Posted - 2011.02.02 02:18:00 - [3]

 

Tip 2) Visit (and talk a lot) in recruitment channel.
Tip 3) Be an active CEO.
Tip 4) Don't make ethnic jokes.
Tip 5) Don't make promises you can't keep.
Tip 6) Let your members have input.
Tip 7) By following the above rules, I have been a total failure at running a corp but they seem like good ideas to me.

Posted - 2011.02.02 02:27:00 - [5]

 

Originally by: Stroke victim

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I have flown and excelled in all walks of EVE from 0.0 Fleet commander to Class 5-6 wormholes to high-sec wars and hold more than a 90% killboard efficiency. However there is one thing I have never done in my 6 years of playing, start a corporation from scratch.

I have held director positions before and my job demands that I have good leadership skills too, I also have the time to devote to the game to be an active CEO with drive, direction and a plan. So this is something I am really looking to try.

What general tips would you give to someone looking to start their own corporation? What are some common pitfalls? How would you go about attracting early members? Are there any tips you would give to up the quality of my recruits? When you are looking for a new corp how do you decide a good from a bad one? A 0% tax of course is a given.

Thanks.

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Most of the successful corps guilds ect i have been in had only two things in common
1. A solid but fair Leadership base
2. A good group of people to begin with

Posted - 2011.02.02 02:32:00 - [7]

 

Edited by: Breaker77 on 02/02/2011 02:33:04

Originally by: Stroke victim

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What about about approaches to recruitment? Does pasting your speel into the recruitment chat really get you many responses?

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[recruiting corp spammer] -- XYZ corp looking for PvPers. Access to 0.0 space. blah blah blah
[most people] right-click block

Don't spam local, it makes you look like you have no clue. If you can't recruit people, how can you manage them.

edit: The same goes for using containers to advertise.

Posted - 2011.02.02 02:35:00 - [9]

 

Originally by: Breaker77

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Edited by: Breaker77 on 02/02/2011 02:33:04

Originally by: Stroke victim

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What about about approaches to recruitment? Does pasting your speel into the recruitment chat really get you many responses?

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[recruiting corp spammer] -- XYZ corp looking for PvPers. Access to 0.0 space. blah blah blah
[most people] right-click block

Don't spam local, it makes you look like you have no clue. If you can't recruit people, how can you manage them.

edit: The same goes for using containers to advertise.

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I would suggest not spamming the recruitment channel with the same message over and over either. Instead, invest some real time trying to start conversations, find people in recruitment and request private conversations. Be a real person. Spamming makes you look lazy.

Posted - 2011.02.02 02:52:00 - [11]

 

Edited by: TimMc on 02/02/2011 03:03:34
Edited by: TimMc on 02/02/2011 02:56:45
Edited by: TimMc on 02/02/2011 02:53:51

Originally by: Stroke victim

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As I thought, when I have been looking for corps I never look at anyone pasting in their copypasta and when I have recruited for larger, more well established corps people would tend to come to me.

I can't imagine there's any point in posting any recruitment threads either at all or at least until I have some sort of reputation/notoriety no matter how small. I suppose I will rally up some friends, steal the good members from other corporations and take it from there.

And while a large member count is clearly not an important thing, people would rather join a corp with 20 members than 3, just because in a 3 man corp you will likely spend a lot of time staring at an empty corp chat.

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You've pretty much got it there.

I've been in and out of this corporation as a director for over 2 years. We've usually floated at 20 members, recruitment is a constant ballache, and member loss from lack of activity due to lack of members is annoying when you are that small.

Getting a solid membership base and good directors is key to any corporation. Once you get to magic number of 30 (which we just have), people seem to start applying lots.

0% tax will only attract mission carebears. No one cares if your tax is 10% or less, above that and people need to know what perks you are offering and they ought to be good. If you can, have taxes and offer something like ship replacements, free ammo/bubbles or (if carebear) a corp pos with facilities.

On the topic of copypasta in recruitment: it sorta works and sorta doesn't. True, you will get more applicants interested if you are posting personal messages. However, you are investing yourself far more in the hope of that person applying, and you will be therefore more disappointed when they do not. And if your entry requirements are quite low, then it is best to send copypasta messages to more people than spend ages on each potential.

Edit: I was once made CEO for a month or two. Hated every moment of it. Don't do it unless you enjoy responsibility like that, or just don't give a **** about people.

Edit2: You would be surprised how many people you can get to a corp if you have a solid objective, location and mission statement. People want stability and brotherhood, but also something to aim for. Tell them your expectations for the future, even if they are excessive. It may even happen.

Edit3: My corp is small, has some entry requirements, and we aren't well know outside of where we operate, so I do personalise every recruitment ad I put out.

Posted - 2011.02.02 03:12:00 - [13]

 

Expect to lose 50% or more of your recruits unless you are very picky and fortunate in your corp being a perfect match, expectations and plans all working out to be excellent.

Depending on who you are looking for newbies, vets, wandering players you'll have options to recruit from starter systems where many might not trust you initially or have ridiculous expectations of you and what a PC means for them, to using the forums, or NPC chat channel to get some vets or wandering players.

I'd suggest doing a few things that are directly related instead of opening the door to doing it all. You can certainly do it all but as you are just starting I'd stick to a smaller window then expand after you have that area setup and 'staffed' with directors/leaders etc.

Never take the mantle of providing 'fun' or 'direction' for players, you and your friends/corpmates do thing you enjoy and share that with other members together you can collectively make decisions on what/where you want to do/go but you are NOT and never will be here to make sure other people have fun. You are the CEO who makes decisions, hopefully with input from members but you make the choices and are not there to ensure people are enjoying EVE or tell them what they should be doing to have fun, that is up to them.

Make plans and stick to them, if you are going to move into WH with the corp make realistic plans on when and how you do that. IF you fall behind figure out why that happened and work harder to get back on track, ie if you say when we have 20 'good' members we'll start WH ops but only have 10-12 then you need to step up recruiting or look at trying some limited WH ops with what you have.

I'd strongly suggest having at least one person you trust and who isn't going to screw you over who wants to help you so you aren't totally on your own as CEO. A real friend is much better than someone you only play with in a faceless game, CEO can be a lots of work unless you have help from trustworthy and good people.

If you haven't write up rules, polices, expectations, plans etc all for what your corp is going to be about and what you want it to be about. A corp with a clear identity about who it is and what it is about has an edge over generic do-it-all corps that fly under the radar without any 'character'. Under this heading you can have fits, payout plans, ops schedules, etc.

Maintain discipline, having fun and goofing around is fine but if people enter your corp chat/forum etc and you all tossing around racial/homophobic/sexist slurs/insults you could easily lose people who simply won't stand for that.

Finally make sure your corp name matches or at least doesn't exclude certain players/play styles like Tertiary Engineering might not appeal to PVPer's.

Posted - 2011.02.02 04:51:00 - [15]

 

Originally by: Stroke victim

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Edited by: Stroke victim on 02/02/2011 02:28:27
I have trained the necessary skills to hold all the members I am likely to get (even if I do exceptionally well) in the first 2 months.

A good name, maybe rustle up some old friends to start out with me, good ideas.

What about about approaches to recruitment? Does pasting your speel into the recruitment chat really get you many responses?

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Don't use words like 'Spiel' if you don't spell them correctly. Does not reflect well on leadership skills.

Posted - 2011.02.02 05:42:00 - [17]

 

I'll give you the tip of my...nevermind...

Posted - 2011.02.02 18:28:00 - [19]

 

I'd say the most important feature of any corp is to have an identity. Obviously, this will morph with time and growth, but one thing that's usually a non-starter is the classic "mining, mission running, exploration, industry and some pvp" corporation. Granted, even a pvp corp needs to make money, but for the love of Chtulhu, focus on something and let the rest follow as needed.

Posted - 2011.02.02 19:02:00 - [21]

 

Spamming local in Dodixie with stuff like "Recruiting mission runers and miners for a family friendly PVE corp." is a good bad way to start.

Posted - 2011.02.02 19:27:00 - [23]

 

Originally by: Larg Kellein

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I'd say the most important feature of any corp is to have an identity. Obviously, this will morph with time and growth, but one thing that's usually a non-starter is the classic "mining, mission running, exploration, industry and some pvp" corporation. Granted, even a pvp corp needs to make money, but for the love of Chtulhu, focus on something and let the rest follow as needed.

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This guy hits the spot. You need a goal for your corp, something that binds it together. A theme if you like. Think about what you want the corp to accomplish and make a path how to get there. It can be anything from an attainable goal like: "the corp wants to claim a bit of 0.0", to "all Amarrians must die!" both ideals will attract different types of people.

State what you are (even if you're not) and you will have a better chance to appeal to the type of players you're looking for: "e-peen and l33t killboard stats" will put me off, while "we seek mature folks who're not looking for numbers in their chat" would get me to look further.

Hope that helps a bit... good luck.

Posted - 2011.02.02 20:11:00 - [25]

 

A good corp usually starts off with a core of active people with a common idea. If you just make a corp by yourself for the sake of having a corp then it's really unlikely it'l ever get off the ground. The rest is down to e-fame and luck.