The MDI Enrollment System 

Michael Fowlkes
MDI Scout

Background

Back in the day (1993 to 2006), ‘enrollment’ consisted of having open houses, and having men sign up for the Sterling Men’s Weekend. They would attend the Weekend, come back and do the point program, and then they were members of the Men’s Division.

And while we were prepping for open houses, we would do things like practice inviting men, or enrolling men, into what we were doing. It was a weekly discipline: at every team meeting we took 10-15 minutes to do that. Or we followed up on who we’d been talking to, and how those conversations were going, to get feedback.

I remember circling up in a team meeting in which we were each given 2 minutes to enroll the man next to us into the Weekend. We’d go around the circle doing that and would give each other feedback. There was one guy on our team, we’ll call him Chris, who was really bad at this. He sucked.  Chris was a car salesman for Volkswagen. In less than a year, Chris became the top Volkswagen salesman in San Diego!  The discipline of these practices led to massive success by helping him shift his context to one of caring for his customer. Finding what the customer wanted led to his success.

But at some point, these activities stopped, and we replaced them with Facebook and other things. And so that muscle, that ability, that skill, has atrophied. Now, it’s time to bring back what we call old-fashioned enrollment, which was a personal invitation to invite men to attend a life-changing weekend, and to join our life-changing organization. To no longer have MDI be a best-kept secret.

Context

We are returning to old-fashioned enrollment because, on a man’s journey to being a mature masculine leader, enrollment is an important part of what he does on a daily basis – whether he knows it or not. We are constantly enrolling people, inviting people to do something, all the time.

It is to our advantage to do this consciously, deliberately, confidently,  with great context and high intention. As we embark on this journey of bringing thousands of men to our organization, it behooves us to begin exercising this muscle and teaching all of our men to do it with creativity, enthusiasm, inspiration, and passion, while wielding a powerful context.

The System

The dictionary definition of enrollment is, “to insert, to register or enter into a list; the act of putting yourself or someone else into an official list of membership of a group.”

In MDI, however, enrollment has a different connotation: it is the opportunity to invite someone to a life-changing event and organization. It is the act of caring enough for another man to invite him to see value for himself; to put him on the path to mature masculinity so that his life,  and the lives of all those he touches, are changed for the better. 

So, the MDI system is fairly simple. We’re going back to inviting men to events, to our team meetings, to open houses, to Legacy Discovery (LD) and The Art of Masculinity (TAOM). As we do that on our teams, we’re going to track whom we’re talking to and where they are in the process. We will do that until they either say they’re not interested; or until they register for one of our weekend programs or become an MDI member. 

MDI’s enrollment system teaches the elements of how to invite, how to build rapport, how to identify value for that man (“what’s in it for me?”); and then to actually invite him and handle any objections. This skill is universal and can be used in any situation.

We will put in trained leadership to teach, to come up with exercises, to track how we’re doing. And we’ll make sure that every week, at our team meetings, we’re taking some time to practice and exercise that muscle. 

The MDI enrollment system includes having men’s teams and divisions master Meetup® to generate guests at team meetings, as well as how to care for these new men so they decide to become members.

We’ll also get back to ensuring we have events to invite men to: open houses, TAOM, LD, perhaps some fun events, division meetings, etc. And, we will constantly practice because, over time, that discipline will produce massive success.

This is not about the numbers: yet the numbers do tell a story about the lives that we are touching. They give us information about how we must organize and what resources we need. The numbers give us feedback on whether or not we’re doing well, whether we’re behind or ahead. It’s also about teaching men what the numbers mean, and what actions are needed based on what they’re telling us. That is an essential skill that all men need in order to function more successfully in the world.

After all, if we are indeed causing greatness, then these are the types of things that we need our mature, masculine leaders to be able to teach.

The system’s hierarchy is very basic: we’ll have an International Enrollment Manager, Regional Enrollment Managers, Division Enrollment Managers, and team enrollment reps.  They will work in conjunction with their Team Leaders, Division Coordinators, and Regional Coordinators to oversee, teach, implement, monitor, and nurture this process along.

It is our goal to invite a thousand guests to our team meetings and, in so doing, to grow the organization. And since MDI is a ‘relationship-based’ organization, it is important that we teach men the essentials of how to be in relationship, how to build rapport, get to know men they don’t know already. How to find out what men want, what the benefits are for a man. And to ask them to participate in what we’re doing, knowing – and having them believe – that this will change their lives.

And once these men are on a team, they attend the MTP program and maybe a point program as well. Then they engage in leadership training or our other trainings, perhaps get into leadership, and start to move up in their journey.

At a recent meeting of the MDI leadership in San Diego, we formulated the idea of Doug [see Meet Doug elsewhere in the issue – Ed]. Doug is someone you’ll be hearing a lot about: he’s a cardboard cutout, a stick figure, a stand-in for everyman, for all the men you and I know who deserve an MDI men’s team.

A Call to Action

And so I am challenging you to identify the Doug, or Dougs, in your life right now: the men who, if you could close your eyes and push a Magic Button, would magically be sitting next to you at your next team meeting. Then to contact Doug and invite him to a team meeting, or enroll him in an upcoming The Art of Masculinity weekend.

Of course there is no magic button. In fact, there’s no magic about it at all: it’s just a matter of enrollment. So contact the Doug(s) in your life right away and enroll them in what we do.

Incidentally, have accepted my own challenge: I took the plunge, invited my own Doug to a recent meeting, and now my Doug is a member of MDI.
I look forward to meeting your Doug(s) in the near future!