0:01

Welcome back to the show

0:04

. I'm so honored you've decided to spend

0:06

a few minutes with us

0:08

here today , and this is going to be

0:10

a little different than what you

0:12

have become accustomed to . We

0:15

don't have a guest today . I don't want that

0:17

to scare you off . We've got some pretty

0:19

good traction on these podcasts . I've heard

0:21

from a lot of you that you enjoy it . But

0:24

I've got some things I need to say , and

0:26

to me . I need to do it here , because if I

0:28

did it on video , I am so

0:30

irritated . Who knows what that's going to look

0:32

like . So stay with

0:34

me . I think this is still very important

0:37

for you , and it's on the issue of

0:39

police recruiting . Why should

0:41

we all care about recruiting , recruiting ? Why should we all

0:43

care about recruiting ? Why

0:45

is that a leadership issue ? Well

0:47

, folks , if we do not staff our agencies

0:49

up , which is

0:52

a leadership issue

0:54

we

1:00

got issues , we got problems and we may not come back from that . There are agencies

1:02

right now that will not come back . They're down , so much . But I

1:05

tell you what what I'm seeing on

1:07

almost a daily basis from some

1:09

of these leaders and some of these agencies is

1:11

insanity , and

1:13

my fear is is that we

1:15

all look at that and think that is what , that's

1:18

what we want to do . A lot of

1:20

leadership folks is lazy , meaning

1:22

they would just look around the corner and they do what the other

1:24

person does . I've seen this time and time

1:26

again in various areas of this profession , whether

1:28

it's technology or training

1:31

. Now recruiting , but

1:33

man , we are being scammed . I've

1:35

been shouting from the rooftops , I've

1:37

written the articles , I've filmed videos , I've done

1:39

webinars . I'm trying to explain

1:41

this and you're going to ask yourself , like

1:43

I often ask myself well , what's Travis's

1:46

angle ? What's he trying to gain from

1:48

this ? What I'm trying to gain is I don't want

1:50

to lose this profession , and if you

1:52

care about law enforcement , you care about leadership

1:55

. You should care about this . First

1:57

question I want to answer do we have

1:59

a recruiting crisis in this profession

2:02

? The answer is no , we have a

2:04

leadership crisis . I keep saying

2:06

that there are plenty of agencies

2:08

that are fully staffed because

2:10

either A , they're being led well and people

2:12

want to work for leaders , or , b , they understand

2:15

what recruiting is and they're doing

2:17

that . It's

2:20

a total excuse for

2:22

these agencies to throw their hands up in the air , these

2:24

leaders , to say , oh , it's just the way it is

2:26

and there's a big recruiting crisis because

2:29

of the media or the activists

2:31

or politics . No , it's because of you . It's

2:34

because of you . I just came from Sheriff Mark

2:37

Lamb's agency . He has no recruiting

2:39

issues in patrol . He's got a few hoes

2:41

and corrections that they're working on . They're

2:43

doing a great job on that , but they are fully staffed in patrol

2:45

in their operations and

2:48

it's because they want to work for leaders , and I've

2:50

explained this time and time again . But

2:53

the bigger problem is when

2:56

agencies need to recruit what

2:58

they are doing , and I just want to cut right to the chase

3:00

here . I have to be a little bit vague

3:03

because I'm so upset . Right

3:05

to the chase . Here I have to be a little bit vague because I'm so upset I'm not

3:07

. I can't call out specific companies or specific agencies because I don't want

3:10

that to get in the way of the message . So I've got to be a little

3:12

bit generic here . But I saw a contract

3:14

today that an agency signed

3:17

that paid

3:19

a so-called recruiting

3:21

company . By the way , it's not a recruiting company

3:23

. As I've already explained , some

3:26

of the big players in this space are

3:28

nothing more than traditional marketing

3:30

companies that have come over here to

3:32

our profession and scammed

3:34

us . By the way they listen to this

3:36

and they say you should know

3:38

this . So I would imagine they do . I see

3:41

you trolling my profiles . I

3:43

see you trolling me on social media . I

3:45

see that you're seeing what I'm saying . By

3:47

the way , you're a marketer . You should know that

3:49

there's ways I can tell that . So

3:52

I don't care if you're listening to it , you're

3:54

not debating me for sure . Before

3:56

I get started , let me just say this If

3:59

anybody listens to this from a company

4:01

standpoint , they think , oh well , they're talking about us

4:03

Open invitation

4:06

, come on this podcast and we

4:08

will discuss it . But you won't

4:10

, because you know you're scamming police

4:12

departments . And let me tell you it's right

4:15

in the words of this contract I read

4:17

today . Let me give you the background . This

4:19

is a department I got to be a little

4:21

bit vague here . This is a department that's

4:24

down less than 12 people

4:26

. By the way , that's the majority of law enforcement

4:29

in this country . Most law enforcement are smaller

4:31

agencies and 12 people to

4:33

some agencies . This is a significant reduction

4:35

and they need to fix that . I applaud

4:37

these agencies that are trying to fix it , but

4:39

you're being scammed . You're either A you're stupid

4:42

or B you don't understand

4:44

recruiting and I think it's probably that

4:46

most of the time , you don't understand what recruiting

4:48

is and these flashy marketing

4:51

companies are coming in convincing

4:53

you what it takes

4:55

to correct it and you're being lied

4:57

to . And here's the problem . They're

4:59

spending crazy money for

5:02

not recruiting . The money's

5:05

going to marketing only . I'm going to explain

5:07

in the specifics of this bid right

5:09

now . Here it is . Are you ready ? This department

5:12

gave this company $200,000

5:17

for a website

5:19

and a recruiting

5:21

video . You heard

5:23

that right ? This is not 1998 . They

5:26

just paid two hundred

5:28

thousand dollars for

5:30

a website and a recruiting

5:32

video . Now you're going to say to yourself , if you've been listening

5:35

to me , obviously that's not recruiting

5:37

, that's called marketing , and you're

5:39

right . But the

5:41

they also paid this company

5:44

over eighty

5:46

thousand dollars for what the

5:48

company claims will be online

5:51

recruiting . Close to

5:53

three hundred thousand

5:55

dollars for less

5:58

than 12 positions . Now

6:00

they're going to get a great website because , by the way , there's

6:03

no marketing company out there that can't do that

6:05

. Okay , there just isn't . A

6:07

12 year old with a little bit of skill can get

6:10

really close to what you're going to get . Even though we get

6:12

enamored by these looks of these websites , you should

6:14

have seen the bid on this . This was nothing

6:16

but a bunch of fancy pictures , right

6:19

? It told them nothing about how they were going to fix

6:21

the recruiting . It was fancy pictures

6:23

of videos and websites and they just wrote

6:25

them a check for just shy of $300,000

6:28

. Now why am I upset ? Well

6:30

, because it's ridiculous . You

6:33

know what that money could go in

6:36

most agencies in this country ? What that money could

6:38

go for A lot of things , a

6:40

lot of things . It doesn't take $300

6:43

thousand dollars to fix

6:46

12 positions . It just that's

6:48

just crazy . Now

6:50

, so what ? So that's

6:52

the details of it . By the way , it

6:54

won't be fixed , and there's a couple reasons why it won't

6:56

be fixed . Because what is ? What does the recruiting campaign

6:59

do ? It sends people back

7:01

to the website , because it's a

7:03

fancy website . That's

7:05

marketing . Let me tell you what the marketing

7:07

philosophy is , and this is

7:09

all the data and research is out there . It takes 7

7:12

to 21 touch points , which is

7:14

views , for someone to

7:16

make a decision to buy a product

7:19

. That's what it takes . That's why you're getting multiple

7:21

emails from the same company . It's why you go to the

7:23

mall and you see Bed Bath Beyond and

7:25

you think to yourself how are they in business ? It's all

7:28

about marketing touch points . Ok

7:30

, because they know it's in your mind , you're

7:32

seeing it . You may make a decision , probably

7:34

online , to buy that particular product . We

7:36

aren't talking about products , folks , we're talking

7:39

about people . So this does

7:41

not apply to people . Plus

7:43

, the money it takes to

7:45

put seven to 21 touch points

7:48

in front of people is astronomical

7:51

Astronomical . Now

7:53

will they show the department ? Look

7:55

at all these web hits . We got off this

7:57

$300,000 campaign

8:00

, sure , but who's going

8:02

to your website ? And then , more importantly , when

8:04

people apply , how do you even

8:06

know that it came from that campaign

8:09

? You don't , unless you're

8:11

dealing with recruiting companies

8:14

that find the applicants for

8:16

you . It's a huge difference and

8:18

the reason I'm upset by it is because I think

8:20

A probably only one

8:23

or two percent of law enforcement agencies in this

8:25

country , which would be roughly 150

8:27

to 300 agencies , could even afford something

8:29

like this right . So that leaves

8:31

the mass other agencies out

8:34

. And if the other agencies think this is how it's done and

8:36

they don't have that kind of money , they may not

8:38

even make a decision . And

8:40

B it just sort of furthers

8:42

that this is the

8:44

way we think it has to be done . And , folks , when I

8:46

talk about companies , these companies

8:48

are , you name the police organization

8:50

, they're the sponsors , they're in front of our

8:52

profession . They're saying all these things

8:54

and they know they're a

8:56

marketing company . They know

8:58

they can't help with recruiting . Now do

9:01

they have some success stories

9:03

? Yeah , every marketing company and

9:05

any product will have success stories

9:07

. By the way , if you spend $300,000

9:10

on a campaign , you

9:13

may fill five or six or seven

9:15

spots . I mean that's crazy . Even if you fill

9:17

all 12 spots and say , look at the success

9:19

we've had , look

9:22

at the money it is costing

9:24

, I thought this would

9:26

go away . I thought we would just sort of

9:28

understand this doesn't work

9:30

. I've also seen

9:33

contracts from agencies

9:35

that have done this spent

9:38

a lot of money . It didn't fix anything

9:40

. Now they're actually asking for

9:42

actual recruiting . I've

9:44

talked about this one particular client before

9:46

. They spent $3 million

9:48

on a marketing campaign . Their recruiting got

9:50

worse because they did the same

9:53

thing this agency is about to do with their

9:55

$300,000 . Fancy website

9:57

, fancy videos , and they send everybody

9:59

the website on the online recruiting campaign . It

10:01

doesn't work . It doesn't

10:03

work Because , first off , how do you even know when people

10:05

go to your website they're even eligible , right

10:08

? Then you expect them to actually find the application

10:10

on there . It's just so

10:12

backwards , and

10:15

I understand why many in our

10:17

profession doesn't know this . We

10:19

haven't had to know this . We

10:21

haven't had to know it until recently , but

10:24

we better figure this out . So

10:26

is there a solution ? What's the solution

10:28

? Well , if you need recruiting by the

10:30

way , I'm not going to be shy about it , I gain

10:33

nothing from this it just happens to be the only

10:35

company I know of is actually doing

10:37

this right , and it's Safeguard

10:39

Recruiting . I've written articles about them . I filmed

10:42

videos for them . I'm helping them because they

10:44

are the ones not scamming us right

10:46

Now . What

10:48

do they do if it's different ? Well , they don't use websites

10:51

and videos to get applicants . They get

10:53

the applicants first , then

10:55

they use the marketing material to retain

10:58

the applicants through the process . It's completely

11:00

backwards to what a marketing company does . So

11:03

why would a marketing company not do that

11:05

? Here's why they don't

11:07

care about recruiting . They care about

11:09

money . They care about money

11:11

. And , by the way , here's another little tidbit

11:13

that $80,000 , $90,000 that

11:15

that department's going to give them to do online

11:17

recruiting . They're going to put a significant

11:19

portion of that in their hip pocket and

11:22

they're just going to send you enough web hits to make

11:24

you happy . That's how the game

11:26

is played and so it's all

11:29

marketing poise and we're

11:31

being fooled by the best in the business

11:33

marketing companies . Oh

11:36

, but Travis , they're called such and such recruiting company for law enforcement

11:38

. Yeah , yeah , it's a . But look at their , it's a dba

11:41

. Their , their traditional

11:43

marketing company's been around for 20 , 30 years

11:45

and they do a dba . They call

11:47

it police recruiting and they fool you

11:49

and we're being fooled every single

11:52

day . So what should it cost

11:54

to fill , let's

11:57

say , 20 people , if you just have

11:59

done everything you can do and you're

12:01

20 people short and I'll just say 20

12:03

. Well , I can

12:05

tell you , safeguard's got the numbers . The

12:07

marketing companies won't show you the numbers . Their last

12:09

campaign it cost $27

12:11

per application , qualified

12:14

application , 27 bucks . Right

12:17

now . You don't typically hire everybody that

12:19

applies , so you got to kind of figure out what

12:21

percentage applies . You know

12:23

, do we actually hire ? You ? Then just do

12:25

the math and here's a quick tip

12:27

it's nowhere near six

12:30

figures , nowhere near six

12:32

figures , which is a hundred,000 . I'm

12:35

just beside myself and I know that's coming

12:37

across here . I don't mean to irritate

12:39

you , but I'm asking you

12:42

to inform others . Like

12:44

, maybe you're aware of an agency struggling

12:46

and these marketing companies are slick

12:48

man , they're slick . That's their marketing

12:51

companies , that's the business they're in , so they

12:53

will convince you to buy just about

12:55

anything that you don't need , and they are certainly

12:57

convincing us that

12:59

they can actually fix our recruiting

13:01

problem . And I'll give the challenge

13:03

again . If you disagree with me

13:05

, marketing company XYZ , come

13:08

on here and let's talk about it , because

13:10

I've got the data , I've got

13:12

the resources to support what I'm saying . I

13:14

love to see what you have right , and

13:17

so this isn't really a fight

13:19

. I even want to be in to be honest with you . I don't even

13:21

call it a fight , but something

13:24

has to be said . Somebody

13:26

has to stand up and talk about this , because

13:28

what's going to happen is we're going

13:30

to spend millions and millions of dollars and it's

13:32

not going to work , and

13:39

then a lot of these agencies are going to say , well , there's just

13:41

nothing , we can do about it . This is just the new normal , we just have to

13:43

work with less . And that is not true . It's

13:45

just simply not true . And so , like I said , this is not some sales

13:47

pitch . I'm not trying to gain something here

13:50

. I'm trying to inform law

13:52

enforcement , specifically leaders making

13:54

these decisions . Get off your high

13:56

horse looking around what everybody else is doing . If

13:59

you want a fancy website , you want a fancy

14:01

video , fine , put out a bid for that

14:03

, but that's not recruiting , and then put

14:05

a separate bid out for recruiting

14:07

. It's two separate things

14:09

. A marketing company is never going to

14:11

fulfill your recruiting needs , and

14:14

so we . Obviously

14:16

there's a place for marketing and branding

14:19

in our profession , but you have

14:21

to understand it's separate than recruiting

14:23

. In fact , you can recruit

14:26

without branding , without

14:28

websites , without videos . You can still

14:30

recruit Without that , but

14:32

you will never recruit with just the

14:35

branding , websites and videos . So

14:37

we have it backwards , we're

14:39

falling into this trap and

14:42

it's like I said . I thought it would stop

14:44

, but it is . It is picking up steam

14:46

and , by the way , the other byproduct

14:48

of it not working is is these marketing companies

14:50

then convince the agencies ? Will you have

14:52

to hire us back again ? I saw a contract

14:55

where it was two $300,000

14:58

, just like this one was , and then the next

15:00

year they hired him for 400,000

15:02

, which I'm like what in

15:04

the world are we doing ? This

15:07

is not like buying a technology

15:09

product , where you know for a fact that

15:12

you're going to get what you get right . If you buy

15:14

a computer , you know what the computer is going to

15:16

do . If you buy a car , you know what it's going to do . This

15:18

is a philosophy you're purchasing and

15:21

if it's a marketing philosophy , it

15:24

will not work for recruiting . It

15:26

will work for marketing , but it will not work

15:28

for recruiting . So please

15:30

understand this . If you have any

15:33

questions , you want to read

15:35

anything I've written on this or seen any

15:37

of my training stuff , reach out

15:39

to me at travisyatesorg

15:42

Heck . My phone number is on there . You can

15:44

give me a call and talk to me about it . You

15:46

can email me . My videos

15:48

are at safeguardrecruitingcom . They're

15:50

totally free . I filmed a series of these

15:52

training videos to help out agencies and I

15:54

thought that maybe that would help and I'm sure

15:56

it's helped some people . But

15:58

it just blows my mind folks . I've actually

16:01

had some conversations with chiefs and

16:03

I'll basically explain this process to them , because

16:05

I'm not talking just making this up , like there's

16:08

data behind this , like what works and

16:10

what doesn't work . Because one thing about doing

16:12

an actual recruiting campaign you

16:15

see the metrics , you see the data , you follow

16:17

the leads into the application , into hiring

16:19

, so you know exactly how

16:21

many you're getting . That's why I can say that their last campaign

16:24

at safecar was 27 an applicant . You can

16:26

actually follow the money and see

16:28

what it's costing , and

16:30

I would explain this to this chief . I get all the way to

16:32

the end of the conversation and this guy guy goes

16:34

yeah , I get all that , but what about

16:37

a video ? What about a video

16:39

? What about a video ? We're

16:41

on this video tangent . It's totally

16:43

insane . Washington DC Metro was

16:46

just named by police one the recruiting

16:48

video of the year . There's our major media

16:50

companies just playing into this nonsense . Right

16:52

, recruiting meet video

16:55

of the year . Well , guess what ? Washington DC

16:57

Metro is at the lowest staffing in history , but

16:59

no one's putting two and two together here

17:02

. So I don't care , you can do videos

17:04

, you can do websites . I love that stuff , like everybody else

17:06

does , but understand that

17:08

is not recruiting . And just

17:11

reach out to me if you got any questions . I'm not going to ask

17:13

for any money . I'm not going to send you anywhere

17:15

to get money . I'll just answer your questions

17:18

because we should all be

17:20

caring about this issue at a high level

17:22

if we truly care about leadership and

17:24

we truly care about law

17:27

enforcement . Thank you for listening and

17:29

just remember lead on and stay courageous

17:31

.