In 1993, spotting the potential of the new professional employment markets in the former Warsaw pact countries, Tony Goodwin set up his own business and named the company Antal – Hungarian for ‘Anthony’. Since then Tony and his team have developed substantial businesses in some of the most challenging emerging markets across the globe through a mix of wholly-owned operations, franchises and joint ventures, and his impact on his chosen industry has been recognised through a series of major awards. Today I have the great pleasure of speaking to Tony who's going to share with us his incredible recruitment journey and insights on how he grown a global recruitment business, including the mistakes he's learnt from and eureka moments that have happened along the way.  

1. Welcome Tony, please start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and the work you guys do with staffing and recruitment businesses at Antal International…

Okay, let’s go back to the beginning Roy, because Antal was formed just after a recession, so my story starts from an entrepreneurial point of view – and I like to think of myself as an entrepreneur, as well as a recruiter.

I was a good recruiter when I was a consultant at desk level, but I wasn’t the best. But what was really inspiring for me, was the idea of being able to set up my own business in recruitment.

When I saw what was happening in central and eastern Europe, in the early 90’s, I said to my then bosses, Graham Palfrey-Smith and Laurence Smith, “We should open offices abroad.” That was 1989 and their response to that was to send me to Bristol!  

However that didn’t dampen my spirit of wanting to do this international work; something along international audit work at the time. I realised the European Economic Community, was relaxing the working descriptions for employment conditions for European members. I thought this was going to lead to an explosion of professionals going abroad to further their careers, and coming here to further their careers: Germans, French, Italians, Spanish.

And you know what, Roy? I was completely wrong. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen in the way that I thought it was going to happen, but what happened instead, we went into a recession in 1990.

Just before that, the Berlin wall came down in 1989, remember those pictures on CNN? People standing on the wall, waving German flags to German unification. A monumental time. But at the time, I had no idea what personal impact it would have on my life.

Just three years later I saw this evolving market, and the truth of the matter Roy, was that I was sick and tired of coming up against Michael Page, and Hays, and Extra, and all the usual suspects in our industry. And I thought, “You know what I’ll do, I will go somewhere they’re not.”

So in 1992/93, I was reading in the Financial Times about Coca-Cola buying a plant in Poznan and redeveloping it. Mars Masterfoods were investing $420,000,000.00 in Stupino in southwest Moscow.

And that is where my eureka moment came.

My thoughts evolved over a period of six months or so, and I thought, "Let's focus, let's specialise", and I decided to specialise geographically, as I thought that was what would set Antal apart.

2. What is your favourite success quote and how do you live that quote each day as a recruitment entrepreneur?

That's easy for me. I saw this actually during the first three months of setting up Antal International. It was a whole page in the Financial Times, it's a quote I believe by Abraham Lincoln...

"Things may come to those that wait, but only the things left by those that hustle."

... and please, let's make a distinction between hustle and hassle! Let's not hassle people.

I say this to my children now, it's not all about talent, it's not all about knowledge, it's not all about experience, it's about the motivation to put all of that into practice and that is what I believe hustling is.

It is making things happen, and that's what I do still today 22 years on with Antal International. In fact, it's why I believe that the recruitment industry itself is constantly evolving, and the reason we have a whole host of very talented people in our business, in our profession, and in our industry. One of the things that sets them apart is their ability to hustle, to make things happen, to innovate, to use their initiative.

Initiative is what our business is all about. Using your initiative to get things to move to happen, to get people to make decisions, to influence and persuade, and for me that is the recruitment industry. That's the profession I love.

3. Can you talk to us about a specific time that you faced adversity and challenge in your recruitment business, and how you got past it?

What I say to people is, "It's not how you manage or handle success that defines you. What really defines you is how you handle the difficult the times when they come" because undoubtedly they will come. Business, and being an entrepreneur in the recruitment industry is not for the faint hearted. You will come across adversity.

My biggest challenge was in 2001, with the dot com bubble bursting and the technology recession that ensued. I never saw it coming, but there was a depression on most on the west coast of America. At the time 55% - 60% of our revenues came from the technology sector and IBM was one of our biggest key accounts.

We billed IBM approximately $1.2 to $3 million in 2000. How much do you think invoiced them in 2001? Just $67,000.00!

Also during that time (in 2000 and 2002) we had 22 company owned offices around central eastern Europe and Europe which we then had to take that down to 12 offices. It was one of the most difficult periods of my life. We had 423 staff at the time, and then we went down to about 117!

You know Roy, I really should have cut deeper than I did at the time. It was so challenging. You need insane power, you need perseverance, and you need guts to go through that; and take the slings and arrows that do come your way as a result.

It was an emotional roller coaster but you get through it and when you get through it, it does you better. Now people say to me, "Well how did you get through it?" And I say, "Well, it's like actually running across the Atlantic ... and you go half way across the Atlantic and you hit a storm. And all of your food and a lot of your water goes, you get enough water to keep going, to keep moving. So what do you do? Row back or row forward?" You might as well keep going.

You know to a fair degree a lot of people experience these things in their lives. Whether it's serious illness, or potential failure. I would much rather face potential business failure, than face worse things on the health side. From that point of view, I'm lucky. I'm lucky to have actually been able to get through, to face it, and get through it, and for that I'm grateful.

It may be a bit of a cliché to say, but it's so true that in that adversity comes some great ideas. When people have their backs against the wall, often that's when they're the most inspired, and the most innovative, and the most resourceful. And certainly from a entrepreneurial point of view that's what I feel.

4. Describe that eureka moment for you when you reached the stage with Antal where all of a sudden you felt, "I know exactly what we're doing and how we're doing it." and it just started to go easier for you. Describe that moment for us.

I don't think it's ever been easy, actually. I think the interesting thing about being a recruitment entrepreneur is, that the reason you're an entrepreneur is because don't need a boss. The reason you don't need a boss is because you will push yourself harder than anybody else. Let's take José Mourinho for example, not everyone's cup of tea I appreciate that, but I believe that José Mourinho pushes himself and holds higher standards for himself than anyone else possibly could.

Even when I'm being successful I'm constantly thinking to myself, "This isn't good enough".  You climb up the mountain, you get to the summit, and you realise you've just got to the summit of a larger mountain. So climb one mountain, and you're at the bottom of another one.

Of course, on the one hand that can be exhausting, and on the other hand it's very stimulating and exhilarating because you think, "Well actually life just keeps throwing more and more challenges."

So I've never felt "we've got it sorted" even after the Russia deal.  We did the largest recruitment deal in central and eastern Europe in 2008 and sold our Russian business. I'm not allowed to say how much the deal was worth but it was in the ‘tens of millions’…that kind of figure. It was a big deal, it still is the biggest deal in central and eastern Europe, but I didn't just sit back after that.

I'm very lucky actually, Roy, because I've been allowed to build a business, which is always interesting and fascinating and challenging. I've gotten the rewards that come from that but I've also done it in a market which has seen the biggest socioeconomic demographic changes that we'll probably ever see. The Chinese have brought 350,000,000 people out of poverty in the last 20 years. India is doing the same thing. The Middle East and parts of Africa where we have a franchised operation, the same thing.

It's worth mentioning that we do have a higher group model. Right now I own about 10 of the offices of the 130 in all, and rest are franchised, and some are joint ventures.We have the company owned, the joint ventures, and the franchise network. Antal is very good at looking at how we can partner with people, with mutual benefits. We believe in this mutuality, if you win, I win, we are all successful together.

5. Tell me what do you do to drive the standards of recruitment in your own business and maybe for the wider global staffing industry?

Well I'm looking right now in quite a lot of detail the various recruitment packages on offer. We have LinkedIn - which I believe is a tool, not a threat - and the increasing numbers of recruitment process outsource companies. I think that we are being challenged as an industry, as a profession, to come up with more and more uses of technology and social media, to make the client more effective in their hiring.

I don't believe for one second any of this technology is going to replace us, because we are very good at reinventing ourselves.

Fundamentally what we do is make things happen, we influence and persuade and make things happen, and we will continue to do that - things that cannot be done by computer or a piece of software or social media.

I'm intrigued by this ability to talk to an audience all over the world instantly - it's an incredible thing! But it doesn't change the fact that in recruiting, consultants provide a valued allied service that to our clients and our candidates. That can't be replaced by a computer. Let's not detract from the fact that we add value.

6. If you were looking into your crystal ball and trying to predict how the recruitment industry is going to develop so over the next 5 years, what do you think is going to happen?

I think that there is going to be consolidation. At the moment there is a lot of recruitment companies of medium size, between 3 quarters of a million and say 4 million EBIT, and I see a consolidation within the industry of these (well managed) recruiting companies into large entities through the roll up programs of some of the larger companies.

I'm quite excited by it and so what I'm doing is putting together a multi brand strategy and doing it on a buy and build basis in Europe. I think they'll be other people doing similar things in Europe in the next 3 to 5 years and as always I want to be at the forefront of both developments.

As an entrepreneur in this great staffing industry of ours, I want to make sure that I'm ahead of the game, or at least up with, some of the leading recruitment entrepreneurs who are great. The likes of Nigel Frank, Oliver James, Eurostaff, Earthstream, and many, many others.

There's about 20 companies out there that do really, run by people who actually almost a generation younger than I am, and that's really exciting to see. I don't feel threatened by that, I feel excited and exhilarated by that.

7. Tony, what's the number one thing that you've seen holding recruiters back from becoming more successful? What's needed to be a successful recruiter?

You need to rely on your fundamental instinct to get things done, or to persuade, and stop relying too much on technology.

It's the old analysis paralysis scenario. With a number of ways to communicate these days through social media, people don't pick up the phone enough, they don't meet people enough and talk directly.

Skype is fantastic! Facetime, Skype, whatever it is, just talk to people. Don't look at their CV for two hours, don't research the company for four days before you do anything, get on with it and do it; and talk to people.

What I think is holding people back is the fear that they might be seen as foolish, or the fear that they might not have done enough research because everything's on social media. But it doesn't matter that everything's available. If anything now, there is so much information available that it's overkill. You can get bogged down in that and instead of getting bogged down in that, instead of this analysis process, talk to people.

8. What's the best piece of business advice you've ever received Tony?

It came from Graham Palfrey-Smith, actually. I was running the Bristol office for him in 1991, and gave him some reports on how well we were doing during a very difficult, challenging marketplace with the recession. After speaking to him on the phone for about twenty minutes he just said to me, "Tony, how many interviews have you got?" And I didn't have a lot at the time, I have to be honest.

It really brought home to me that it's the #1  fundamental KPI, it's absolutely paramount.

The number of face-to-face interviews that you've managed to arrange between your candidates and your clients. Because that's the ultimate asset test of whether or not you're good in this business. It's 'the king of KPI's', as I call it.

9. Tell us about an app, a growth hack, or a bit of recruitment software that you use in your business or personally that works for you brilliantly right now.

Well, I think in terms of getting the message out and about Antal, it's the usual suspect, it's the Twitters, the LinkedIn, the Zings; communicating the message about what we are about. It's fantastic we can do this across all the different countries instantaneously.  We spend a fair portion of our marketing time on getting that message across.

I also do a blog. I've got the kind of credibility and substance behind otherwise just being an advisor. You often see people writing blogs, everyone is a blog writer these days, and everybody is free with their advice. But the only advice I'm really interested in hearing about is from people who've actually done it. Otherwise you can just say, "Well that all sounds good. But have you done it? Have you sat in that deal room and done that deal? Have you made those decisions for yourself?"

That's the difference; and the difference for me is the longevity I've had in this great industry, I'm still doing it.  I'm doing it today, Roy. I'm living, breathing, working it; I'm not sitting back in an ivory tower pontificating about what I did 10 years ago, or what I did 15 years ago. I'm doing it today!

10. Tony, what's the best business book you've read recently?

The best book I've read recently is actually about India. It wasn't a business book but it was called, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo, and it tried to explain through narrative, through stories of people living in the slums, the juxtaposition between the wealth that's being created in India right now and the poverty that lives alongside it. It's a naturally brilliant book.

Business wise I've read very many books, but obviously I would plug my own book "How They Blew It: The CEO's and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures".  If anybody wants to read a book on success - read about how people fail!

People say to me, "Why did you write a book about failure? Isn't that a bit morbid?" But it's not about failure, if you think about it we learn more from our failures then we do our successes. Anybody can want a business, anybody can want a business in a successful time. A rising tide floats many boats! But until you been challenged and until you've seen what goes wrong for people, you don't really know how you're going to react and how you're going to respond. I've been in that situation.

My claim to fame is I make more mistakes than most people I know. I'm not being overly self deprecating or modest. It's actually true. That is part of entrepreneurialism.

I think there is a misunderstanding where people say, "Don't take 'no' for an answer." My response to that is, "Do take 'no' for an answer." And ask why, and then do it differently.

If you keep going back to people with stuff they don't want, then you'll continue to fail. Qualify what they want and then give it to them. It's interesting because Luke Johnson, the ex columnist in the FT and now at the Sunday Times, writes about this a lot. He says as we get older we become more risk averse. Which is true because the more you know, the more you don't understand, the more questions you've got.

I for one, want to get out there in the recruitment industry and tell people to carry on taking risks. It's necessary to develop and build society.

Creation through entrepreneurialism is one of the most important things that we can talk about in the 21st century.

I'm going into politics now, but if we get the economy right then we can start paying for everything else, everything else will fall into place. That's the fundamental of entrepreneurialism above creation. If we can get it right then we can change society, and we have to create wealth. Entrepreneurialism must be allowed to carry on and not be overtaxed and not be over penalised for doing what the country and the world needs.

11. Given all of your knowledge and experience, if you woke up tomorrow morning and your recruitment business wasn't there and you had to start again from scratch, what are the steps that you take? What would you do?

Immediately look around for a service or product that needs to be developed. So I wouldn't spend my time as many people do - waiting for a unique idea. Because they don't exist. If they do they're as rare as rocking-horse poo.

Look at all good businesses, whether it's Starbucks, Costa Coffee, EasyJet, Facebook, all of these were modifications of businesses that already existed. Even The X Factor - I'm old enough to remember "Opportunity Knocks", with Hughie Green! I would look at what is going on around me, at the good ideas that can be improved and I would get straight into doing that.

I'm very grateful to the recruitment industry. It's treated me well, and I've enjoyed it - it's a great people business. I've been all over the world, I've traveled over all of the continents of the world in building my business over the last twenty years and I feel incredibly grateful. I want to carry on doing that actually for another 20.

12. Want to get in touch with Tony?
Tony Goodwin contact details:

Email: tgoodwin@antal.com  Twitter: @tonygoodwin  Mobile: 07785730259   LinkedIn

13. Watch Roy Ripper's full interview with Tony Goodwin

The post How to grow a successful recruitment business, making over 100,000 placements and still learn from your mistakes! appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

On a recent flight going on holiday with two of my kids, the stewardess came up and asked, “Would your boys like to go and look in the cockpit?”  I was amazed because I just didn’t think that happened anymore. Because of the way that the world is and has been for a relatively long time now, the days when I as a child were allowed into the cockpit of an aeroplane in flight, I thought were sadly long gone.

But this was whilst the plane was on the ground, it hadn’t taken off yet and so the two boys were invited into the cockpit (with me tagging along) and the captain was there going through his process, the co-pilot getting things ready, the great big bank of switches and lights and buttons and everything else, and they were absolutely blown away! I didn’t hear much about anything else for days afterwards.

We entrust our lives to them

Seeing the pilot and his crew go through all the pre-flight processes, reminded me about checklists…let me explain.

I’m always a little amazed that the aircraft, this tube of metal, so heavy, actually gets up into the sky, and stays there! I mean, look at the average aircraft that you get onto, a passenger aircraft. Look at the sheer size of it, imagine the weight that’s in there. Now I’m kind of rambling on a little bit, but the point of this is that – pilots – we entrust our lives to them and usually when you get onto a plane nowadays, the cockpit is closed. You don’t see who’s flying you, and we put enormous amounts of trust in people that we don’t know and most of the time cannot even see.  

You would imagine that getting ready for take off is just something that most pilots know how to do automatically. Especially those with years and years of experience and flying hours.

However, I do know that worldwide flight regulations demand that all pilots have to go through a pre-flight checklist. A checklist making sure that everything is 100% OK. Apparently, before they even get on the plane, there’s a walk around. I don’t know whether it’s the captain or the co-pilot that gets to do it, but just a walk around the aircraft just to check that everything is okay. I’m not sure that’s always the case, particularly on these really quick turnarounds but anyway it doesn’t matter if the pilot has got thousands in flying hours and years and years of experience – they still have to go through this pre-flight checklist, EVERY SINGLE TIME they fly!

“Here’s the Yellow Pages – good luck!”

So…bringing this story back to recruitment…you may know my personal recruitment story started in a high-volume, low margin fashion recruitment agency. The initial training given to me was along the lines of “Here’s a phone, here’s the yellow pages. Good luck.” That was it.

It was just making phone calls. I started off with the As and ‘Aardvark Fashion Ltd’ and ended up with ‘Zenith Retail Ltd’ or whatever it was. Making calls and recording everything on index cards (yes this is pre-computerisation!). A few months later, I had further ‘training’ by going to some client meetings, taking requirements and learning how a placement ‘happened’ in the fashion recruitment arena. Of course, I progressed and I ended up being a Consultant there, a Manager and ultimately the Operations Director in that recruitment business.

Placement pants

I’ll be honest, in those early days, it felt a bit like somebody must have given me a lucky charm or I may have had my ‘placement pants’ on or something, because I was successful, but not really sure how, because I hadn’t been given any specific instructions or process on how to do it.

That’s the point that I really want to make. There wasn’t any process. There wasn’t any defined path that we used to take to ensure a successful placement. There wasn’t any checklist like the pilot’s process that have they to follow in a certain order to ensure they get the plane off the ground and into the air safely. Even though they know how it works and they’ve done it countless number of times, they still go through the EXACT SAME step-by-step process.

Moving on, you may know that my story continued when I started my first recruitment business with James Caan, and it was there that I was introduced to the late great Tony Byrne. Tony was one of my first mentors, along with James, and the greatest thing that Tony gave me I’d like to share with you. Some of you will be familiar with it, and some of you may not even know who Tony Byrne is, but that doesn’t matter.

I had that lightbulb moment!

Tony introduced me to his ‘30 Steps in the Placement Process’.

I’ve got to tell you, it just absolutely blew me away. For the first time ever (and by this stage I had been working in recruitment for three years or four years), I had that lightbulb moment!  Actually it was several light bulb moments going off at the same time, it all just fell into place.

I looked at it and thought, “This is amazing!” I had in my hands a checklist of 30 steps that every permanent placement had to follow and I started to track my recruitment deals using this checklist. So ‘taking a complete job order’ was step number one, and I’d be saying to myself “Right, I’ve done step number one. Step number two, what is it? Make a recruiting plan.”

I was running my own business, but I was a recruiter and I used to track my way through each deal.  The business included myself and James and then we started to recruit consultants, and I trained them using this exact 30 steps process including the templates that I used, the forms, the scripts and more of Tony’s training. I had his whole program on VHS cassettes, I was his biggest fan, and I was first really blessed to meet him through James and secondly because later on he invited me to do my training apprenticeship with him. The rest as they say is history…

But going back a step, using those checklists and Tony’s process as a guide to every placement I made, I’ve got to say it’s probably the biggest reason why I had the phenomenal success I enjoyed at that time. Not just success, phenomenal success in that first recruitment business that I had started.

100% retained business

I went from working 100% contingency based recruitment and I built a recruitment business that was 100% retained. If you don’t know the distinction, with contingency, I got paid when the candidate started. With retained, I got paid for the work that I did, so I got paid before I even started, I got paid during the assignment, and actually, I used to get paid on successful offer and acceptance, not start date of the candidate, so essentially I would get 100% of my fee before the candidate even started!

How did I do that? I’d love to say I was some kind of genius. I really wasn’t. I was (and still am) a great student, and I didn’t question it. I just said, “Look, there’s this 30 steps process and I am going to follow it to the letter.”

The reason I did that was because I was looking at other people that were following Tony’s system, and could see the difference in results between those that were following it wholeheartedly and those that were just dipping their toe in the water using a little bit of this, but not all of it. Some were choosing the bits they liked the sound of and discarding the stuff they found hard or didn’t like.

I literally adopted every single step of the ‘30 steps’ system and used it and trained everybody coming into my business with the EXACT SAME system – and it worked and it worked and it worked.

I enjoyed phenomenal success, 100% retained, which is nothing if all you sell is one retainer but we were selling so many retainers that I had to recruit more consultants and headhunters to fill the assignments. We experienced phenomenal growth.

30% fees

The other thing I should mention was the average percentage fee previously charged in this sector was 12.5%. We went to 30%! 30% fees overnight!!!  

I truly believe the secret to our success in getting this fee was because of the 30 steps process. I had the confidence, confidence bordering on arrogance, slightly! I was like, “Why wouldn’t you pay me 30%?”

Now I’m not saying that today you should be charging 30%. No, I don’t know your market well enough to make that judgment, but what I do say is whatever your full fee is, stick to it. Stick to it providing you’ve got a process behind you. Whether that’s 30 steps or another similar process, that’s fine, but have the confidence, the conviction, that what you do represents absolutely exceptional value for money.

That’s the belief system that was going on for me. I just looked and I thought, “30 steps? Brilliant. I think I’m worth every single penny of the 30%. In fact, I actually think that my clients get exceptional value from me for 30%. Maybe they should be paying me more!” That was what was going through my mind, the mindset.

Competitors working in my niche and recruiters working in other niches in the recruitment industry were beginning to take notice of what we were doing. We got to the point where actually we didn’t even have to get meetings to pitch retained executive search. The repeat business was coming through the recommendations and referrals within an organisation and retainers were coming to us BY PHONE. It just blew us away!

We set the bar high

In my mind, and actually, I know it to be true, we changed that part of retail recruitment FOREVER. Prior to that, people weren’t selling retained search assignments. They weren’t getting higher than 15-20% fees. We set the bar HIGH. We ended up training and developing lots of people through our system that have gone on to and some of them still do, run very successful recruitment businesses in that sector and many more.

Okay, so moving forward again, part of the work I do now is I traveling the world working with recruitment businesses that are in trouble. Companies that say, “Look, Roy, something’s going wrong for us. Can you come in and have a look?”

I go in and I do an audit and you may have seen this document that I go through. It’s a process, it’s a checklist again, but it’s an audit of ALL the business processes they use (or should be using) in their recruitment business.

One of the things that I look for is a clearly defined step-by-step recruitment process, because if a company has that step-by-step process, whether it’s 30 or 12 or 10 but if a company has that defined “this is how we do it in our business” process then what happens is that’s communicated to clients, to candidates, to consultants working in the agency. Everybody’s on the same page with it. Everybody knows, yep, we’re at step three of this assignment.  What I also see when there’s a clearly defined process, is that people sell themselves and their recruitment services a whole lot better than people with no process.

Process gives you power

Process may not sound hip or sexy, but once you introduce process and consistency into your placements, you will place more candidates into more jobs. You will generate more revenues for your recruitment company, and your will earn more commission for yourself. Process helps give you the power to control the outcome of your deals.

It’s a series of actions delivered consistently that mark you out – a great example of this is McDonalds. You need to McDonald-ise your recruitment business!

It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to the McDonald’s on the Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok (longest road in Thailand) or whether you’re in ‘the most beautiful McDonalds in the world’ (Budapest, if you were wondering where – Google it if you don’t believe me!).

It doesn’t matter where in the world you are. If you go into a McDonald’s, it’s a formula, isn’t it? They follow the EXACT SAME PROCESS for making a Big Mac in every single one of its 36,899 restaurants.

I’m shocked by how many recruitment businesses I go into who don’t have a consistent step by step process to follow when working a placement. Each consultant in the recruitment business is doing something different, each client is told something different and the process doesn’t look anything like the one that I am told by the boss that they work to!

It’s just not good enough to know how something works, you’ve got do it in the right order consistently, if you want to get that consistently perfect result EVERY TIME.

Guilty veteran recruiters

And something that many of us will be guilty of as ‘veteran’ recruiters, is that you get to the point where you say, “I know this. I understand this. I don’t need to use a form or a template or anything else. It’s in my head, Roy.”

That’s what I used to do. I knew Tony’s stuff and I knew the 30 steps and I built three successful businesses off of the back of that system, but I had the arrogance as a veteran to turn around and say, “I know that stuff.” I did, and I could tell you every single one of the 30 steps, but what I started to do was cut corners. I’m like, “Okay, I don’t need to do step three. I understand that. Make a recruiting plan. Step two, why do I need to do that? I know who I’m going to approach on this.” Celebrate, it’s like, I’m not going to celebrate. What’s celebrate? What I started to do was take out steps, and I also started to mix up the syntax and the order, and you know what happened? That happened! Yep, a couple of big deals that I couldn’t afford to lose went crashing and burning down the pan.

And the same happened with some of my consultants. The consultants that I probably wasn’t as thorough with my training on. I was, “You know what? There’s the 30 steps, but let me tell you how I do it,” or worse, they watched me and thought, “Well, hang on a second. He’s not doing those 30 steps. I don’t need to do them.” As a result, their work (and more importantly their placement revenues) suffered.

Be the airline pilot

The point here is if you’re going to have a process or a system, then it’s really vitally important that you stick to it. Be the airline pilot who still does the pre-flight checklist despite the thousands of flying hours and years of experience they have.

Like the airline pilot who gets their plane up in the sky and lands safely using a series of consistent processes, you need to stick to your recruitment process consistently if you want to get the EXACT same results with your placements. Make sure you take the right information from your clients, brief your candidates properly, debrief your clients properly, close them both on salary and so on.

Over the years I adapted and refined my successful recruitment process and I’ve gone on to teach it to thousands of recruiters and recruitment business owners around the world. It’s a ‘39 step process’ and it’s available as a free downloadable checklist right here. Even if you already have a process, download it and check this one against your own and make sure you’re not missing anything.

Put simply, if you implement my 39 Step Process and learn how to control your deals, you will benefit from:

• a proven world-class formula for success
• a more systemic approach to recruitment
• the ability to gain more control and commitment from your clients and candidates
• more successful placements
• earning more money
• better ‘jobs on to jobs placed‘ ratio
• the ability to rescue any existing placements from the brink of disaster
• better qualified vacancies
• better qualified candidates
• committed clients
• committed candidates
• predictable revenues/income
• less ‘boom and bust’ or ‘famine and feast’ activity

I suggest you to use this as a checklist for every single placement that you make. Every deal that you work on. Every vacancy that you take on and you start working.

Whether you’re a solopreneur or whether you’re somebody that’s managing a whole team of recruiters, it doesn’t matter,  I want you to use this process. Every conversation that you have internally about a deal or a placement or a client or a candidate, refer them to the process. “What stage are we at with this? What have we missed out?”

“I just had a deal go down!”

If anyone ever says to me “Roy, I just had a deal go down,” or “I’ve got a client playing up or a candidate playing up” I ask them, “which part of this checklist have we failed to complete?” Because sure as eggs are eggs, it’s always going to be one of these steps that lets the deal down. I learnt this from bitter experience. When deals went down, I looked back at this checklist and realised I didn’t do that. I didn’t do that, I skipped that. I glossed over that one. I didn’t ask my client this question. These are the things that I did wrong.

Many people believe and will tell you:

• you have to be a ‘natural’ recruiter to be successful in our industry
• you have to be blessed with a specific skill or character trait
• you have to have a degree or specialist qualification
• you have to be a particular gender to succeed
• you have to have years of experience

None of these is true. You just have to be willing to learn and motivated to do.

The formula for your complete control of clients

Recruitment is a process. Processes give you control and the formula for your complete control of clients and candidates can be taught.

The formula for success is if you do A + B, invariably you will get C as a result. If you do more A + more B, you get even more C!

Okay, so go ahead and download the infographic, use it in your office, post it up where you and your recruiters can easily see it or put it on your screensaver. From today, start to measure each of your deals and where they are against that checklist.

It will make a difference. I know this. This is the thing that helped me build my business, two other businesses after it, and every other recruitment business that I’ve coached and trained thereafter. Whether you use Tony Byrne’s 30 steps if you’re old school like me, whether you use the infographic I’ve given you, 39 steps, or whether you’ve got your own one, whether that’s 12 steps or 3 steps, I don’t care, stick to your process. It won’t let you down. It really won’t let you down.

Roy Ripper

The post The 39 Step Placement Process to Grow Your Recruitment Business appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

Have you ever noticed that successful people tend to breed even more success?

Motivated people tend to become even more motivated?

And that passionate people tend to get more excited?

In part one of this three part series we explored why SMART GOALS don’t work for many recruitment entreprenuers. In part two of the goal setting series, we talked about the POWER of setting yourself 90 DAY GOALS over the disappointment of consistent failure to achieve your annual goals.

In this final part of the series I am going to lift the curtain on my own personal ‘secret sauce’ goal setting formula.

This is the EXACT process that I personally used to become the highest billing recruiter in all of the recruitment businesses I worked in as well as run all of my subsequent businesses since I first developed it.

I have never shared this secret process outside of my own private coaching clients until now

…today I want to share it with you.

It starts with you creating a map showing where your recruitment business is today and to where you want it to ultimately be when you have finished working on it.

You need to gain massive clarity about how your recruitment business started, where it is right now, and where you want it to go so that you can create lasting change.

Everyone has some part of their recruitment business they want to improve — “gaps” that exist between where it is now and where you want or need it to be.

It is never too late for you to make positive changes and to attain the recruitment business of your dreams.

RECRUITMENT SX4 is the most powerful easy to implement 4 stage process I know to create the momentum and plan for your recruitment business.

SO x SPI x S/P x SI = SUCCESS₂

SO          =             Stated Outcomes

SPI         =             Strategic Performance Indicators

S/P        =             Steps/Process

SI            =             START IMMEDIATELY

Stage One – Stated Outcomes

What are the results you are looking to ultimately achieve?

Outcome goals tell you where you are trying to get. They are an end point.

Outcome goals should be something very tangible, e.g. a specific revenue or activity number.

STATED Outcomes hard wire your brain to say that YOU WILL achieve them. They DO NOT EVER include the word, TRY!

Your Stated Outcomes should be

• Specific,
• Immediately Impacting,
• Tangible
• Measurable
• …and they MUST excite you!!!

Restrict yourself to setting goals/outcomes that you can achieve within 90 days. This constraint will give you massive wins throughout your year and motivate you to set further 90 day goals as you succeed.

An example of a ‘Stated Outcome’ could be ‘I want more clients’, or ‘I want to recruit more staff to grow my recruitment agency this year ’, or I want to be recognised as the #1 recruiter within my niche area or city.

Stage Two – Strategic Performance Indicators

This is where you will choose the core strategies you’ll use to hit your ‘Outcome’. After you’ve chosen your strategies, then you determine the ‘Performance Indicator’ you want to hit in the next two weeks.

This is often the biggest reason most of us fail to deliver on goals we have set ourselves in the past. STRATEGY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS and the next stage, STEPS / PROCESS  is where you start winning.

This is the phase to establish some specific numbers.

Improvement + Measurement = Inevitability

Aim for 2 week goals to maximise your momentum.

Example:

I will call 10 clients before 10am EVERY DAY until (insert date 2 weeks from now).

Identify at least 3 Strategic Performance Indicators for every one outcome goal that you set for yourself. 

Stage Three – Steps / Process

This is where you identify the specific tasks/steps to achieve your ‘STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE INDICATOR’. You have to ask yourself (and or your team)

• Who's doing it?
• What are they doing?
• When are they doing it?
• Where is it happening?

By asking and answering these questions you will get laser focused clarity & generate massive momentum.

These are things that you can go ahead and schedule in your diary or planner.

Example: EVERY Monday I will create an excel spreadsheet of all the clients and their contact details that I plan to call that week.

OR

At 11am each day I will update my excel spreadsheet and put my results up on the office whiteboard/internal CRM

Stage Four – Start Immediately!

You must be willing to take immediate ACTION towards achieving your goals. This I believe is the real power behind successful goal setting and achievement.

Most of us have said ourselves or heard other people say at some point in their lives things like “I’m going to start going to the gym next week” or “diet starts properly tomorrow” or “next quarter I want to hit my higher commission threshold”.

The biggest gift you can give yourself TODAY/RIGHT NOW is to use the three steps I have outlined above to identify and state your outcome, set strategic performance indicators, identify the steps and process to get you achieving them and then TAKING THE FIRST STEP RIGHT NOW/TODAY.

Do not put off till tomorrow something that you can start doing immediately today. This one step on its own is so powerful and like a rolling stone will help you get terrific traction and massive momentum on achieving your 90 Day Goal.

No excuses – DO IT NOW! Or do it never! 

RECRUITMENT SX4

Stated Outcomes- desired results

Strategic Performance Indicators – strategies and measurements

Steps/Process – tasks/process (who, what, where and when are these getting done?)

START IMMEDIATELY! (write 1^st step in your schedule and DO!)

Have fun with your goal setting, share this post with your colleagues and please leave a comment with the story of your success. I love to hear about success!

The post Recruitment SX4 – My 4-step ‘Big Biller’ Goal Setting Formula for Recruiters – Part 3 of 3 appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

How many of your ANNUAL GOALS from last year did you ACTUALLY achieve?

I’m a massive believer in setting goals. Without goals, and specific plans to reach them, you are like a passenger on a bus taking the magical mystery tour.

When I first started working as a rookie recruitment consultant over 28 years ago I really struggled to deliver on the annual goals (and New Year’s resolutions) I set myself every year.

I read EVERY time management book, studied the habits of the most productive successful entrepreneurs, attended seminars, been coached / mentored by some of the best productivity gurus in the world and I have been able to work out exactly where I went wrong and I fixed it.

I can show you exactly what you need to do in order to make 2016 be the best (most productive) year EVER.

In my last post I showed you ‘why SMART GOALS don’t work’. If you haven’t yet read that then I would suggest that you read that one first by clicking here….

I’ve followed a system I created for myself back in 2001. It’s worked dramatically for me, and it’s worked dramatically for others I have shown my system to.

I’d like to share it with you and I promise it can work for you…

Set a goal that makes you start right now!

When I first started setting goals as a young recruiter, I’d set 12 month and 6 month goals. But I discovered I didn’t start doing any work on them until I had 90 days left. I’d procrastinate.

Procrastination is the killer of all goal setting. You have to set goals with a time limit that gets you taking action immediately.

I want you to think of your life in 90 day increments. Think about those things that you want to achieve in the next 90 days. Maybe you want to be in better shape, be more productive in your work, have better relationships. Choose a time period of 90 days because I want you to give yourself enough time to get something done, but not so much time that you end up procrastinating.

Don’t set yourself a goal so far away that it doesn’t affect your behaviour today. You need a goal that makes you start RIGHT NOW!

"Without goals, and specific plans to reach them, you are like a passenger on a bus taking the magical mystery tour.” – Roy Ripper

Most of our lives, we’re told what we can’t do and told what we can’t become. We get a ceiling placed over our self-belief and our aspirations.

But successful people NEVER accept that. They push themselves beyond what others tell them they can’t accomplish.

When you set goals, ask yourself this EMPOWERING question:

“What COULD I accomplish over the next 90 days that will make me feel great about myself?”

I really believe this is important: You must set goals that help you feel great about yourself. Aim to elevate yourself and your expectations.

Why? When you feel great about yourself, you act differently, you carry yourself differently, you walk with a SWAGGER. This creates a personal confidence feedback loop that changes you at such a deep level.

Ask your team or your manager how they’d feel if you were to achieve the goals over the next 90 days.

More often they will feel good about your choices, and you will get great feedback about the goals. This will enable you to hone and focus them even more.

The beauty of getting feedback is that it helps you sharpen the goals before you have even started work on them. It also pro-actively encourages your team (and/or boss) to goal set in the EXACT SAME WAY!!

Three Strategies to Help You Set Your Goals

First, stop thinking about the goals you set yourself for a day. Set them aside and IGNORE THEM when they start whispering your name just for 24 hours.

Second, come back and read each goal again, asking yourself if you would be proud of yourself when you achieve that goal.

At this point, you may decide to tweak the goal a little to aim a little higher. Not massively, but enough to affect you. Push yourself as high as you can go. The goals don’t have to be huge. They can be small steps to achieve—so long as they stretch you.

(Remember: You’re not setting these goals to make others proud. You’re doing this to make yourself proud. Once you understand this, it’s a major breakthrough in your mind.)

Third, make these goals your highest priority. Schedule action items for each goal. They’re appointments with yourself that you CANNOT and WILL NOT break.

For example, if your goal is to invest in your own learning by subscribing and listening to a motivational podcast (like Recruiters Live Lounge ) or reading one chapter of a book that helps you recruit better (Recruitment BluePrint perhaps??), and you schedule your learning at 7am every Tuesday morning, then that appointment has to be your highest priority: It NEVER gets re-scheduled or moved down the priority list. EVER.

Treat it as if it’s the most important meeting of your day, because it is. You are important and you need to start treating yourself as important from today.

Do all this, and you’ll achieve things you never dreamt were even possible.

Change Your Mindset

At the end of 90 days, you’ll have done something you’re proud of.

And you’ll realize you can do more. You’ll expect more of yourself, as will others. You’re on your way.

This is a productivity system, but more importantly it’s a change in your mindset.

But you’re not a failure if you don’t achieve all of your goals. In fact, the first time I did this, I hit only two of the six goals I set. But I was over the moon: I’d aimed at something and made tremendous progress. Then came the realisation that I could aim so much higher.

So every quarter I started to shoot higher.

For more than 28 years this EXACT system has worked for me. A large number of productive recruitment entrepreneurs, managers and recruitment consultants have adopted this exact system and found success—they’ve contacted me over the years to say so.

I promise it can work for you. It dramatically changed my life and it can change yours too.

The post How To Set Goals For Your Recruitment Business (part 2 of 3) appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

Certain times of the year we all start thinking about what we have achieved in our recruitment businesses in the year gone by and what we want to achieve for the year ahead.

For some of us that’s the end of the calendar year or beginning of a new one. For others, it coincides with our financial year end (December /March/etc) for our recruitment business.

Firstly let’s bust a massive lie that has been perpetrated by every ‘time management guru’ that ever lived who has told us - set SMART goals! Sounds easy right? It’s not though.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Bound.

A clever little management acronym first coined in the early 1980’s, SMART goal setting in my opinion has stopped people (including me) from reaching far beyond their current capabilities and hampered progress.

Those two words in the middle ‘Attainable’ and ‘Realistic’ kill dreams and cripple progress.

No outstanding achievement has ever been achieved with a SMART goal.

Mapping the human genome did not start life as SMART goal.

Mastering flight didn’t start with a SMART goal.

Theories of evolution, relativity and quantum physics did not begin as a SMART goal.

The internet, vaccinations, space travel, conquering Everest, discovering the Higgs Boson, television, radio, the wheel, and domesticated fire – none of them started with a SMART goal!

Get rid of any SMART goals you are currently working with, and instead think BIGGER!

Imagine what you could achieve if you don’t limit yourself to goals that are ‘doable’ or within your reach.

Instead, dream the impossible dream.

Imagine what your recruitment business COULD be if you were able to double, triple or even 10X it!

NEVER EVER allow your ‘small recruitment business’ to make you ‘small minded’.

In part 2 of this series I'll be talking about the 'The 90 Day Year’. I’m going to show you why setting yearly goals is the worst thing you can do for your recruitment business. And in part 3 I’ll give you my secret formula for goal setting that will see you smash it in 2016 – Recruitment SX4. 

The post Why SMART GOALS don’t work for Recruitment Entrepreneurs – Part 1 of 3 appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with some of the most amazing mentors in my career including Tony Byrne, James Caan and Ann Swain and each of them have played a significant role in my personal success.

Today, I still work with a business mentor and enjoy being a part of three different mastermind groups, in addition to having my own personal coach I meet with for one hour EVERY week.

The return on my investment (and business connections) that I receive from being a part of those groups is massive and as an added bonus some of my closest and most trusted friends come from groups like these.

You Need Help!

The truth is to become successful, you NEED help. I honestly don’t know a single successful person who didn’t receive help along the way.

One of the most common messages that come through from the guests I interview in my Recruiters Live Lounge podcast series, is that they ‘wouldn’t be where they are today, without the help and assistance they received along the way’.

Almost every single one of the success stories shared in the Recruiters Live Lounge talks about the moment they asked for help, and how for many, that was the moment that turned things around for them.

The idea of the “lone wolf”, blazing their own trail might have an alluring feel, but being too proud to seek help and guidance from others isn’t the way to go.

Personally I believe that some of the best help comes from mentors and mastermind groups.

Good mentors know what works, what doesn’t, and have contacts they are willing to share with you.

“We cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it” - Albert Einstein

People Are Always Much More Willing To Help Than You Think

If you’re in need of some guidance right now, set aside a couple of hours today and make a list of all the people you could ask for help. What do you need? Who could help you get it?

Think about:

• Personal and family contacts that might have the knowledge or skill set you are after.
• Recruitment associations such as APSCo or The REC
• Charities such as Business Debtline who offer free financial advice
• Your LinkedIn network or contacts on other social media channels
• Podcasts, Facebook groups, YouTube videos and blogs are all amazing sources of inspiration and advice - most often free!

For inspiration right now, take a look at my podcast Recruiters Live Lounge for amazing advice from some of our recruitment industry's biggest and brightest stars and leaders. They share strategies on exactly how they grew their own recruitment business and reveal the mistakes they made along the way - and how they learnt from them.

If you think personal mentoring, or group coaching is for you, then feel to get in touch with me directly at roy@royripper.com.

The post How to get the help you need for your recruitment business appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

Goals are the most powerful management and training tools that we have as recruiters.

Unfortunately most recruitment business owners misuse them so much they become totally ineffective.

We often wait until the second or third month to set goals for our new (rookie) recruiter…

…we call him or her into our office, ask them how much they want to earn this year.

The new recruiter says “£50k” and we then tell them they need to invoice £150k this year and in order to do that they need to generate 20 send outs (1st interviews) a month…

…the rookie recruiter says “I can do that”.

We send them back to their desk and then check in one week later.

She only got one Send Out.

We tell her that she’s way off and she needs to make at least 5 interviews a week to reach her monthly goal...

...she says “I know, I’ll try harder next week and make up the deficit”.

We check in again one week later and this time she has no send outs.

Your rookie convinces you she will work harder the following week and keeps missing the goal.

We keep sending her back to her desk and she keeps missing the target – INSANE!

Here Is My Exact Process For How You Should  Set Goals

• A new recruiter should attempt 75 calls per day. This can be any combination of recruiting and marketing calls.
• They should complete (or connect with) 25 calls and spend at least 4 hours per day on the phone.
• For the first three months of their time with you the new recruiter should also have:
  • specific goals for gaining complete job orders (requirements)
  • sourcing and registering new candidates
  • presenting candidates to client companies
  • booking Send Outs (1st Interviews) with clients
• By month three the rookie recruiter should be given a production goal (monthly revenue target). If your new recruit is achieving early activity goals, achieving the production goal will be relatively automatic and easy.
• Getting new recruiters into daily habits of having to achieve high activity figures sets the tone and pace of their entire future career. Better to start with the bar set high and then lower later on if you have to.
• If your new recruiter fails to achieve his or her goals there are only four possible reasons;
  • the goal is too high
  • the recruitment training is not good enough
  • the recruiter is incapable of meeting the goal
  • the recruiter is unwilling to meet the goal
• If the goal is too high, lower it. If the training is not good enough, improve it. If the recruiter is incapable or unwilling, FIRE THEM! (or send them to work for your biggest competitor)

Never Permit New Recruiters To Negotiate Goals – YOU SET THEM!

The key to meeting goals on a yearly basis is to meet them on a monthly, weekly and daily basis first.

When goals are first set for a rookie recruiter they should be relatively easy to achieve – number of phone calls attempted per day.  By the second week the recruiter has to have a more difficult goal to hit – one Send Out.

The recruitment manager or mentor has to ensure that the rookie achieves this goal (even if they have to ‘help’ to make it happen.

By the end of the first month, the rookie recruiter will be so conditioned to meeting goals that he sets and meets his own goals on a daily basis.

In order to make this happen a manager must help set and monitor the new recruiter’s goals EVERY day for the first two months of their career.

The post How To Set Goals For Recruiters appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

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Download the free audio of this episode from SoundCloud

When should the training start for my new recruiter?

Training brand new recruiters or rookies, does not start on their first day with you…

…their learning starts on the day that they accept your offer to come and work for your recruitment business.

When your new recruiters accepts your offer to come and work for you, I want you to assign books for him or her to read by the time they start working with you.

Get them reading and self-learning

If you’re a medium-sized recruitment business, buy the books and get them sent by post to your new recruiter or buy the books and give them to them physically when they turn up to pick up their offer letter or meet the team.

If you’re a small recruitment business and you can’t afford to buy them, that’s ok.  Maybe it’s a hoop you get them to jump through.  So, “Look, I’m going to give you a reading list, I’ll expect you to purchase these books, Kindle or hardback, and I would like you to have read these books by the time you come to work with us.”

Recruitment Training: Book #1

The first book that I would definitely have for a brand new rookie coming in to our recruitment industry is The Professional Recruiter’s Handbook. It’s written by Ann Swain, she’s the CEO of APSCo, The Association of Professional Staffing Companies.  An amazing woman, and one of my earliest mentors.

Ann Swain co-wrote this book with Jane Newell Brown, again, a very, very accomplished recruiter and an author.  This book, it’s called The Professional Recruiter’s Handbook, Delivering Excellence in Recruitment Practice.  It’s a great book to give your recruitment rookies.

Recruitment Training: Book #2

The second book, and you’re going to have to forgive me for the blatant plug on this one.  I’ve written my own book, and it’s a great book.  If you haven’t got the book you need to get it!  It is called, ‘Recruitment Blueprint:  Control the Deal and Make More Placements’. It’s available as a Kindle download from all good digital stores.

Recruitment Training: Book #3

The third book you should give them is your training or your operations manual.  Anything that you can get your rookie recruiter to be consuming to get into the groove before they come work for you, you should get them to read or prepare before they come to work for you.

Recruitment Training: Book #4

There’s just one final book. It’s along the same lines as Professional Recruiter’s Handbook and Recruitment Blueprint.  It’s called 'The Rich Recruiter'.  It’s available on Amazon, and it’s written by Andrew Leong.

It's Not Optional

Make this an assignment to be completed.

It’s not a suggestion, it’s not optional, it’s not a suggested reading list.

It’s an exercise to be completed. It’s an assignment that you give to these people before they come and work for you.

The reason why this is so important is because, the patterns of behaviour for a new recruiter’s whole career, are established during those first 30 days of working.

Establish The Right Patterns Of Behaviour

The patterns of behaviour for a recruiter’s entire career are established, they’re laid down during that first month of working in your recruitment business, or someone else’s recruitment business.

So if you’ve taken on someone that maybe did their first 30 days somewhere else, guess what?

Whatever pattern of behaviour was established there, that’s the one they’re going to have for the rest of their career.  Sure as eggs is eggs, that’s what happens.

Remember, 27 years of doing this, that’s exactly what I’ve seen.

Start Making Demands Of Your New Recruiter IMMEDIATELY!

Let me tell you why, most recruitment business owners that I speak to don’t start making demands on their rookies until month 2 or 3.

I know I  because I did that too.

I took the opinion, “Well, okay, they’re brand new, let’s let them shadow someone, they’re in training.”

Four weeks I would write off.  I would do training, but I wouldn’t think about activity.

And that’s a real shame, because we don’t start putting any demands on them until month two or three.

We don’t start setting high goals or demanding high productivity until the recruitment rookie’s already got into the habit of delivering low productivity.

It’s like in that first four weeks, traditionally, we let them ease in, don’t we?  We don’t want to scare the rookie recruiter.

“Oh my goodness, we don’t want to introduce them to new business because they might really freak out.”

Why do recruitment business owners, too many of us, why do we feel compelled to ease people into something?

We shouldn’t be doing that.  What we’re doing is damaging those recruiters.

We are setting a pattern of low productivity, low expectation from that first 30 days in training.

Ask For Commitment From Your New Recruiter

If you think about you as a new person, when you join something new, when we first went to school, when we get into a new relationship...

...you are never more willing to commit than that first day, are you?  

Think about it.

Your new recruiter’s exactly the same.

They are never more willing or keen to commit to high, hard work and, disciplined work habits and high productivity as they are on that very first day of working with you.

That’s the time for you to start making demands, not after month two or three.

Set The Right Targets

The objective of traditional recruitment skills training is to show a rookie recruiter how to make placements by getting send-outs or first (client/candidate) interviews.

What I want to do is change the spin on that...

...and this is where you’re going to get ahead of your competitors.  

Don’t put the emphasis on making placements.

Put the emphasis on send-outs.

Put the emphasis on first interviews, and not the placements.

Think arrows, or darts, not the target.  We need more arrows, that’s what we want.  Arrows are going to give us more chances of hitting targets, and that’s the key.

Annual Production Goals For Recruiters - WRONG!

Traditionally a recruitment business owner sets a production goal, like a revenue goal, for the rookie recruiter during his or her second or third month.

So it’s an annual revenue target.  In the second or third month they say, “Well done, rookie, you passed your probation, now what we want you to do is we want you to do ‘X’.”

Some really keyed-up recruitment business owners, this is what I know they do, they say, “What do you want to earn this year, rookie?”  And the rookie says, “Uh, £50,000,” or whatever your currency is, whatever the figure is, the rookie gives them a figure.  So the owner says, “Well, in order to earn 50k, you need to invoice 100k this year,” £100,000  in recruitment fees.  So the rookie’s sights are set on producing 100k.

I’m going to show you something really, really key.

The rookie’s sights are set on this 100k, (insert your own figures they’re all relative).  The rookie works as hard as she can to achieve that goal, let’s say, by getting, 15 interviews a month.

Then, during her second year, she sets the same production goal of 100k. She says, “Look, I did 100k, £50,000,” or whatever, depending on the packages and what have you.  “I’ve earned £50,000, I’ve done really, really well.  I was a graduate, I’ve just earned 50,000, that’s pretty good.

So this year, my second year, I’m going to do another 100K so I can get another 50K.”  But this time she’s a better recruiter, and this time she does it with 12 send-outs a month.  Do you remember she did it with 15 last year, second year she’s doing this same figure, but she’s doing it better, so she’s doing it in less send-outs, 12 first interviews a month.

The third year, now she’s conditioned to set only production goals or revenue goals, she aims for the same 100k, but now she does it with 9 first interviews a month.  As she becomes more and more skilled, she just keeps doing the same production with fewer and fewer send-outs.

And for me that’s mad!

I’ve seen that too often. I used to do it with my recruitment rookies, a few £100k, you’ll earn this, do £150k, you’ll do this. Always about these annual goals.

And I learned it was wrong!

Activity Goals For Recruiters - RIGHT!

What’s the right way?

The way to set goals with a view toward long term production increases is to set activity goals.  Now this is something I talk about with my Recruitment Masterminds private coaching group all the time.

I’m not saying, “Forget about revenue.”  That would be madness for a recruitment business owner.

Don’t forget about revenue, certainly don’t ever forget about profit.   But what I want you to do is to set activity goals for the recruiter.

Focus your recruiter on send-outs or first interviews only.

From the day that she starts, the rookie recruitment consultant should measure her self-worth in terms of the number of send-outs she gets.

So if you can condition her to get 20 send-outs a month every single month, remember that’s just 5 a week. It’s an interview a day.

Set your recruitment rookie 1 interview a day, or 1 send out a day, that’s not an outrageous target, surely.

Think about it.

Condition Your Rookie Recruiter

If you can condition your rookie recruiter to get 20 send-outs a month every single month, then she may still bill 100k in that first year.

But here is where is gets interesting, the second year, and as she improves, that same 20 send-outs a month will deliver 160k.  (Again, insert your own figures here.)

The third year is going to give you, or give her, £250,000 worth of revenues. When she becomes better and better, a consistent number of send-outs is going to yield higher and higher billings.

You get it, right?  You’ve got to set the expectation.

If you set it,  from the very beginning, it’s 20 send-outs a month, for everyone in your recruitment business, that’s the figure that we measure people, that’s the figure that people think about their own self-worth.

The problem that we have as an industry is we bring rookies in and what do they do?  They look up at us, they look at our seniors, they look at consultants that have been in the business a year, and they see those people not doing 20 send- outs a month.

They see those people, it’s like “Wow, this person just makes 2 interviews a month, and he’s making a fortune.  He’s making £200,000 a year.” “That’s what I’m going to do.”

What we do is we condition low activity, and high production, put the emphasis on the production goal.

Keep it on activity.

The post How To Train Recruitment Consultants appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

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I’d like to tell you about a very powerful free recruitment training tool, that you’ve got available to you right now.

This is a real tool that you’ve got and it’s the best recruitment training tool available to you, and it’s free!

Training Your Rookie – And Then They Leave!

Training, as a manager, as a business owner, as a director, takes a massive commitment of your time and your energy.

It really does…trust me, this is what I do for a living.

I train recruiters and I know how tiring it is and how frustrating it can be.  It takes up a whole lot of time, energy and effort…

…and sometimes it feels a little bit wasted, because your brand new rookie recruitment consultant drops out and leaves within the probation period, leaving you thinking, “Oh my goodness.  I’ve just wasted 3 weeks of my time on their induction!” 

How Do You Currently Onboard Your New Recruiters?

Many recruitment managers, begin to train new recruiters with, how can I say this kindly, less enthusiasm and less effort than is really required.   You know what I’m talking about.  If that’s you, look, I understand. I’ve been there.  We all understand.

Instead of demonstrating technique to the new recruiter, we give them printed handouts to read.

It’s like, “Oh, god, the rookie’s in.  Here’s some handouts.  Here you go.  If you have any questions, come back to me at the end of the day.”

Not good.

Instead of role playing with the rookie, they tell them, “Go over there to sit with and listen to Jane.  She’s one of our most senior recruitment consultants in here.”

And again, that’s not good, because they’re not getting a chance to role play with you.

Yeah, they can go sit with Jane, and that’s good training in itself, mentor time training.

But you can’t absolve yourself of the responsibility.  You can delegate, sure.  But you cannot absolve yourself of the responsibility for recruitment training.

Now if you’re fortunate and have a large companies, you have people internally to do this.  That’s fine, but you still ultimately hold responsibility.  So you need to check that your managers that are responsible for recruitment induction training have got that enthusiasm and energy because…

…the first 30 days as a new recruitment consultant are key.

Instead of feeding the consultant with new candidates or client jobs, we convince ourselves that it’s better for the rookie to learn from the school of hard knocks.

“Never did me any harm.  Sink or swim, that’s what I say.”

And that’s rubbish, again.  It’s an apathetic attitude to training.

Apathy towards recruitment skills training is one of the biggest things that contributes to the high rate of failure within many recruitment businesses.

Think about our turnover of recruitment consultants in our industry.  It’s horrendous.  We can’t argue as an industry that it’s, “Oh, well, these people aren’t very good.”  We choose them!

And let’s face it, that’s our job!  Our job is to recruit people for other people.  We get paid for that.

There’s an irony in our industry that when we hire people for our own businesses,  it all goes so horribly wrong!

The Most Powerful Free Recruitment Training Tool You Already Have

What I want to share with you, is what I call “War Stories,” or “Deal Story Archives.”

It’s an archive of successful deals or placements.

So what exactly do you have to do?

The next time someone does a deal in your office,  I want you to call that person into a room, switch the camera in your smart phone on, and I want you to ask them to tell the story of the placement they’ve just done in 5 minutes or less.

Film the consultant for 5 minutes or less and ask them to talk about the deal they’ve just done, the placement they’ve just made, following a format such as:

• I have just placed [name of candidate] as a [job title] with my client [name of client].
• My client is [describe brief background of client]
• I won this assignment on [insert date you picked up requirement] by [describe how you won the opportunity to work with the client] i.e. repeat business, cold call, following a meeting, marketing a hot candidate, etc.

Go on to talk about how you sourced the candidate and describe the interview, offer and acceptance process in as much detail as possible.
The single biggest thing I learned from this successful placement is: describe anything that you will add to your future recruitment process or anything that you will resolve not to do again in the future.

Ask them to tell you the things that they learned from doing it, and the process they took to get there.

So for example,

“I’ve just placed the Senior Marketing Manager of Coca Cola.  It was a real tough assignment.  The client had seen 5 candidates from us.  They rejected all 5.  This guy went in there, the final time.  They really, really liked him.  The client had to pay $2,000 more on salary just to land the guy.  Candidate’s accepted.  Starts next Tuesday.”

That’s it.  That’s what you want to do.

Every single time you or one of your members of staff makes a placement, get it on camera.

(I would suggest to download them from your phone to a shared hard drive because if you lose your iPhone and all that stuff’s lost you’ll be kicking yourself.)

When a rookie recruiter comes to work for you, here’s the deal.  This is your most amazing, most powerful, free recruitment training tool that you’ve got…

…send the rookie recruiter home every night with 10 ‘deal stories’, ‘war stories’, ‘successful placements’ on a jump drive, iPad, tablet etc.

Your rookie recruiter is soon going to realise that the process is actually very manageable.  He or she will begin to realise that within any one placement there are maybe four or five key steps that are important. That’s what they will learn.

The stories teach contingencies that come up in real life, and that we don’t ever teach.  

As good a recruitment trainer as I am, I can’t produce that kind of material for you.  That’s gold.

That’s gold in your office.

If you don’t start doing this, you are missing out on a fortune.

You’ve got all of that brilliant recruitment training material.  Your rookie recruiter will go home, and he or she will watch 10 of these.  It’s their homework.  They don’t have to write anything.  Just watch these things.

Why Is This So Powerful, Why Is It So Good?

You can show your new recruiters training videos and professional training programmes explaining the recruitment process  and how it should be done.  But...

...how powerful is it for that rookie to see somebody that they see every single day in their office explaining how they are achieving their success, what steps they take to close a deal?

Somebody that’s probably really close to them in terms of,

“This recruiter’s only two years older than me, she’s got the same qualifications as me, she’s not working a really dynamic niche market, she’s working the same specialist desk as me. And she is successful.”

What you find is that that training material makes the person that’s watching it feel that it’s achievable.

This is so, so powerful, and very few recruitment businesses do it.

These things will differentiate you. People love being filmed, I’ve seen it work in recruitment offices, they love being the star of their own show.  You know, the Andy Warhol 5 minutes of fame thing.

Everyone loves doing this.

The good thing is that these war stories teach them stuff that doesn’t really happen on any other recruitment training video.

It’s real life stuff.  It’s real.  It’s unique to your marketplace.  Go do it today!

The post How To Train Recruiters Using This Free Recruitment Training Tool appeared first on Roy Ripper | Learn How to Grow a Successful and Profitable Recruitment Business.

The Killer Strategy

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Summary:

I’ve previously mentioned in this blog series on ‘How to Recruit Superstar For Your Recruitment Business’, that the 1 challenge faced by recruitment business owners today is finding, recruiting, training, motivating and retaining great recruiters.

In part 1 of the series I showed you how you can learn from the 7 biggest howlers that I’vemade in my recruiting career and in part 2 I shared the 9 killer questions that you must ask when recruiting recruiters.

In this final part, I’m going to give you one killer strategy that I’ve used to determine winners and losers during interview. I never, ever, ever leave this strategy out.

One Killer Strategy from Tony Bryne

I told you in part 1 about some of my amazing mentors, who helped shape my early recruiting career. I learned so many things from each of them, but one thing that sticks in my mind, of all of the things they taught me, is this killer strategy that Tony Byrne gave me and that I want to share with you today.

When you’re interviewing a potential new recruiter for your business, whether you’ve asked them 9 Killer Questions or whether you’ve got your own format.  Once you have finished that part of the interview, then I want you to  give them a work test. Now that sounds really boring. You’re thinking, “Oh my God. This was the killer strategy? You’re going to get them in front of a computer to type a few words?” No. This is a work test on steroids.

Work Test on Steroids

Give the rookie a complete job brief. Now you veteran recruiters, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want a job description. I don’t want War and Peace. I don’t want a four line job description that the client has sent over.

I want a complete recruitment brief. If you have got my book ‘Recruitment Blueprint’ (for theUSA) then you have a template in there. It is called the client brief.  This client brief has lots of information, full of detail and information. Give them the job brief or client brief. Get them to read it.

Give the rookie fifteen CVs of candidates on your CRM, on your database, that could do the job. I want you to make it really easy for them. Give them the job brief, the 15 CVs and I also want you to give them a mini-script.

Before you give them the script,  look at your own job brief and write down two to three reasons why the opportunity is brilliant that you’ve given them. Make it really easy so that the rookie can just literally read these two to three reasons. You know the stuff I’m talking about.

“This is a brilliant opportunity for someone to join a company at ground level. Within three years, they’ll own a chunk of equity. This is a great opportunity for someone looking to establish themselves in this growing marketplace, green field opportunity etc.”

Here is the script –

“Hi (insert candidate name)

I’m a research assistant for (your name) and (your name)  is doing a search for a (insert job title.)He’s asked me to give you a call because you might know someone who would be a good candidate for this position.”

The Most Important Final Four Words

Then have the rookie sell them two to three reasons, the reasons you’ve given them why the role is good, why the opportunity is good. They pre-fix those reasons with the intro script above. Then their outro statement is just four words.

The final four words are, you’ve probably guess them, “Who do you know?” Not, “Do you know somebody?” It’s a closed question. I’m not anti-closed questions. They’re great when you want to close someone but “who do you know” is a lovely open question. It will get you hopefully lots of lovely open information. Let’s give this person the best chance.

Wow!

The way that I set this work test up with the rookie is, I’ll say to them, “Look I’m actually going to get you to be a recruiter for the next half an hour.” They’re like, “Wow.” A bit scared, a bit of intrepidation but “Wow.” This isn’t me grilling them in an interview and shining a light in their eyes and saying, “Show me the inside of this ping pong ball.” This is a work test and I want to see them perform.

This is much better than any artificial role play. You know the ones, “Sell this position to me.” That’s not bad, but this is better. Are you expecting results? No, if they get one, that’s a bonus. Don’t just take someone one because they spoke to 15 people and they got all 15 people interested. There’s something about them but don’t take that as they’re absolutely brilliant. Still quiz it and challenge it.

Just jump straight in

Conversely, if the person doesn’t convert any of them? You’re not looking for a direct result in order to take them on. Don’t expect perfection. What you’re looking for is someone who gets on and picks the phone up. I love watching people do this exercise because some of them will be like brilliant, thank you for that. Read, read, read, right. Where’s the phone? Picking it up, dialing. They just jump straight in, fearless, know no fear. They don’t care if they make an absolute ass of themselves. They’re just going to play full out. I can work with that.

Look for Aptitude

Don’t expect perfection because you and I together, we can train that. Look for aptitude. Look for confidence. Look for enthusiasm because those are traits, those are characteristics. Skills, recruitment skills, we can teach those. You and I together can teach those. The book that I mentioned earlier ‘Recruitment Blueprint’ has instruction in terms of how to do that but the whole reason for doing the work test is so that you can see the rookie’s aptitude and confidence – that’s what you’re looking for.

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