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Straight Talk for the Recruiting Profession


Articles tagged 'goals'

Cold Calling, Motivation

Make the Phone Your Friend: Focus On Results, Not Volume

by 10 days ago


Office Telephone

Today I have had a great morning on the telephone, I have:

  • Called my consultants for updates and offered my advice in a couple of areas they were struggling in;
  • Rang my key clients with updates (picked up a few new exclusive roles whilst doing so);
  • Chased a few candidates for interview feedback and was advised to call an excellent professional who is looking for a move (MPC for next week);
  • Spoken with various candidates who are all great matches for two urgent positions we are working on at the moment. One informed me of an interview he had attended recently with a client I have worked with in the past;
  • Chased a lead and have secured a new training session;
  • Made just six calls (to companies I have not spoken to before) on my MPC and arranged two telephone interviews.

I admit I loved every minute of it. All my calls were planned. I did not think for one minute I was making a sales call, but what did happen was I achieved results,. The calls reminded me how much I enjoy using the telephone; the results are instantaneous, not delayed waiting for a reply to an email.

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Ask Barb, For Managers

How Do I Get My Recruiters Back On the Phone?

by on Feb. 20, 2013


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

How do I get my recruiters to get back on the phone? All they do is email and text which is not the best way to build profitable relationships. They tell me I’m old fashioned, but we are not hitting goals set. How do I prove the value of calls?

Steven M., St. Louis, MA

Dear Steven:

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Ask Barb, For Managers

These Two Metrics Made A Difference. Now What?

by on Feb. 13, 2013


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

My business was inconsistent, sales were up and down and I never could achieve the goals I had set. You spent time with me at the Fordyce Forum during a break, and suggested that I put all my focus on two stats: sendout to placement, and job orders to fill.

We started to use your Sendout Hot Sheet (which has been a lifesaver with all these power outages we’ve been experiencing), and everyone who works for me is now focused on getting candidates in front of hiring authorities daily. The difference it has made in my business over the last 60 days is hard to believe. My question is: What would you advise me to revise next?

Don G., Houston, TX

 Dear Don:

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How-To, Motivation

Great Peers Will Help You Help You Soar

by on Jan. 8, 2013


Eagle

EagleWe’ve all heard about the power of the peer group. Tony Robbins says that you tend to play the game of life at the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Think about it for a moment. Who do you surround yourself with most often, and how do they influence you? What level are these people operating at, and what are their standards in key areas of life, such as business, finance, health, relationships, contribution, and spirituality?

Let’s say you have a workout partner that you regularly go to the gym with. Are they the type who tolerate laziness, and let you off the hook easy if you don’t feel like working out on a given day? Or do they scream at you to give them two more reps, even when you’re already at failure, and feel like you’ve given all you’ve got? Which person is going to help you achieve more? Anyone who works out knows that those last two reps give you 90% of the growth!

It would make sense that people who are healthy and fit surround themselves with others who make healthy lifestyle choices, as opposed to people who drink, smoke, and eat like crap. People who have strong religious beliefs congregate with others who share their convictions. Successful business owners like to spend time with others who also share their desire and commitment to success.

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Motivation

Fear + Doubt + Worry = Your Personal Slave Drivers

by on Aug. 31, 2012


"If not now, when?" handwritten with white chalk on a blackboard

A while back I received an email with the same title from David Neagle, a wealth and mindset coach whose products and services I have invested in frequently. That title made me stop and read more.

David’s column was more on “manifesting” things in our lives. While I fully believe that when we focus on having things in our lives the way we want them we significantly increase the likelihood that we will get them, this is not what struck me about the article. What struck me big time was the title. Why?

Despite the incredibly strong recovery we have seen as an industry, many recruiting firm owners are still letting fear, doubt, and worry run their business. These slave drivers that we wake up with, take to our offices, and then take home again at night are three of the biggest reasons some owners haven’t yet “dove back into the pool” to grow their businesses. They think the pool is empty or still very shallow.

At some level this is understandable. Most recruiting firm owners never experienced business deterioration as deep and rapid as we did in 2008 and 2009. However, it is time to stop looking in the rear view mirror!

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Fordyce Forum

Fordyce Conference Ends With Focus on Personal and Business Development

by on Jun. 9, 2012


Forum group shot

What are you doing to develop your business?

If there was a theme to this morning’s Fordyce Forum presentations that might have been it. The final sessions of this last day of the best attended Forum since the start of the recession in 2008 all focused on practical advice for thriving as an owner or solo, rounding out the “hundreds of tips” that conference chair Barbara Bruno promised during her Thursday welcome.

Among those tips were these:

  • Track your placements. It’s wise business, and smart networking;
  • Do what the Big Billers do and plan tomorrow before leaving the office today;
  • Say thank you to clients, and candidates;
  • Stand out from the crowd;
  • Have a playbook of standards, so your team knows what’s expected.
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For Managers

Think Units, Not Dollars

by on Mar. 9, 2012


metrics-239x300

Daily I receive calls from owners and managers who ask the same question:

“What billings goal should we have for our consultants?”

This is a fair question. As a prudent business owner, you need to understand the billings/cash-in numbers required to support your operational objectives. This includes determining your monthly operational break-even point or “nut,” as well as calculating revenue projections and profit margins. From that point you can establish minimum and targeted production figures for each position in the organization and for the organization as a whole. However, in managing your staff, focus on unit placements first and dollars billed/cashed-in second (number on assignment, length of assignment, and gross margin for temporary staffing).

Most of the experienced producers in our industry, if allowed to concentrate only on dollars billed/cashed-in, reach a production comfort level somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000 per year. With an across-the-board average fee of $19,000 to $22,000, that equates to less than one placement per month.

A specific example is an experienced consultant I spoke with last week who has a goal of billing $250,000 this year. However, his average fee is $32,000. That means he needs to finalize only eight deals/placements this year. Although the overall billing numbers do not look bad, consummating eight placements within a 12-month period of time means this consultant will be continually walking the fine line between success and failure. If one or more of these deals do not come to fruition, his overall billings number shrinks dramatically.

As an industry, we tend to recognize high billing numbers, and to some extent we should. However, as owners, managers, and producers, a more accurate picture of our capability is reflected in our number of unit placements.

In those staffing firms where the focus is on unit placements, minimum individual performance standards generally align with the following numbers:

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Business, For Managers

An Eight-Step Process for Achieving Your Goals

by on Feb. 6, 2012


goals

Using a proper methodology for setting your goals is very important because the result must be specific, realistic, and most importantly, achievable. Additionally, you must baseline your performance and establish specific activity benchmarks that must be met on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to achieve your goals (see my June 2008 article in The Fordyce Letter, “Baseline Your Performance”).

Observations from my consulting work with hundreds of search and staffing firms indicate that goal setting is generally a challenge for both management and staff. However, as turnover rates and year-end results clearly demonstrate, the bigger challenge is achieving the goals once they are established.

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For Managers

Planning To Win: A Guide to Writing a Business Plan For Your Organization

by on Jan. 10, 2012


road by Hey Paul

 ”All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” — Earl Nightingale, American motivational speaker and author

What are your business objectives for 2012? I know we have personal resolutions that we announce to the world and then try to keep but what are your New Year resolutions for work? Most sales organizations begin the year with a plan to fail because they did not have a strategic plan to win. The most successful plans require the following:

  1. Plans must be specific, detailed and realistic
  2. Plans must be written down and accountable
  3. Plans must be associated with deadlines or deliverables
  4. Plans must be measurable for success or failure
  5. Plans must have the ability to change or adjust based on success of goals

I encourage you to sit down this year to come up with a detailed business plan that is worthy of the industry and the company you represent. In the spirit of Work, Compete, or Dominate, you should be focused on nothing less than Competing or Dominating. Start thinking about the following…

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The Business of Recruiting

Personal Discipline – The Path to Personal Freedom and Success in Search

by on Nov. 1, 2011


pathway

Personal discipline. This is a daily challenge for me. We live in a world full of distractions, unhealthy choices, and pressure to do a myriad of things that are not in our true self-interest. Modern culture has created an increasingly noisy, busy, artificial, short-term focused, pleasure-seeking world. The human temptation to slip into the path of least resistance, to seek out safety and comfort, and to avoid risk and hard work is ever present.

I’m writing about this subject in relation to success in the search profession, as I believe that the ability to be incredibly self-disciplined is one of the most important requirements for success in this business. We all know that without doing “the work,” sustainable success as a recruiter will not happen. For the great majority of us, our work is done alone, either as solo practitioners, or in offices or cubicles, as part of a search firm. We each decide, in the “privacy of our own privacy,” what we will do with the hours we are blessed with each day.

Recruiting success, simply put, requires excellent productivity. Since our work as recruiters is primarily made up of our personal actions (phone calls, emails, meetings, letters, research, writing, listening, etc.), the productivity that I am talking about is “personal productivity,” as opposed to equipment, office, or other measures. Sustained personal productivity, or the amount of value-added work done per personal unit of time, over the long run, is one of the most significant indicators or predictors of success in this great business.

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