive: building relationships, messaging our value, inviting them to try it. #ConnectEngageLead
By: Expansion Coordinator Alex Koehler, Mount Union ’07
What do you do when you are faced with conflict in a relationship? Inevitablly, throughout your life you will be faced with moments of disagreement, discontent or worse. Your relationship might be tested to it’s core.
It happens for a variety of reasons. Often because you both care so much about the same thing, but you approach it from different angles. More often, it is because you let your frustration determine your actions. People don’t address the conflict. They let it simmer. They talk to everyone BUT the person who they have the issue with.
Either way, how do you handle it?
It seems that today we are incredibly hesitant to speak our minds and reach a mutual conclusion through compromise, communication and adherence to our values. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is willing to speak their mind – just watch CNN for an hour. It is our willingness to do the other three things that I question.
Times change. People change. Priorities change. Our values change. Disagreements happen. Conflict happens. The clock of life continues to tick.
This is not only acceptable, it is human nature. When it happens in our lives, and starts to create a rift between a relationship, you have the power and the opportunity to respect the relationship. All to often we hear about people disrespecting it…
Disrespect – Conflict occurs. We respond with emotion rather than logic. We make it personal. The relationship is hurt. We talk behind other’s backs about our anger. All members of the relationship are impacted. The next step is critical: you apologize and start respecting the relationship, or you don’t.
Disrespect is the initial catalyst to a series of events that can lead to ruin. The complete loss of a friendship. Adultery. Divorce.
Respect – Conflict occurs. You respond with logic rather than emotion. The relationship is impacted, but not yet hurt. It is not personal. Each party involved has the desire to overcome the obstacle and grow. It might not always be comfortable, or for that matter easy, but address the issue. Communicate, compromise and adhere to your values.
If time has run it’s course and it is time for the relationship to enter a different phase of life, respect it and be open about each person’s wants and needs. It is the nature of our world to go from seeing people every day to a couple times a year, every other year at Homecoming and so on.
Tweetable moment: Challenges are our direct route to personal growth. Like starting an exercise program or completing a challenging class – you are always better after the struggle.
By: Communication Coordinator Cole Yearwood, Oklahoma State ’09.
There is a lot to like about Kevin Durant.
A desire to do whatever it takes to make his team better. His countless SportsCenter Top 10 plays. The ice in his veins with the game on the line.
Watching Kevin Durant play the game of basketball is beautiful.
And I do like him for all the above-mentioned reasons, but I love Kevin Durant for his heart.
On May 19 and 20, Oklahomans watched as tornadoes ripped through their state. In Oklahoma, tornadoes are a reality we live with, but the one that touched down just outside of Oklahoma City in Moore, Okla., was nothing short of a nightmare.
As people emerged from the rubble and destruction the mile-wide tornado had left in its path, it was clear the community now had a huge hole to fill. Immediately, Durant started to fill it.
First, he donated $1 million to the United States Red Cross, which created a domino effect of donations from the Thunder, NBA, and other teams and players. One of the most remarkable/Durantesque things about the donation wasn’t the amount, but that he didn’t tell anyone he made it; the Red Cross broke the news via Twitter.
Once Durant returned to Oklahoma a couple days later, he toured the damage and visited families dealing with it. In the last two weeks, almost every Thunder player has helped by collecting donations, visiting survivors in the hospital, handing out gift cards to those in need and serving food to volunteers.
The Thunder organization has not been alone. In the wake of this tragedy, there has been an amazing outpouring of support from other Oklahomans, a wide-array of celebrities and people across the country.
Kevin Durant wasn’t born in Oklahoma. He spent a majority of his life in the Washington, D.C. area and his lone collegiate year at a university most everyone in the Sooner State isn’t particularly fond of (sorry, Beta Alpha). Birthplace and alma mater aside, we like to claim him as one of us.
“As the day went on and I saw the footage and the casualties and the houses being blown away, it was tough to see,” Durant told the Associated Press. “I call Oklahoma City my home. I go through Moore all the time. It’s unfortunate. We’re going to come together as a city like we always do and we’re going to bounce back.”
There is a chance Durant won’t live in OKC forever or even retire wearing a Thunder jersey (a terrible, terrible thought). Regardless, he continues to give back and has already made a genuine impact.
Whether we grew up down the street or 2,000 miles away from our college campuses, we all have an obligation as Fraternity men to invest in the communities we spend our college years in.
All too often, athletes set an example we shouldn’t follow. That isn’t the case with Kevin Durant
By: Communication Coordinator Cole Yearwood, Oklahoma State ’09.
It’s easy to hold up a trophy following a win. What’s hard is to hold up your head after a loss.
The reality of life is not everything you do will end in success. It is a reality that the many Oklahoma City Thunder fans didn’t think we would have to face last NBA season.
But following the NBA Finals Game 5 blowout, no matter how many receding hairline jokes, dinosaur memes and referee excuses we could have armed ourselves with, the Miami Heat had one thing we didn’t: a championship.
Last season was a dream. A dream you never want to wake up from.
With his last timeout of the game and the season, Head Coach Scott Brooks called his team to the bench. By the this point LeBron James had clearly proven he was a king, not a prince, and Mike Miller had made it rain threes in a fashion no ESPN analyst nor Weather Channel expert could have predicted.
What was most impressive about this season wasn’t Kevin Durant’s third consecutive scoring title, James Harden’s facial hair, Serge Ibaka’s ridiculous block total or even Russell Westbrook’s unique, postgame shirt selection. What I will remember is watching what is all-too-often regarded as a group of boys, walk through a shower of the opposing team’s celebration confetti as a team of men.
Miami had won. Oklahoma City hadn’t failed.
There were no early court-side exits. No fire extinguishers harmed. No premature jersey removals before the locker room.
We all dream of what it’s like to hoist the trophy high as confetti pours above, but no one thinks of how they will keep their head up as they make their way from that same falling paper.
It’s inevitable that you won’t always be able to lift a trophy. When that unfortunate time comes, you can either fall back on a number of go-to clichés or just take Scott Brooks’ advice.
Nearly a year later, Oklahoma City is back in the playoffs, albeit Westbrook is on crutches and the beard was shaved before the season. What’s important is the team has set itself up with another opportunity.
No matter what you do this summer, you can’t guarantee your chapter will finish first in recruitment on campus or win the Maxwell. But you can take the necessary steps to make those goals realistic.
Regardless of how the semester ended for the chapter, use this summer to improve. Whether it is scheduling a Good to Great Retreat for the start of the semester or sending more than two brothers to Leadership Academy, do something that builds your chapter up.
By: Director of Development Tyler Wash, Georgetown ’06.
In a San Francisco hotel at 7:35 p.m. on August 2, 1923, President Warren Harding dies suddenly. This death causes a whirlwind of activity from coast to coast. San Franciscans hear the news of the President’s death and begin rioting in the streets, but the main priority was to locate Vice President Calvin Coolidge who was on the other side of the country vacationing in Vermont.
Four hours later in Vermont, Coolidge was awoken with the news of Harding’s death. In a hurry, Coolidge recruits his father (who was a notary public) to administer the oath of office in the family’s vacation home. In a rush of activity, which no one ever expected, the man who many called “Silent Cal” had just become the 30th President of the United States and arguably the most powerful man in the world.
This is an interesting start to a story. It is hard to put ourselves in his shoes and know what he was thinking and feeling in the middle of that night. I dare to bet that you have never been woken up to someone telling you, “You are now the leader of the free world.”
It is hard for us to relate to these larger than life figures that rise to the occasion on a monumental level. President Coolidge has some wonderful lessons to teach us as Fraternity men, but before we can listen to his words, we must relate to him. With all due respect to our 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, let’s simply refer to him as our friend and mentor, Cal.
Cal was a fraternity man. In fact, his wife, Grace, was a sorority woman. In 1895, Cal initiated in to the Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) chapter at Amherst College. Grace was a charter member of the Vermont Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi at the University of Vermont. They were the first greek couple to reside in the White House. (Interesting fact: The only full size portrait of Calvin Coolidge painted during his presidency is hanging at the Phi Gamma Delta Headquarters and the Fraternity donated the copy to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.)
See, I told you he was relatable.
Cal was a hard worker. He was the son of a storekeeper and worked his way up the political ladder. He started as a councilman from Northampton to Governors of Massachusetts. In 1921, he then was chosen to be the vice presidential candidate.
Not a bad career path for a self-made man.
Cal was a quiet man. My favorite story about Cal is that one night at the dinner table a young woman sitting next to him leaned over and said, “Mr. President, I have a bet that I could make you say at least three words.” Without looking at her he quietly responded, “You lose.”
A man of few words, but his whit was sharp.
Cal had an interesting and productive time as the nation’s chief executor. I will not go into his accomplishments or his short comings as President, but I do encourage you to read more on your own. I would recommend starting at the official White House website (
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/calvincoolidge ).
Email me if you want to chat more about Cal’s time in office.
Now that we feel comfortable with Cal and are able to relate to him a bit more, let’s looks at one of his more famous quotes.
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
He is likely talking about the economy and the growth of the nation. But let’s pretend for a moment that Cal is talking fraternity man to fraternity man … FIJI to Phi Kappa Tau. Growth is a necessity in a Fraternity and is an expectation in Phi Kappa Tau.
Growth as a chapter through recruitment.
Growth in community service hours.
Growth of yourself as a fraternity man.
All growth depends upon activity and to achieve activity each individual must put forth an effort and put in the work. In recruitment you cannot simply expect freshmen to come running into the door, you must put forth an effort to identify, introduce, engage, invite and affiliate with these potential members. (Phi Kappa Tau’s 5-Step Recruitment Process) That’s hard work, but without it you will not grow your membership numbers.
In community service you must continue to grow and give more back to the community. It will not only make your community a better place for all who live there, but it will also enrich the experience of the members. Now community service is sometime hard work, but a chapter must put forth the effort to find engaging (and yes, entertaining) community service activities which make the members want to come out and help.
Finally, personal growth must never cease. Today, you should be a better man than you were yesterday and tomorrow you should strive to be even better. Read the Creed, Mission and Ritual of Phi Kappa Tau and put in the effort to embody these ideals and values. “…try always to discharge the obligation to others which arises from the fact that I am a Fraternity man.” Grow as a Fraternity man. Grow as a man.
That Phi Gamma Delta from Amherst knew a thing or two about today’s fraternity world. “Silent Cal” didn’t say a lot, but when he did his words had meaning. I bet you didn’t know President Calvin Coolidge could teach you about recruitment, community service and being a fraternity man.
Thanks, Cal!
As a political science major at Georgetown College, one of my favorite subjects was the American presidency. While I appreciated studying the political decisions of each of the men who have served as the nation’s chief executive, I mostly appreciated learning about their leadership styles and the way they inspired America and the American people to live up to the potential expressed in our founding documents. This series of blogs on the phitaublog has given me an opportunity to combine two of my greatest passions, the history of the American presidency and Phi Kappa Tau, my beloved Fraternity. These blogs are in no way intended to express a political view point and does not strive to make an assessment on how the legacy of an individual president should be viewed. This exercise is simply my attempt to draw inspiration from men who have led our nation with the hope to inspire the men who now lead this Fraternity.
In a dark room I saw most clearly
Blind eyes binded by a brilliant light
A realization ancient enough to originate adjacent to God’s young fingers
Molded by the Maker to construct more creators
Graceful tips that tenderly touched my heart
I saw the most clearly
“I am a Fraternity Man”
I still feel it now as I felt it then
A shiver down my spine so strong it brings me back to that dark room
A bellowing of Quasimodo perched in my head, tolling bells that tell
The rest of my being to prepare for something much more than me
A sound so rich it sings of a million violins bound with nickel-wound strings
Run across by a bow crafted by life and a rosin coated with love
Playing notes that tell a tale of experience
A life lived for the instances
The first kiss to the last dance
A first miss to our last chance
A flight meant for adventure where we left “average” on the wayside
With our sights always set on the line that lies
Between what society expects and what we strive for
And that line to us remains the horizon, so we fly towards it
Icarus to the Sun, not because we are afraid to die
But because we know our light is too bright for it
“I am a Fraternity Man”
I am one amongst one, and we are one against thousands
An originality abnormality that wouldn’t blink twice at the word “impossible”
A line of believers who refuse to believe in “good enough”
Visionaries who carry dictionaries stricken of the words
“Would, could, should not”
Fathers, sons, and brothers who cannot settle
For a white picket, middle class suburban nine to five
With a white wife, two and a half kids and a dog named Skip
We know success is a kin to effort
And are blessed with the talent to never say “never”
We are afraid when it counts and have the courage to say it
We welcome change because we are the ones who make it
We are risk-takers, the modern age Magellan’s
A figure skater on thin ice, or a voice for something that’s right
We throw ourselves at our marks, never afraid to fall short
Because to us failure is nowhere near as important as a “try”
We are thinkers, painters of real life dreams,
Orchestrators of excavations into the unknown
Climbers who dive into caverns cooled with that which we don’t know
To light up the world with the lantern of a man powered by the curiosity found behind a child’s eyes
We are leaders, components of God tasked with continuing a world created for us
Architects of cities, pavers of roads, authors of stories, makers of romance, and livers of life
For when we finally meet Him at the gates of Heaven
We can look back and smile
And share a toast to a life worth living
Holding cocktails made of one part ourselves and three parts our influence to those around us
“I am a Fraternity Man”
I want to light a fire that can light the world
I want the flames of this fire to reach out and light more fires
More fires that can light up the darkness, and in turn light the way for those around us
I want a world ablaze with passion
Consisting of torchbearers proud to be trailblazers for those travelers to-be
And proud to confront the great difficulty that accompanies great actions
I want warmth, the same warmth I feel from my brothers
A warmth that is not afraid to burn wild
For it is this energy of faith and devotion created by my brothers
That starts the sparks that light my life and in turn light my world
And because of this light I no longer see a dark room, but a forest
A forest not remembered for its many branches and leaves
But for its roots, those deep, powerful roots that grow and mesh together
To create a family
And these roots they are long and these trees they are strong
And naturally they support the notion that when I say the word “Brother”
I do not mean it lightly
In this dark room, I whisper lightly
“I am a Fraternity Man.”
By: Assistant Director of Fraternity/Sorority Affairs at the University of Kentucky Vinny Sandy, Ohio ’02.
I have a confession: I’m an NFL junkie. I grew up playing football and spent time coaching football. I’m also a Cleveland Browns fan (my wife might say I’m obsessed). When the team you love has been so poor during the last 12 years 16 years, there are few things to get excited about. NFL Draft Day is my one glimmer of hope.
Draft day is beautiful because it’s a day for new beginnings, new hope. The hope is that the team will bring someone in that will dramatically change our team forever—for the better, that is, my apologies Brady Quinn. I believe our fraternities can look at recruitment the same way.
There are so many similarities between the fraternity recruitment process and the NFL draft process. Let’s take a quick look:
College Football Season, College Game Tape = High School Activities, Scholarship, Resume
Senior Bowl, Post Season = College Orientation, University Admission Weekends
NFL Combine = Formal Recruitment Open Houses
Pro Days = Recruitment Dinners, Recruitment Events
NFL Draft = Bid Day
Based on my recruitment experience, most of our fraternities do draft (bid day) right after the combine. If you relate this to the NFL process, this wouldn’t make much sense because of workout wonders (JaMarcus Russell anyone?).
So, what are the ways that the most successful NFL franchises do scouting and recruiting?
I believe it’s a comprehensive approach that doesn’t put too much emphasis on one area (read: Stop relying on open houses). They utilize the combine as a tool to get to know someone better, but not rely solely upon. The NFL combine has been described as a “meat market,” and honestly, I see the same thing at our formal recruitments open houses. Are you assuming that all of the best “players” are even at the open houses?
I recommend using the combine to go back to look at someone’s “tape.” What activities was he involved with, what were his grades, who did he spend time with? By no means do I recommend doing an FBI-style background check, but is it unreasonable to ask for a character reference? This could help us paint a better picture of who we’re about to stake our chapters reputation on.
My next question is what advanced scouting are we doing? Do we have people working with high schools? Do we even have scouts? Do we have people designated to do more research on these potential new members? Do we have too many scouts, perhaps unqualified scouts?
Do your chapters even know what kind of a person they are looking for? I’m willing to bet the Ravens know what qualities they look for in a 3-4 outside linebacker.
The reason I make this analogy is that I hope we can learn from the NFL scouting process to help our chapters be successful. Every team will have busts and every team will have All-Pros. Our goal is to minimize the potential for mistakes and maximize the potential for All-Pros. I ask that you reevaluate your process. What do you need to change in your recruitment strategy to maximize your potential? What do you need to do differently to give yourself the highest possibility for success?
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About phitaublog
Herb Cohen once said “You and I don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” This blog is built to help us all see through the lens of Phi Kappa Tau. The front door of the Executive Offices, adorned with stained glass and the coat of arms, is emblematic of a gateway to knowledge. Where are your gateways? Everything that surrounds us has the ability to impact you, and to be impacted by you. The words upon this page look to inform, educate, supply, and at least offer insight. As a man of Phi Kappa Tau, it is important to view ourselves through a gamut of values and objectives, while being open to the underlying mission of our Fraternity – to champion a lifelong commitment to brotherhood, learning, ethical leadership and exemplary character. We are Phi Tau.
Air. Filled. Chocolate.
