This time when the phone rang, I knew who was calling. Benjamin was punctual and anxious to get started. During our last session, Ben and I had covered two of the five points in the Monitoring Star. We had discussed, in detail, Yearly Goals and Quarterly Goals. Now it was time to discuss the final three points of the star: The Daily Planner; Modularization & Blitzing; and The 100 Point Sheet. Once we finished with all five major topics, Ben would possess the necessary structure and monitoring systems so that he would be well on his way to achieving his recruiting goals.

Ben began with a series of questions. How was he going to complete all of the calls we had determined he needed to make? How was he going to stay on track? How would he remember everything? I stopped him. First things first. At the beginning there is the daily plan.

The Daily Planner

I believe in daily planners because they work. I like the paper format, but am fine with the electronic format as well as long as they are founded on multi-tasking and are modularized.

Multi-Task Foundation

When I say that the planner should be founded on multi-tasking, I mean that I want to encourage my client recruiters to move freely within the call depending on how the call naturally unfolds. I learned long ago that sometimes marketing turns into recruiting and recruiting turns into marketing. And so, my planner is multi-task oriented which enables my client recruiters to take the most out of each call

At least five (5) possibilities exist on each call: You can Direct Market, Indirect Market, Direct Recruit, Indirect Recruit and Information Gather. This allows you to get something positive out of each call, which in turn encourages you to rush right into your next call. It’s all a cascade of successes that further anchors in your subconscious mind that this business is a lot of fun! Not only does this work, but the top recruiters found this out a long time ago, and that’s why they make this business look so easy. As a traveling trainer, I would sit at their desks and take notes. Let me tell you this, top recruiters are masters of multi-tasking. And for them, this business is a whole lot of fun!

Quarterly Format

My planners are based on a three-month period – thirteen (13) weeks. Each planner has one hundred and thirty-two (132) pages – or enough for two pages (four sides) per day for the 64-66 workdays in each quarter. As a client, Ben will receive four (4) planners each year.

I have constructed my planner so that ninety-four (94) calls per day are possible. My recommendation, however, is to pre-plan about 6-10 calls in each “hour” block to allow yourself free time within each hour to be reactive (call backs, suggestion calls, new ideas, etc.). It is more fun that way—also more creative and more profitable!

Every day at planning time you will plan for your next day. During this hour (sometimes longer) you will enter into the planner what you will be doing the following day. This function is CRITICAL to your success!

Modularization & Blitzing

The planner will allow you to break your day into hour modules and blitz during each of those one-hour blocks of time. Industrial Engineers tell us that human beings work more efficiently when their workloads are broken down into small blocks of time—as little as 15-minute blocks of time. For our purposes, I like one-hour modules so my planner has eight (8) of those to correspond to a daily eight (8) hour working schedule.

Compared to average billers, top billers have very large marketplaces. It’s not unusual for them to make 75 marketing ‘connect’ calls per day. That is a lot and, because of that, I very rarely teach recruiters to make that many calls. But I do think that a marketplace of 1,500 company contacts is do-able for anyone. With Ben we delimited a marketplace of 1,500 individual hiring managers to contact on a quarterly basis. That works out to 500 per month; 125 per week; 25 per day; or 12.5 per morning and 12.5 per afternoon. This number was a concern of Ben’s.  This is where Modularization enters the picture to help us.

Here is the basic Modularized Day that I gave to Ben:

The Marshall Plan “MODULARIZED DAY” © 2010

Modularized Day with Seven “Action” Modules

Four (4) Special Notes:

1. Rhythm and Production will increase during the four morning (bold) and three afternoon (bold) “Action” Modules.
2. All “Presentation Calls” should include Multi-tasking (when possible) to increase the success of each Action Call. Five multi-tasking options are possible on each call: Direct Marketing; Indirect Marketing; Direct Recruiting; Indirect Recruiting; and Information Gathering.
3. Don’t plan too tightly within each module. Allow for reactive “slush” time (call backs, last minute preps, handling emergencies, etc.).
4. Once the individual module time has expired, promptly move on to the next module.

So now we had our outline. It would flux with the type of changing activity (searches, preps, debriefs, etc.) that Ben had on his desk, but we wanted to stay as close as possible to this framework.

So Ben agreed that he could do this on a daily basis. But, since he probably wouldn’t make daily placements, how would he know if he was staying on track; if he was going to be successful?

Monitoring Devices and Call Accounting Systems

Ahhh, the many call accounting systems and the latest software versions thereof. Which one should you choose? Well, I am here to tell you to not choose any of them. And don’t tell me about the efficacy of the most recent version of a call accounting system that measures time on the phone.

First of all, they usually monitor only outbound calls, not incoming calls. But that being said, and more importantly, they don’t measure ‘effectiveness’ of the phone call. A bunch of one-minute phone calls don’t equal success. In the immortal words of UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, “Never mistake activity for achievement.” And besides that, we want to reach that magical 3-5 minute time window where rapport is established.

There was only one monitoring device for Ben…and that was the classic 100 Point Sheet.

The 100 Point Sheet*

This monitoring device was created by a recruiting firm owner who possessed advanced college degrees in mathematics and computer science and wanted to objectively measure a very subjective business. He wanted to insure that his recruiters would ultimately be successful. He came up with this method that awarded more points for the activities that were ‘central’ to making a placement. A marketing attempt was given 1 point. A marketing presentation was given 1 point. Matching calls (where a job order pre-existed) were given 3 points to either the Hiring Manager or the Candidate. Send Outs were awarded 15 points, etc. This formula has been modified over the years, but the intent is still the same.

Here is a link to the modified Weekly 100 Point Sheet that I sent to Ben.

The 100 Point Sheet is designed to show you where you are at any given point during the day. For instance, if it is lunchtime and you have 50 points or more, you are doing well. If, on the other hand, you only have 25 points, then you didn’t have a good morning and you had better kick it up a notch in the afternoon to make up the deficit. The idea is that if you attain over 100 points per day (and your ratios are normal) then you will make placements. If not, then you won’t. Simple as that! One of the obstacles that we all face in this business is that we sometimes get so caught up in the ancillary tasks during our day (long strategy sessions, figuring out who to call next, entering information into our computer databases, chasing the same person all day long, etc.) that we miss the tasks that are central to making a placement, i.e., Action Calls and Send Outs.

This sheet also allows you to feel rewarded even when you didn’t make a placement (not usually a daily occurrence in recruitment) as long as you reach and/or exceed the century mark. Like any good map, this 100 point sheet forces you to stay on target. I promise you it works! But it does measure performance; so don’t use it if you are afraid to be measured. But without benchmarks, your job becomes more like a game of golf with no scorecard or a game of football with no final score. That’s pointless, isn’t it! In the words of one of our legendary managers, “Inspect what you expect.”

*(for more information on The 100 Point Sheet, see TFL, January 2010, “2010…the Year to Continue ‘Adaptability,’, p. 5)

The 100 Point Sheet Key

The definitions vary by recruitment firm, but here is the Key to the 100 Point Sheet that I sent to Ben.

Now It’s Time for Execution

So now we have in place the plan for each day (The Daily Planner), the structure for each day (Modularization & Blitzing) and the evaluation scheme for that same day (The 100 Point Sheet). Now it’s time for Ben to start executing the plan. No knowledge deficiencies now. The tools are in his hands and, by extension, in yours. Remember the words of Goethe, “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

Next week, “The Phone Rang…” series will cover “How to Acquire the Right Attitude.” Until then, good hunting…

“The Phone Rang…” by Bob Marshall is a series that defines what we, as recruiters, do for a living. This article series ran in The Fordyce Letter over the past year and we are proud to bring you the series online. To subscribe to the print edition of The Fordyce Letter, click here.

Is there a solution? Can an experienced recruiter equal or even exceed his previous production in a slowing market? Maybe, but not without re-thinking, re-organizing, and re-engineering previous methodologies.

Consider the following 12 areas:

1. New client emphasis. A recent call from a young but successful recruiter pointed out the fallacy of not thinking differently in a potentially difficult market. He suggested that, as his plan to deal with a market downturn, he was going to write an article each month on careers, then email them to his entire database of candidates! He was quite surprised when I informed him that large quantities of generic, cookie-cutter candidates are the last thing he’ll need in a recession. In fact, his phone will be ringing off the hook and his email inbox loaded with such people, though their quality will be questionable. What he, and you, will need are clients. His existing clients, despite his good production in a good market, will not be enough. Existing Client A will reduce hiring by 70%, existing Client B by 50%, and existing Client C will cease hiring entirely! A recruiter facing a possible market downturn would be well-advised to stop focusing on candidates, to organize an extensive list of prospective client companies, and methodically start calling and qualifying each of them…right now!
2. “Hit ‘em where they ain’t!” Baseball fans will recognize the words of “Wee Willie” Keeler, one of the best-hitting players in the last century. When asked how he achieved such a high batting average, “Wee Willie” replied, “I just hit ‘em where they ain’t.” That is exactly what a search consultant facing a looming recession should do. By questioning hiring managers, a recruiter must identify a narrow sub-niche market where demand for talent exceeds the supply. This should be as close to his existing area as possible, so as to retain the great benefits of industry knowledge, buzzwords, relationships with current clients, and back database of candidates. Only in a state of extreme necessity should a recruiter even consider totally changing areas of specialization.
3. Enhance search assignment selection. As the market slows and the quality of search assignments drops, the tendency will be to become sloppy in the selection process, just to have some work. This cannot be allowed to happen! Just because you have done business with a firm does not automatically make the search assignment a “Class A” priority. An existing client could give you three assignments; of these, one might be “Class A,” worth a full-scale recruiting job; one might be a “Class B,” worth only a file search; and the third might be a “Class Q,” useful only as a fire-starter on cold days. Select individual assignments, not clients. Those who wish to survive a market downturn would be well-advised to be extremely selective with their time. The time to start is now.
4. Obtain more information on client stability. Employed candidates are far more nervous about changing positions in a slow market. Even the hint of a recession will cause spouses or friends to bring up the old “last in; first out” theory on employees to be laid off. Accordingly, emphasizing the growth of your client will be far less persuasive to a candidate. But emphasizing long-term stability will be far more positive. Ask your client about lay-offs his firm found necessary in the 2001-2002 recession. Track down an annual report to read specific growth and profit figures from that time. A solid no-lay-off performance in the last recession will go far toward assuaging candidates’ fears about this one.
5. Obtain and emphasize candidate accomplishments. Recruiters who have only worked in a boom market will be surprised to find that their candidate presentations will no longer fly in a weak market. No longer is the client just looking to fill the position. Now he wants people with a proven track record of increasing raw revenues and profits, or saving money.
6. Eliminate time-wasters. A boom market covers a multitude of flaws. As things slow, the same work pace and effectiveness levels that allowed one to prosper in a strong market will no longer be enough. Common time-wasters in our business include personal phone calls, personal emails, excessive in-office conversations, message boards, and the Internet. As Gandhi said, “Wherever you are, be sure you are there!”
7. Increase time spent in role-playing. Do the objections to be overcome change in a deteriorating market? You bet they do! Candidates are harder to move, clients more difficult to obtain, and fee objections rise. Make a list of the most frequently heard objections, another list of the answers, and role-play to practice.
8. Pay attention to counter-offers. In a strong market, we focus strongly on counter-offers….as we should. In a questionable or weak market, however, with unemployment rising and hiring freezes abounding, the tendency is to assume that counter-offers will not be extended.
9. Focus on daily planning. Of all the rules for working a desk, the most absolutely proven one—tested in good times and bad for over 50 years in our industry—is the iron necessity of filling out an effective written daily planner. Our business tends to be inherently disorganized, a trait shared by most in sales. Without a written planner, this is a formula for chaos. What happens without a daily planner is that people tend to go in many different directions and frequently the wrong directions. They tend to get the wrong things done, and they tend not to get enough things done. A tight, well-ordered daily plan in writing is an absolute necessity to maximizing production. Paul Hawkinson, long-time editor of The Fordyce Letter, wrote that one of the few things all top producers in our business have in common is that they are well-planned. Particularly in the case of a slow market where a larger number of calls will be even more important, the lack of a daily planner could be catastrophic. Time spent in planning is time well-invested. A half-hour of “planning” and 7.5 hours of “doing” will yield much better results than eight hours of seat-of-the-pants frenetic activity.
10. Learn to do real recruiting. In a bad market, unemployed candidates will flood the for-fee or for-free databases. Because hiring is slow, unemployed candidates will stay that way for much longer. This enables clients to run ads or search online and actually find qualified candidates, with the help of the same Internet trainers who hustle their services to our industry. Mike Kappel, president of Top Echelon, once said, “The temporary Internet honeymoon is over. It is now known to yield primarily second-rate candidates. Fire up that telephone before someone else with a phone takes your place!”
11. Increase skills yourself. Have you been to a used bookstore recently to invest in books on selling? Do you read and highlight industry-specific books, and review frequently? Do you tape and evaluate your calls after-hours on a regular basis? If you commute, do you listen to business audios as you drive? Do you regularly put notes on your phone to remind yourself to correct errors and improve skills? In a slow market, you need reviewable, serious material to survive and prosper, not froth and popcorn.
12. Outwork the market. Life eventually forces us to face reality. And the reality as the market slows is that working longer hours, presuming you stay effective and focused, may well be necessary.

Editor’s note: This article appeared in a longer form in a two-part series in the July 2008 and August 2008 issues of The Fordyce Letter.

Even the most hardworking salesperson has a finite number of hours in a day to get things done. Salespeople who use those hours most efficiently tend to be high performers. The key to maximizing efficiency is creating a daily plan every day.

Plan today for tomorrow

If you visit your neighborhood coffee shop between 9 and 10 any morning, you’re likely to see salespeople in nicely tailored suits hunched over their laptops. More than likely, they are checking their schedules and developing a plan for the day. But I strongly believe that it’s more efficient to draw up a daily plan on the previous afternoon so that you can start your day being productive right off the bat.

In my executive search firm, for instance, at 4:30 every afternoon, my recruiters and I take about a half-hour to map out our next-day strategies. We have an almost religious devotion to this practice. We compile a list of people we need to call based on our current priorities, and draw up a rough schedule of when to call them.

Because we have clients nationwide in different time zones, this schedule helps us contact people when we are most likely to reach them in person rather than by voice mail – call the east coast in the morning, and the west coast in the afternoon, for example. The schedule also helps us stick to our goal of reaching X number of people per day. If a conversation lasts longer than expected, we have the option of informing the person on the other end of the line that we have another appointment to keep – it says so on our schedules. (Of course, in special cases, particularly with our best clients, we may break this rule.)

Reduce distractions

Some salespeople may chafe at this high degree of organization, but chances are they are not setting the sales world on fire. There are so many potential distractions that crop up during a typical day that it’s crucial for salespeople to adhere to a daily plan as much as possible. Otherwise, it’s much too easy to get bogged down with non-productive e-mail messages, phone conversations, web research, and interactions with office mates.

According to a recent study conducted by AOL and Salary.com, the average employee admitted to spending 2.09 hours per day online. More than 44 percent of those polled said they browsed the Web, sent personal e-mail, engaged in non-work instant messaging, or played online games during work hours. These practices obviously hinder sales, and good salespeople do very little of this. Socializing with co-workers, the second-biggest time-waster, came in at 23 percent. Of course, some interaction among co-workers is expected, and it can help build team spirit and boost morale, however, high performing salespeople keep this to a minimum and spend as much time as possible interacting with clients and prospects.

Prioritize contacts

While clients expect us to be responsive to their inquiries – and rightly so – that doesn’t mean that we have to drop everything to answer a call or message immediately. I recommend waiting until a set time every day to answer non-critical e-mail and voice mail from clients. It’s important to respond within a few hours as much as possible, but if you fall into the trap of answering every client question or concern immediately, you’ll end up spinning your wheels too much and disrupting your daily plan. Clients may be impressed with instant response, but reasonable people don’t expect that level of service unless they have some sort of emergency.

If you’re not accustomed to a hyper-organized scheduling regimen, I recommend getting started immediately. Use either a paper day planner tool or some kind of software scheduling system. Even Microsoft Outlook works very well. It can take 30-45 days to become accustomed to a new scheduling system, but it’s well worth the effort.

What do you think? Let us know.

No matter what happens lately, you can be assured that someone will come up with an excuse to absolve themselves from blame.

Accountability and responsibility are becoming rare commodities. If you don’t believe it, just look at the news. It’s not much different for our business.

Typical excuses heard by managers from their consultants are:

“It’s not my fault – the economy’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“It’s not my fault – candidate’s just aren’t accepting offers”

“It’s not my fault – employers are getting pickier.”

“It’s not my fault – candidates are getting choosier.”

“It’s not my fault – the training materials are wrong (or old . . . or non-existent).”

“It’s not my fault – my office has no window.”

“It’s not my fault – my cubicle is too noisy.”

“It’s not my fault – the competition is unfair.”

“It’s not my fault – my boss won’t get off my back.”

Over the years, we’ve conducted time studies of consultant activities and consistently find that, on average, consultants spend only two productive hours per day.

Someone once said, “Show me a mediocre performer and I’ll show you a person with the backbone of an eclair.”

So many things can contaminate the process of goal achievement. Distraction is a major plague in our business. The winners have laser-like focus on those activities that produce revenue and disdain for those activities which don’t.

Conversations with owners of successful firms consistently confirm that the big billers tend to be “loners” during productive hours. They aren’t dullards or drones but when they work, they work . . . when they play, they play hard . . . and with the same focus they show for their working hours.

Ours is a distracting business for the unplanned. One star performer called her activities organized bedlam which could easily degenerate into incoherent lunacy, if permitted.

No one advocates a “monk-like” existence at the office but there are some telltale signs to tip you off to those time-wasters that can negatively impact on consultant production.? Things to look for (in your consultants or yourself):

Long, time-consuming interviews with non-recruited applicants (candidates are different).

We don’t recommend rudeness, but many consultants love to conduct in-depth interviews with people they have no chance of placing just because they can delude themselves into thinking that they’re busy and it keeps them from those less attractive tasks that produce revenue. A good recruiter can normally assess the usefulness of an interview within the first five minutes. Ask yourself if further time could be better spent in contacting potential clients or recruiting against existing priority openings.

Any interviews with unscheduled applicants.

Once your firm’s name hits the Yellow Pages or any other list of recruiting firms you’ll have people walking through your door, emailing you or calling you on the phone, expecting to be serviced. Unless you are a traditional employment (placement) agency, the majority of these walk-ins will waste valuable time.

You can’t walk into your doctor – lawyer – accountant’s office without a pre-set appointment and people shouldn’t expect you to stop what you’re doing either. Have your receptionist/secretary/administrative assistant take their resume or give them an application to complete and return. You may want to interview them at some point in time, but you set the time . . . not them.

You may also request that the phone company not show your street address with your listing which forces people to call first for appointments.

Any phone call lasting more than five minutes.

Unless they’re getting an assignment, recruiting a candidate or closing a deal with an employer or candidate, there is rarely an excuse for longwindedness.

Inordinate lingering in the files or on the computer . . . either candidate or job order files.

With rare exceptions, this is an activity to be conducted during non-productive hours. If your files are computerized, the linger time may be shortened but don’t loiter if your time could be better utilized in more productive pursuits. CheckNet has determined that nearly 25% of online time is non-work related.

Talking with other consultants.

Non-work-related chit-chat may have its place in life, but not during productive hours. Most intra-office conversation is not work related.

Talking with you, the owner or manager.

See above. If you must speak with a consultant, do it early, late or during the lunch hour. Although there may be exceptions, they are rare.

Writing (or re-writing) resumes or letters.

This is spare-time duty unless you have an administrative person to do it. If you have a standard format for resume reconstruction, give the template to the candidate and let them re-write it.

Copying anything.

Ah, the wonders of xerography. Why make one copy when two are so easy. Copying anything is not consultant work.

Daydreaming.

It’s not hard to tell when someone is mentally somewhere else. A nudge or a question can quickly get them back to reality.

We’ve all known consultants who arrive early, stay late, work weekends and still wallow in mediocrity because just “putting in time” on the job doesn’t cut it. We’re paid only so long as we produce. Whether contingency or retained, clients utilize us to solve problems by filling jobs. Any peripheral activity which diminishes that ability should be abolished.

It’s management’s fault when consultants spin their wheels. We’re not talking sweatshop, but people in our business are paid when they make placements. Even on the retained side, if jobs aren’t filled, clients evaporate. This is a stressful, pressure-filled business and as one hard-nosed manager told us, “Without constant pressure, a diamond is nothing more than a lump of coal.” Set your sights high and don’t vacillate. They can find an infinite number of things, people or conditions to “blame” – but your job, as the manager, is to find the parade and point out the front of it to them.

Now, I don’t expect that statement to come as a revelation to anyone reading this article. Nevertheless, based on the excuses we hear and perhaps the excuses we make every day, being reminded that we need to step up and take responsibility for our actions and outcomes is always in order.

Remember: Our success is inversely proportional to the number of socially acceptable excuses we use to justify our own behavior.

Keeping this in mind, ask yourself, which of the following best describes me?

Internalist: An individual who is performance oriented, accepts responsibility for their actions, successes, and failures.

Externalist: An individual who refuses to accept responsibility for their position in life and hides behind excuses. Because they constantly blame some external source, condition, or other people for their personal failures, they escape responsibility for them. They continuously position themselves as victims (“There are no victims, only volunteers” – Dr. Phil).

Truth be known, we all may be a combination of both internalist and externalist. However, the first key to taking responsibility is to understand which of these descriptions most closely matches our predominant style of operating. To help us in this analysis, consider what researchers have determined are the top five excuses people use to justify their behavior.

1. It wasn’t my responsibility.

2. It’s someone else’s fault.

3. I didn’t have enough time.

4. I didn’t know.

5. Nobody told me.

Sound familiar? Of course they do. We all have used them at one time or another. The important thing to understand is when and why we use them or any of the limitless number of other excuses that are always available.

Bottom line, in over thirty years in this business, I have never met a truly successful individual (practitioner, client or candidate) who wasn’t more an “internalist” than and “externalist.” They continually took responsibility for their actions and outcomes.

However, what most surprised me about these individuals was that taking responsibility resulted from a conscious decision on their part and that decision had everything to do with personal accountability and being achievement oriented (see TFL – 11/99 – “How Bad Do You Want To Be Good?”).

Achieving success is all about taking responsibility. Therefore, when we look in the mirror at the end of the day, we should ask ourselves, “Do I take responsibility for the sum total of my day?” If we can consistently answer that question with a “yes,’ we’re taking one of the first and most important steps toward achieving success in our career as well as our life.

As always, if you have comments or questions, just let me know.

We had offices around the US, but also in the UK, Malta and Cyprus. It was my duty to travel to those offices and train the recruiters and managers.

One night when I was in London, Mike and I had dinner at the Hilton Langham Hotel, near Oxford Circus. We started talking about this and that and eventually, since this was December, our conversation turned to Goal Setting & Planning for the New Year.

I asked Mike how he did this at Blue Arrow. Mike told me that he had too often seen recruitment organizations let their coming year’s goals be set for them by their individual recruiters instead of by upper management. In other words, the goal commitments were coming from the “bottom up” instead of from the “top down.”

By definition, this is an example of “Undercut Management.” Mike explained that at Blue Arrow they decide at Corporate what they want their total revenue to be for the coming year. Then they sit down and look at all of their offices and the revenue flow histories of each.

Based on this information, a portion of the total revenue goal is assigned to each office. He compared it to cutting up a big apple pie.

When this is done, the individual office managers are assigned their target goals for the coming fiscal year.? Each manager is then asked, “Can you attain that number?”? If they answer “yes,” then the goal is set in concrete. If they answer “no,” or say that they are not sure, this follow-up question is asked, “What can we at Corporate do to ensure that you will hit this number?”? It’s as simple as that.

After all of this is settled, the managers return to their offices and divide up their number and assign portions to each of their recruiters in much the same way as the managers were assigned their office number by Corporate.

At this point, the manager asks their recruiters the same two questions that they had been asked. In this way, they get an office-level commitment to their expected revenue goal for the year. At the end of this process, the manager not only knows what support he can expect from Corporate to help his office reach their goal, but he will also know what his recruiters expect from him to help guarantee their individual numbers.

By using Mike Crosswell’s format, Blue Arrow constantly hit their goals and eliminated year-end surprises.

This was the simple brilliance of Mike Crosswell and one of the reasons why he was so successful while running Blue Arrow. He has since passed on, but his words are as clear to me today as they were on that foggy night years ago in London.

“The Simple Brilliance of” is one in a series of articles focusing on ideas and techniques from some of the great thinkers, movers, and shakers in the field of recruitment who Bob Marshall has had the privilege of meeting and discussing various topics over the past 25 years.