QUESTION: I am having trouble prioritizing, and my desk is running me, instead of the other way around. Can you provide tips on how to best prioritize your planning and daily activity? How do I fit it in business development and recruiting to give each equal importance? – Bonnie, Boynton Beach
ANSWER: When I see that, my guess is you are not crystal clear on what you want in your business a year from now. You might have some ideas, but lack clarity. When one does not know what they want a year from now, they are definitely not clear on what they want a quarter or even a month from now other than making placements. My gut feeling is you are also not tracking metrics and using metrics the right way.
The two quick tips I can give you right now are:
(1) Get crystal clear on what you want a year from now. What is the revenue? What is the lifestyle? What are the types of clients you want? How are they different from your revenue stream now, your clients now, your role now?
(2) You need to know your metrics. If you do not, I will give you some quick numbers. Take your average fee, divide it into your revenue goal, and you will have the number of placements you need to make. For example, if you want to bill $300,000, and your average fee is $25,000, that is 12 placements, so a placement a month. In this market, it is somewhere between six and eight first time interviews to make one placement, but let’s go with 8 to be conservative. That is two interviews a week. For me to bill $300,000 a year, my whole purpose this week is to generate the activity that leads to two interviews. From there you can as yourself: Do I have a job order that is good to work on? Have I talked to enough candidates to generate two interviews?
Here is what we found out, even in a recession, the interview to placement ratio does not change. We were crowd sourcing our clients throughout 2020, and they could go to the bank on that. Despite hiring freezes and stuff like that, the interview to placement ratio did not change.
What I tend to find with most recruiters who are drifting is that they are lack clarity on their true desires. They may have some answers, but they are not really clear on the outcome. They also do not use first time interviews as a beacon.
One week you might be doing your planning on a Friday for the next week, and you realize that you do not really have anything to work on next week. To get two interviews, you really need to turn up the marketing engine next week. This start and stop in marketing is a common problem, especially when you lack clarity.
Part of your weekly planning should include some marketing, no matter how many openings you have. A half hour minimum, 45 minutes minimum dedicated to marketing so that you never run out of things to work is a great benchmark.
Business development and recruiting, do not need equal importance, by the way. You need enough business development activity to generate the interviews. You might be talking to two times the number of candidates than you are prospects, depending on where you are at. If you do not have anything to work on, you might be talking to 80% prospects and 20% candidates. The question you should always be asking yourself is: Where are my two interviews coming from this week? The answer to that question will tell you where to focus your marketing and your recruiting efforts.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your recruitment business:
1. Grab a free copy of my Retainer Blueprint It’s the exact, step-by-step process of getting clients to give you money upfront. https://get.therecruiteru.com/lm
2. Join the Recruiter Think Tank and connect with firm owners who are scaling too It’s our Facebook community where smart recruiters learn to make more money and get more freedom. https://www.facebook.com/groups/there…
3. Join me at our next event 3x a year, I run a 3-day virtual intensive, sharing the 9 key areas that drive a 7-figure search firm. Click here to check out the dates of our upcoming event: https://get.therecruiteru.com/emerge
4. Work with me and my team privately And if you ever want to get some 1:1 help, we can jump on the phone for a quick call, and brainstorm how to get you more leads, more placements, and more time. https://get.therecruiteru.com/scale-now
Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash
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