June was a big month for me. Two big “endings” … or are they new beginnings?
My son finished Little League, and in spite of my managing the team, they figured out how to win a championship! But, he’s done in Little League which has been a HUGE part of the last 12 years of my life.
Also, My oldest daughter graduated High School 2 days after my son completed Little League. These events are “sign posts” in our lives. How we choose to react and/or take advantage of them makes all the difference in how we will move forward.
Similarly in our recruiting business, we have turnover and say Meghan-HS
things like “$300k just walked out the door”, or we lose a key account. These also (albeit in a different way) MAY be a great opportunity for a new beginning.
“….Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
That is one of my favorite lines from a song by Green Day. It is a reminder that many new beginnings take place after something before it, often exciting, comes to an end, most often not by our choice.
Some examples in our recruiting business:
1) Loss of a recruiting client. You get a call from your best client saying they have just been acquired by a bigger company and all the openings are on hold. (when I got this call, my client was generating over $400k recruitment cash in per year, yes PER YEAR!)
You can go into a deep depression, and denial (isn’t that the first step when you face a prognosis of “death”… denial?) I DID! This happened to me over 15 years ago. In hindsight, it was one of the best things that could happen to me. You see I had become complacent! I wasn’t aggressively marketing and I was not growing my recruiting business.
Are you relying on 1 or 2 clients to make a living? Key words, “make a living”. Did you get into this business to make a living or to really build something?
What new beginnings are available to you right now that you are not taking advantage of as it relates to client development? There is NO lack of job orders or opportunity right now, trust me on this!
2) Loss of a Big Billing Recruiter.
Your recruiting big biller enters your office, closes the door behind him/herself and says “I need to talk to you”. Rarely a good sign! They tell you they appreciate all you’ve done… blah, blah, blah, … and then they leave and compete with you.
That happened to me… 3 times–3 recruiters– inside 3 months in 1998. They were all part of my new beginning as a firm owner in 1994, but I did some stupid stuff, ignored them, took them for granted, didn’t provide good recruiter training, etc. and they left.
As hard as it was (it was devastating) when I really looked at what occurred objectively it provided a great new beginning. After 1998 I never lost someone who billed more than $300k as a competitor. I significantly increased my investment in both time and money in training them. I ran more contests, had more incentive trips, sent them to more conferences than I had ever sent before.
Additionally, I identified key traits in recruiters that had succeeded and I also developed defined accountability systems that got recruiters off to MUCH faster starts than I had ever experienced before.
In sum, my billings would have probably plateaued at $400-500k and my office probably would have got stuck around $700-800k If those transition events did not occur and had not provided me with other “new beginnings”.
What new beginnings are available to you and your recruiting firm right now?
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