It’s 9 AM, you’ve had your 2 cups of coffee and now you sit down at your desk, ready to start making calls. Then an “urgent” call comes in from an unemployed candidate needing an update on the status of his unremarkable resume. After you peel him off the phone, you decide to check your [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
5 Ways to Manage Your Desk & Make More Placement
August 1st, 2006
1. Don’t try to fill every job: • Top recruiters are at peace with the idea that they can’t place every candidate and they can’t fill every job order. • Managers: Require rookies to get permission to work a search. • Pre-close: hiring process, urgency, what happens if it goes unfilled? • Focus on marketing stars rather than filling orders. • Get comfortable saying “no.” • Know [...]
When you receive a cold call at your office from someone you’ve never met, are you ready to pull out your credit card after a five minute conversation? Are you ready to sign a contract and commit to this stranger? If you’re like most people the answer is “no way!” If this is the case, [...]
The Fatal assumption: One of the biggest reasons that so many small businesses fail is that they lack a clear system of operation. Michael Gerber, author of the E-myth, talked about what he calls the “fatal assumption” that many business owners make. It goes something like this; because you understand how to do work of a [...]
1. Perform the closest activity to a placement first: What could be simpler than this? When planning your day simply prioritize what’s closest to revenue. 2. Execute marketing calls each day: I suggest making between 5-25 calls each day. The amount you make depends on how close you are to “full capacity”. Full capacity for [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
3 Steps to Stand Out, Bill More and Reach Your Goals
April 1st, 2006
What is your purpose for being in this business? If you are like many recruiters, making money may be one reason that comes to mind. Making money is a positive goal that we all have. However, if you called up a potential client and said, “The purpose of this phone call is to help me make [...]
For many people, planning is a snooze-inducing topic that they have heard too much about and are tired of discussing. I talk to many recruiters who are in a perpetual state of “planning to plan.” They say things like this, “I know planning is important but I just can’t seem to do it on a [...]
Guard your golden hours: Some of the best advice I received when I was a recruiting neophyte was the idea of guarding my golden hours. The early morning hours, both before work and during, set the tone for the rest of your day. If you guard this time and create your own success ritual, you’ll have [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
Get Home For Dinner - 5 Simple Time Management Tips
November 1st, 2005
It’s 9 AM and you have a planner in front you with 30 important calls to make when the “urgent” call comes in from an unemployed candidate needing an update on the status of his resume. You then check your email (for the 4th time in the last 60 minutes) and see that you have [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
How To Make More Placements In Just 5 Minutes A Day
October 1st, 2005
One of the most vital skills that you can learn as a recruiter is how to zero in on those searches that give you the best chance of making a placement - and to only focus on them. Is this a skill that takes time to master?? No, you can learn it the first time [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
21 Ways a Researcher Will Help You Make More Placements in Less Time
July 1st, 2005
You have probably heard of the 80/20 rule, which says 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. With a well-trained researcher, you can focus on the 20% that produces results and virtually nothing else. A skilled researcher will allow performers to focus on “money activities” and closing deals and will free up [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
Niche-Craft: 9 Steps to Refine or Select a Niche
June 1st, 2005
Many of the owners and recruiting professionals that I coach have considered refining or changing their niche at some point in their careers. Whether your niche is doing well or not, it’s a good idea to keep your nose in the air so that you can sense opportunities and avoid ending up in a dead [...]
I recently led a Tele-Seminar entitled, “How to Produce Big Results in a 4 ? day Work week” and as part of the format, I conducted an interview with a friend of mine who had billed $1 million as a solo recruiter. During the session, he allowed me to grill him about specifics on how [...]
The perks: Working as a Solo Recruiter offers a good amount of attractive perks: low overhead, lots of freedom, ability to choose where you work, no employee hassles, no dress code, no boss and full fees. These and many other perks entice a significant number of people in our business to fly solo or, at [...]
You know the rule: It’s no secret that the 80/20 rule applies in most recruiting firms. That is, 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your recruiters. Everyone knows this to be true, not just of our industry, but also of sales offices in general. However, what happens if you have one big biller [...]
from the The Fordyce Letter archives
Get Your Year In Gear - Your 2005 Action Plan
January 1st, 2005
Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to think about how you’re going to make 2005 your strongest year yet in terms of production and professional fulfillment. The Action Plan below is a part of a process that I use with recruiting firm owners in my coaching programs to assist them in gaining clarity [...]
A strong marketing program requires much more than simply picking up the phone and trying to secure a search assignment in one call. Clients are more sophisticated and less trusting of monotonous sales pitches than ever before. Here are three distinct elements for a well-rounded marketing program: 1. Reach: Reach has to do with how big [...]
As salespeople by nature, recruiting professionals and owners are wired toward action and offense mindedness. Most of us think in terms of targets such as revenue, number of deals closed and the size of our team. In sports terms you could say that we think of touchdowns, homeruns, baskets and goals. This offensive mindset is [...]
The goal of an effective manager is to produce excellent results without a lot of effort. This idea is simple to grasp in theory but is poorly executed by most firms. There are two common scenarios that tend to exist in recruiting firms, both of which prove ineffective over time. Scenario one: The soft manager- [...]
I recently had a conversation with one of my coaching clients who is a working owner in a small firm about a frustration he was experiencing. He had recently put a lot of time and effort into a search assignment and the client had flaked on him and was no longer returning his calls. This [...]
How many times has your heart been broken by a candidate that looked good at first and then fizzled as the interview process got rolling? This article provides a template for you or your staff to examine and review when evaluating people. It’s a tool for reducing the amount of time that you waste in [...]
What’s the owner’s success formula? It’s very simple; Systems = Freedom. If you, as the owner of your firm, go on a 4-week vacation, what happens to your business? What happens to the quality and quantity of activity? Some authors have defined the strength of a small business as being directly proportionate to how much [...]
The Fatal assumption: One of the biggest reasons that so many small businesses fail is that they lack a clear system of operation. Michael Gerber, author of the E-myth, talked about what he calls the “fatal assumption” that many business owners make. It goes something like this; because you understand how to do work of [...]
For many small business owners, their businesses don’t support their lives; they consume their lives. From my point of view, a business should be more than just a glorified job; it should be a way to get more of what you really want out of your life. There are 2 ways to do that. One [...]
How many times has your heart been broken by a candidate that looked good at first and then fizzled as the interview process got rolling? The following list provides a starting point for you or your staff to examine when evaluating people. It’s a tool for reducing the amount of time that you waste in [...]
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