For leaders looking to build a team with at least 20 MDRT members, Thomas Lee of Singapore has some good examples of what not to do. 

Mistake one: Onboard everybody. When Lee was a junior field leader in 1999, that was his strategy. He knew the only way to grow and sustain an agency was to recruit, so he decided to bring on as many people as possible.  

“I only had one recruitment tool, which I called the “mirror test,’” he said. “I put a mirror beneath their nose and if they are breathing, they are a good candidate.” 

A year later, the results of this strategy netted Lee 10 new advisors — along with a demotion after all of those recruits left the profession.  

“I remember the chief agency officer gave me a call and said, ‘Thomas, you'll be demoted on the 1st of January,’” Lee said. “It was one of the most demoralizing times of my career.” 

Mistake two: Stop recruiting completely. Lee bounced back from the demotion in part because he was an MDRT member. He knew success was possible, and decided to regroup and try again. When a second chance at leadership finally came, he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes. He enrolled in company courses on selection, and administered all the available tests to candidates he interviewed. He added only people he had a great deal of confidence in.

For a while, it worked. Lee built a team of 30 competent advisors. With their assistance, his unit achieved some of the highest production numbers at the company. It seemed he had completely turned things around. But then, rather than adding on to the solid core he had constructed, Lee doubled down on training and stopped recruiting entirely. 

“I got complacent,” he said. “I told myself that I'm going to take a break from recruitment. I'm going to make sure that all my advisors are doing well. I’m going to do proper training, and things like that.” 

This strategy also backfired. Lee’s team members joined his sense of complacency. There was no new energy from recruits hustling to establish a foothold in the profession, or to rack up eye-popping production numbers. Lee noticed something was wrong when his team missed out on the company awards they had previously won. By then, it was too late for an easy fix. He wouldn’t win another award for eight more years. 

“It was a terrible time again,” he said. 

Once again, Lee set out to reinvent himself, joining forces with another financial services leader who would eventually become his wife. Together, they rebuilt a core team of advisors. Unlike last time, however, Lee kept hunting for quality recruits to add. By the end of 2022, he could boast 20 MDRT members among his ranks. By the end of 2023, his team consisted of 75 advisors, 20 of whom had been recruited in the last 12 months. 

So, what strategies actually work when it comes to recruiting? Lee points to these four:  

1. Keep the team young 

The average age of advisors on Lee’s team is around 30. (He likes to joke that he brings that average higher.) He’s found that young advisors tend to push harder, and remembering how complacency cost him years ago, he’s learned to value newcomers with something to prove. Focusing more on younger recruits builds a culture that attracts still more young recruits.

2. Screen for certain backgrounds 

Like many leaders, Lee has formed hiring preferences based on past performance of advisors from certain backgrounds. He’s especially partial to onboarding military veterans after they complete their required service in Singapore. From what he’s seen, their backgrounds have instilled in them the discipline necessary to be successful. 

3. Use support staff  

Lee’s recruitment efforts are bolstered by the addition of three full-time recruitment specialists at his agency. They are tasked with ensuring the pipeline always is running, completing the necessary application paperwork and performing the initial interview. Lee also likes that they operate in spaces where he’s less comfortable prospecting, such as social media. He has grown especially fond of LinkedIn, since it’s easy to find profiles for graduating university students looking for job opportunities. 

4. Make recruitment everyone’s job 

While the three recruitment specialists are the frontline of recruiting at Lee’s agency, everyone has a role to play. He has asked each of his eight junior leaders to recruit at least five new team members a year.  

These four strategies ensure Lee won’t have a problem finding prospective advisors, but how does he guard against the other extreme of adding bad advisors? His robust recruiting efforts are matched by a stringent selection process that ultimately turns away many job seekers.  

Self-assessments are given to all potential advisors. The results are analyzed by Lee’s wife, who is now the agency co-owner. He mandates three rounds of interviews for every candidate. The initial interview is handled by the team recruitment specialists. Lee handles the final two rounds. He likes to ask candidates about their career goals, what they see as their professional strengths and their home life. He also asks if they have leadership ambitions. 

This system is a reversal of how Lee operated during his first leadership stint. Back then, it was almost as if the candidates were interviewing him, and he was the one who had to convince someone to take a chance. 

“When I started off, I was just basically selling the profession to people that I met,” he said. “I’d tell them about the fancy trips to MDRT events and the amount of money they can earn. I was just selling and selling and selling. I could sell the career to a lot of people, but they weren’t the right people to come in.” Now, the recruits are the ones who must sell themselves to Lee. 

Contact: Thomas Lee, thomasleecc@pruadviser.com.sg