Quarterly business planning or “you running your business… not your business running you!”

Quarterly business plans (QBPs) work so well in recruitment. As with the four seasons, recruitment trends change considerably throughout the year, so planning in detail for more than 3 months at a time, can sometimes be counter productive.

Too often recruitment consultants (and managers and directors sometimes) are working day to day on their business and either don’t have or don’t take the time to step back and review what’s happening to be able to plan ahead. What happens is whatever the business dictates. This usually means inconsistency in the results and revenue going up and down from month to month.

In the last blog post – “To KPI or not to KPI…”, I reviewed that the figures can be your ally… but you’ve got to use them. So with QBPs, one of the most important parts is to analyse the activities and statistics that you’ve gained over the previous 3 months and put them into the first part 1 of your QBP using the topics that I’ve detailed below. Then repeat, but as a plan for the next 3 months.  This is covered in more detail in another of my posts – People do what you ‘inspect’, not what you ‘expect’.

The key is that you’re always planning ahead, based on the statistics and trends from your previous work. Once you have planned for your next three months, it’s important that you have checkpoints along the way to be able to identify if you’re on track. These checkpoints are your monthly Performance Reviews.

So not surprisingly, a lot of your QBP will be based around the information that you’ve gathered and created for your monthly Performance Review (click for more details).

QBP headings

1. Performance objectives
2. Revenue
3. Activities
4. KPIs / SWOT analysis
5. Client and Candidate plans
6. Training

… and then we add a couple more.

7. Special projects

These should involve things that are not in your day to day job description. They could be organising a networking event, attending a conference, being responsible for an internal company competition, organising a charity day, mentoring a new starter etc.

8. Vision

Although we’ve talked about detailing your plans over a quarter, you should have an overview of your ‘vision’ for the year ahead. You then review this on a quarterly basis to make sure that it’s still where you want to be going!

So start your first QBP by writing out what you want your desk / business to be like by the end of the next 12 months. Include things such as what you want your clients and customers to be saying about your desk / business, what levels of business you want to be doing and what would make you feel proud, if you achieved it.

9. Dates and actions

Make sure that you plan the dates for the next two Performance Reviews and the following QBP review and then sign to confirm that they’re in the diary.

Any actions and agreements should be written up (by yourself) within 48 hours or your QBP review and copied in to your manager. You’re now set to start your next quarter… ahead of the game.

I would recommend that 90 minutes is allocated for a QBP review and 60 minutes for a monthly performance review. They key is to have the information available for your manager 2 days before, so they can peruse it and then have a considered conversation with you about key parts of the plan.

Angela Cripps, MD Connemara UK

 

12 Management Competencies – Strategic Planning

This is the second in a series of posts detailing The 12 Competencies of a Manager. Each week I will expand on the definition given with information on what the competency means in real terms, as well as hints and tips for managers.

2. Strategic Planning 

Definition:  Creates a clear, long-term direction for every aspect of their business. Ensures that plans dovetail together and are broken down into medium and short-term steps. Identifies appropriate resources required and contingencies needed. Gains total commitment to plan through shared understanding and a disciplined approach.

I’m a great advocate of Roger D’Aprix’s Manager’s communication model. Of the 6 questions, strategic planning can help to answer nearly all of them.

Initially, it looks as if only No. 5 “Where are we heading?” is covered. Then, when you look deeper into the definition, you see that by identifying the correct resources, a clear job description (1) for staff would be part of this. By breaking the plan down in smaller chunks, individuals would know how they are doing (2) against the plan.

The shared understanding covers points 3 and 4, so all that’s left is point 6 “How can I help?”

What a lovely position to be in, all from carrying out one competency well.

So, what needs to happen in real terms to make this a reality?

1. Create a Vision and make sure that it’s something that your team can question their activities around. i.e. “Is what I’m doing going to help us to achieve our vision?”

2. Identify the values of the business/team by utilising the knowledge of the individuals in the business/team. You can do this by asking them what the culture of the business/team is and what it means to them. Get them to come up with 10 words to describe how it feels. Look at the top 5 repeated words… if this is not how you want your business to be described, then you need to work on the culture before you can finally determine the values.

3. Create a list of key objectives that you will need to achieve, to be able to realise the Vision. This may be increases in staff numbers, new positions created, office moves, new locations opened up, moves into new markets, turnover, profit levels, staff attrition rates, cost savings etc. These need to be broken down into medium and short term targets.

4. Share the Vision, Values and Key Objectives with the team and update them on a regular basis – ideally quarterly. It works both ways – they update you on their plans at least quarterly as well.

5. Ask the team members for their contribution. What can they do to make sure that the above happens? This way, everyone is working towards the same objectives and the plans all link together. Too many managers don’t share enough and certainly don’t update their teams regularly. With everyone in the business now having a Quarterly Business Plan (QBP) that works towards achieving the company’s / team’s business plan, you are now all pulling in the same direction and much more likely to achieve.

So, as the manager, you are responsible for driving the Strategic Planning, but it’s not all down to you to achieve the plan – you can’t do this without the input of your team.

There are 12 posts altogether in this series, with an addition of the original overview post that details all of the management competencies. I hope they’ll be beneficial for you. For the original post with a snapshot of all of the competencies covered in this series, click here – The 12 Competencies of a Manager

The full series of posts: –

1. Management Competencies – Analysing the Business

2. Management Competencies – Strategic Planning

3. Management Competencies – Monitoring the Business

4. Management Competencies – Meeting Goals

5. Management Competencies – Building profitability

6. Management Competencies – Customer Relationship

7. Management Competencies – Team Priorities

8. Management Competencies – High Business Performance

9. Management Competencies – Team Development

10. Management Competencies – Communication

11. Management Competencies – Sales opportunities

12. Management Competencies – Perseverance

Angela Cripps MD, Connemara UK

http://www.connemarauk.com

11. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Maintaining a high level of business performance

11. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Maintaining a high level of business performance

This blog is written to aid both managers when recruiting and appraising staff as well as consultants in the recruitment industry, so that they can determine their own level of competence in what they do.

This is the 11th post in a series of twelve. For the links to previous competencies that I’ve already covered, please find them at the end of this post.

11. Maintaining a high level of business performance

When working in recruitment, it is likely that your company will have minimum acceptable standards (MAS) in relation to the way you behave, activities that you need to perform, as well as the results expected. This is the baseline to which targets will then be set.

As a sales person, you shouldn’t be happy with just achieving your target and you certainly shouldn’t be happy with just being above the minimum. You should always be enhancing the targets (stretch targets) for your own higher personal standards. Don’t accept the minimum – always try to stretch yourself and do better than before. Great consultants want to be the best.

 

Purpose: – The purpose for a recruitment consultant is to have the ability to operate independently of others with high personal standards.  They should be constantly looking to learn and stretch themselves against business targets.

 

1.  Tell me about a time when you have had to set your own standards?

a)    What standards did you set?

b)    What areas did you consider when setting the standards?

c)    What impact did the standards have on your business and/or relationships

2.  Describe a situation whereby you have been extremely successful in something:

a)    What was the situation?

b)    How specifically did you achieve the success?

c)    What did you learn from the experience?

3.  Explain in what way you have been a role model to others:

a)    How did you set an example to others?

b)    What impact did you have on others as a result of setting the example?

c)    What was others perception of you as a role model?

 

High level of competence shown: –

• Recognises the need that to maintain a high level of performance requires identification and action of their own personal developmental needs
• Recognises the importance of role modelling within the business
• Appreciates that own performance depends on that of others and operates with this in mind, to maintain high standards throughout the business
• Constantly strives to achieve more than what is expected

Sir Clive Woodward talks about T-CUP. Thinking Correctly Under Pressure. (Watch the 2004 Mens Synchronised diving championship final). When the going gets tough, what training have you had to already prepare for the unexpected. Maintaining your performance whatever, is a highly competent recruitment consultant.

Each week I’m tackling a new competency and I will follow the same format of purpose, questions and three examples of what a high level of that competency would look like.

For the original post with a snapshot of all of the competencies that have been covered this summer, click here – The Key Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant.

1. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Planning
2. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Monitoring
3. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Analysing
4. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Sales opportunities
5. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Meeting Goals
6. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Building Profitability
7. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Communication
8. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Team Priorities
9. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Development of others
10. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Client Relationship

Angela Cripps, Connemara UK

http://www.connemarauk.com

5. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Meeting Goals

This blog is written to aid both managers and consultants in the recruitment industry. This is the 5th post in a series of twelve. For the links to previous competencies that I’ve already covered, please see the end of this post.

5. Meeting Goals

A ‘goal’ is described in the dictionary as ‘the purpose toward which an endeavour is directed; an objective’. So, meeting that goal is achieving that purpose… always a great feeling. For recruiters this typically means finding ‘people for jobs and jobs for people’.

So how many consultants actually set themselves goals?

The majority of recruitment companies set their staff revenue targets, some will then set KPIs and performance objectives, but leave their consultants to work out how they are going to achieve them. There’s no wrong or right way to go about things – as long as the consultant has clear objectives to achieve with specific timelines and mini targets along the way to make sure that they know they are on the right track. 

I do a lot of performance management training and I would say the consistent factor that I come across with businesses is that although there are goals set, there are no consequences for NOT meeting those goals. Is this your business too? People therefore tend to see ‘performance management’ as something that happens when someone’s not doing so well. No wonder it’s not seen in a positive light by all. PM should be a consistent throughout the business to support everyone daily in achieving their goals – whatever they are.

Purpose: – The purpose for a recruitment consultant is maintain urgency in their decision making process, in particular that of day to day tasks and implementing the activity consistently to achieve the overall goals longer term.

Questions to determine the meeting goals competence: –

1.  Tell me about a time when you have had to make an urgent decision:

a) What happened?

b) How did you come to make the decision that you did?

c) How did your decision impact on your business/team?

2.  Give an example of a time when you have successfully achieved a difficult goal?

a) What decision making process did you go through?

b) What action did you take?

c) How did you communicate that action to others?

3.  Explain about a time when you have had to make a difficult decision to achieve one of your goals:

a) What happened?

b) How did you communicate the decision to the people it affected?

c) How did you display urgency in the process?

High level of competence shown: –

• • • Maintains pace and urgency throughout the decision making process, with attention to the end result foremost in their mind
    • Identifies potential opportunities to take decisions and takes immediate action
    • Engages others by offering alternatives prior to the decision making process through use of knowledge of the clients business and the market place

Each week I’m tackling a new competency and I will follow the same format of purpose, questions and three examples of what a high level of that competency would look like.

For the original post with a snapshot of all of the competencies I will be covering this summer, click here – The Key Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant.

1. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Planning
2. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Monitoring
3. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Analysing
4. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Sales opportunities

 Angela Cripps, Connemara UK

11. Performance Reviews – What’s the point?

We’re coming to the end of the series “So you’ve become a recruitment consultant…” and hopefully you’re working for a company that performs regular performance reviews with its staff. It’s important that you put the work in to make sure that this activity is beneficial for all and can also determine your future business planning (more on this next week).

I do come across businesses that don’t perform performance reviews and the common comment from them is “what’s the point?”

Well, I must admit I do enjoy a challenge and when faced with this question I have to make sure that I don’t give it to them with ‘both barrels’ and ask key questions instead.

1. How do you monitor how your staff are performing?
2. How do you know whether your company is going to achieve its objectives or not?
3. How do you determine the members of staff that require extra support and training?
4. How do praise staff for over achieving?
5. How do you motivate your staff to increase their activities and abilities?
6. How do you make sure that your staff have the opportunity to talk about their business and any issues that they are having?
7. How do you determine strengths and development areas for the company?
8. How do you establish what company wide training is needed?
9. How do you set incentives and competitions based on where the development areas of the business are?
10. How do you show that your care about them and their business?

You get the drift. Performance reviews will do all this… and more.

So as a new consultant, how can you help?

Well a couple of weeks ago we looked at analysing and monitoring your activities and results in the post People do what you ‘inspect’, not what you ‘expect’. It’s important that you are recording your activities and working out your ratios on a weekly and monthly basis.  At the end of the month once all of the figures and revenue is confirmed, then you can establish your areas of strengths and areas for development.

If your company doesn’t perform monthly performance reviews, then for you to be able to plan your business in the future, I suggest that you do your own reviews anyway.

Key elements of a performance review

 1.    Performance objectives

What have you achieved in relation to last months objectives and what do you want to achieve during the coming month, whether it’s an increase in average client base, increase of billable hours, x number of new clients etc.

2.    Revenue target

Review achievement from last month and then set the target of how much money you need to make next month to be on target for the year.

3.    Activity Target

From working out your ratios from activities that you performed last month, to using those ratios to determine the activity levels that you need to achieve this month to hit revenue target.

4.   Client and Candidate plans

What have you done last month and what are you going to do this month in relation to attraction of new customers and retention of current ones. It’s important to not just focus on clients here, but to link your candidate plans to your client plans, so that when the business comes in, you’re ready with the right candidates already registered.

5.    KPIs

Point 3 will determine your key performance indicators of 5 or so indicators that are key to knowing if your performance is on track with your objectives.

6.    Training

What training did you receive in the last month, what was your learning, what actions did you put into practice and what impact has it had on your business? Detail this and you can then ask for future training based on your development areas. If your boss can’t see any progression from previous training, then you are unlikely to get more.

 

Next week we’ll look at QBPs (Quarterly Business Plans) in advance of your probationary appraisal and how you can make sure that you not only impress your boss, but are ready for your next 3 months.

Angela Cripps, Connemara UK

8. The Key Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant

This is post 8 in a series of 13 that document the first 3 months of the life of a recruitment consultant and we’re already nearly 2/3rds of the way through. I thought it was a good time to reflect and look at how well you’re doing so far, in relation to “So you’ve become a recruitment consultant…”

The key competencies that you require as a recruitment consultant highlight why this job is not as easy as people think. There are so many elements to it, that it’s hard to pick 4 or 5 key competencies, as you would with most jobs. In recruitment, there are 12 that are nearly all as important as the others when you’re a 360^o consultant and many years ago I was involved with the team that spent 6 months creating them.

The aim of sharing these competencies is for you to analyse your own abilities and focus on some improvement areas over the coming months.  We can’t all be perfect, but we can all be striving to be better in what we do. Each of the following 12 have been expanded on, so I’ve added a link to each heading.

1. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Planning

No surprise here for people who read my posts! Planning is the key to being a successful consultant and it’s not just planning your day. Plan for where you want to be in a year’s time, what your objectives are and how you are going to achieve them on a quarterly basis. Plan your calls and your meetings, plan your candidate and client attraction and retention plans… I could go on, but you get the idea. If you want more detail, then this post tackled a lot of the planning issue in part 4. Organisation through Time Management and Prioritisation

2. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Monitoring

Once you’ve done all of that planning, there’s no point in then not following through. Make sure that you have robust monitoring processes – whether that’s a fantastic IT system that will do it for you and produce the results/reports, or just simply, a pen and paper with which you record all of your activities and results. Whichever works for you, as there is no right or wrong when monitoring as long as you do it and you do it consistently and thoroughly.

3. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Analysing

Now you’ve got the detail from your monitoring, you have to take time out to work out what it all actually means. So many people will perform a SWOT analysis and then not do anything with the results. The analysis is what drives your future plans. For example, once you have been making sales calls to clients and monitoring the results, you can then work out your hit ratios. How many calls does it take to get a meeting or a job on? Then follow on with how many CVs do you need to send to each job to get an interview? How many interviews does it take to get an offer and how many offers to get a confirmed starter etc.? This way you’ll know whether you’re working smarter instead of harder as you go through your career.

4. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Sales opportunities

This competency isn’t just about being good at sales; some of the others enhance that ability, such as communication. Sales opportunities is about spotting the prospect – whether that is a client, candidate or position. It’s about being aware of what’s going on with a client, candidate and even your marketplace so that you are ahead of the competition and calling the right person at the right time. For more detail see post 6 Communication within Sales

5. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Meeting Goals

Recruitment is a very goals orientated business. This competency speaks for itself. Have goals and plan how to achieve them. Monitor what you do and analyse the results regularly to make sure you’re on track and if not, adapt your plan if it‘s not working and re-focus. ‘Simples!’

6. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Building Profitability

Anyone can do business if you are ‘giving it away’ or ‘buying your business’. Making sure that the deal that you strike is profitable for you and your company, whilst making sure that the candidate gets the market rate all whilst being sensitive to the client’s costs, is a key attribute of the ‘consultative consultant’.

7. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Communication

We have covered this in posts 5 Communication – the cornerstone to recruitment and 6 Communication within Sales, so the only thing to remind you of here is that the communication needs to be adapted to the person you are speaking to and make sure that you are being empathetic to their situation… whilst listening intently.

8. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Team Priorities

Recruitment consultants are often described as ‘islands’ and can be seen as selfish. It’s important that you appreciate that you are part of a wider team’s performance and especially that of the company as a whole. We all need to be able to support each other to achieve the long-term goals. If you have very successful people in your company, then ask them for a half hour master class on their favourite topic. A bit of flattery always helps, but the key here is to take copious notes and see whether their techniques would work for you.

9. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Development of others

This may not be relevant to you in your first 3 months in recruitment, but as soon as your probationary period is up, then I would expect you to be there to help share your knowledge and experience with others in the team. Certainly, you can be invaluable; giving feedback to your company on their induction process to help the next new starters joining. As part of the induction programmes I write, I always ask new starters to come up with 1 idea that would benefit the company.

10. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Client Relationship

Building rapport and understanding your customer’s needs is critical to the success of your career. The aim is to have long term and lasting relationships with your clients and your candidates alike. Building relationships through communication is a cornerstone of recruitment.

11. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Maintaining a high level of business performance

This is about taking your company’s minimum acceptable standards (MAS) and enhancing them for your own high personal standards. Don’t accept the minimum – always try to stretch yourself and do better than before. Great consultants want to be the best.

12. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Perseverance

 

Being able to maintain focus on getting good results in spite of the daily pressures that we face in recruitment is a key competence and one that will be constantly tested. Tenacity, dedication, positive attitude, perseverance; all have been named here. To quote Andrew Carnegie (Scottish Philanthropist of Carnegie Hall fame, not Dale of “How to win friends and influence people”): “Anything in life worth having, is worth working for.”

In the next post, we look in more detail at analysing and monitoring – now that you have stats that you can work with for month 3.

Angela Cripps, Connemara UK

The links of all of the competencies are listed here as well for ease of navigation.

1. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Planning
2. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Monitoring
3. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Analysing
4. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Sales opportunities
5. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Meeting Goals
6. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Building Profitability
7. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Communication
8. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Team Priorities
9. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Development of others
10.  The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Client Relationship
11.  The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Maintaining a high level of business performance
12. The Competencies of a Recruitment Consultant – Perseverance

Focusing On Performance

Isn’t it interesting how different people view Performance Management? I’ve been working in several recruitment companies recently and have heard the term “If you’re not hitting target, you’re going on performance management”. 

So what are we saying here? That performance management only happens when things aren’t being achieved, when someone is under-performing? No wonder it’s seen as a negative subject by so many!

Performance Management is getting the best from people and helping them achieve their potential. So this is a continuous process with the over-performers, average performers as well as under-performers.

I’ve had quite a bit of interest from my LinkedIn contacts this week on how to put more structure around their businesses, well –  performance management is a great place to start.

Point 1 – Key focus areas

The performance of the individuals within the business should all be focussed towards achieving the company objectives. Therefore, there should be key activities that are monitored over and above others i.e. if a new division has been set up, new business development activities would be the key focus to ensure its success.

Tip 1 – Key Performance Indicators

Select relevant KPIs rather than trying to measure everything and anything – if three is enough, then stick to three. The KPIs need to be meaningful to the business and the individuals, so that they know that they are going to make a difference to the future of the company. .

 

Point 2 – Minimum Acceptable Standards

There needs to be a bottom line. In terms of activities, results and also behaviours within the company that everyone adheres to. New starters needs to know what they are aiming for at the end of their probationary period and existing employees need to know that they can’t be a maverick in the business, putting the culture in jeopardy – just because they ‘bring in the money’. There’s a bottom line for everyone.

Tip 2 – Monitoring

By monitoring the performance of individuals and making sure that everyone is above the MAS, then you know your business is safe and you are unlikely to have the peaks and troughs in revenue that occurs when they are not in place. It also means that on a weekly / monthly basis, you have an opportunity to either praise or re-focus the individual before it’s too late.

Point 3 – Targets

Just because there are MAS, it doesn’t mean that everyone works to just achieve those. Each individual must have their own targets in terms of activities and results. These stretch targets are what their expected performance is. The MAS are to determine if their work is ‘unacceptable’ – a different concept to being under target – ‘unsatisfactory’.

Tip 3 – Regular reviews

Make sure that you have your 12 monthly performance reviews booked in at the start of the year to discuss the results in terms of MAS and targets, otherwise we all know that it becomes harder and harder to tie down individuals and the meetings slip… every month! This way it becomes a monthly ritual that everyone participates in.

 

Point 4 – Focus on results, not just activities

More experienced consultants will not be working at the same rate as new consultants. Their achievements (hit rate) will be higher for less effort. It’s the analysis of the data that highlights this. It’s important that you know the ratio’s and %s that you are expecting from your KPIs. This also deals with the issue of taking ‘figures for figures sake’ and never doing anything with them.

Tip 4 – Analysing the results

Get the consultants to work out their own ratios & %s. This way they can understand what’s happening in their business and more importantly, where to focus and improve. If an experienced consultant is getting a ratio of 5:1 on CVs : Interviews, then clearly there is an issue with either the detailed gained in the job spec or the matching. Ideally (for most recruitment sectors) the ratio should be 1.6:1.

So get all you ducks in a row, get organised and above all, be consistent.

So, in conclusion, there are many different elements to Performance Management with the above just being a few. The key point that I want to leave you with is that, it is for everyone, not just under-performers.

Have a wonderful Easter everyone and I’ll share my week with you in my Friday update.

Utilising LinkedIn in your sales strategy (updated)

I’ve been to quite a few seminars, conferences, events that have had social media and specifically LinkedIn as a topic. I had a really interesting conversation with a LinkedIn trainer and attended a Recruitment Society Event in London where it was the main topic. So, that’s what’s prompted this post.

I’ve been utilising it for 8+ years now, but until a few years ago I’d never had to use it for sales. So my policy was that I had always only connected with people that I knew and had actually worked with / trained. This made for a very robust network and when people came to me to introduce them to my connections, or even my connections, connections. It worked… for me.

That all changed when I got back into a sales role for APSCo, helping them to increase their membership in the Midlands. I changed my policy and started accepting invites from people that I didn’t know.

In February 2013 I launched my own business that I’ve had for 13 years, Connemara UK Ltd. I’d never used the name and although I already had quite a robust network (just under the 1,000 connections or so) I decided to set myself a target of an extra 100 connections for 4 weeks. I had work booked up until after Easter, so I thought I’d see what LI could do for me… without doing any sales calls. I made sure my profile was up to date and I had recommendations and endorsements for the work that I wanted to focus on. I’ve written 20+ different induction and engagement programmes for companies, I had lots of written recommendations, but only a couple of endorsements… so I asked for more.

On Wednesday of week 4 of my experiment, I was only 1 person off of my 400 hundred target. Amazing, especially as I hadn’t had to search for any connections… it’s all organic from the work I’d been doing in the first 3 weeks.

  

So how easy is it for anyone to increase their network like this, what was my strategy and what results did it bring?

Top 10 tips

1. Basic and logical, but not actually something that I’d done in the past, so I wonder how many others haven’t really utilised LI. I did an advanced search on MD (Title) Recruitment (Key word) 50 mile radius of my home town. With 2,236 results, it was certainly a great place to start, with nearly half either only 1 connection away or in a group that I belong to.

2. I went to the groups that I belong to and connected with these people. Just one of these groups had 125,000 members and I’m still only connected to 374 from all of my groups, so I’ve got a long way to go, because I’ve only just touched the tip of the iceberg with 1 group out of 39!!

3. I follow the group rules! I hear annoyance from so many people, including myself, whereby recruiters just fill up the discussion timeline with job postings… it’s not what we want to see or have multiple emails about.

4. I manage a group (The Recruitment Society) that is lucky enough to have about 20 people a day joining it. So set up your own group, get people interested and make sure that when you accept them, send them an additional welcome note through a connection request.

5. Send the invites in the evening, with a personalised note starting with “Good evening”. It shows that you’re willing to go the extra mile and put the work in to build your network, but also (and more importantly) it doesn’t get in the way of your sales time – although I’m doing sales calls to Singapore at the moment, so that is middle of the night stuff!!

6. Write or re-post interesting articles and discussions. Put your views and feelings on there. In other words, give a bit of yourself.

7. Comment on other people’s articles. 1 client approached me as they looked at my LI profile after I’d made a comment – what an easy way to get in front of your clients.

8. Make sure you’ve got recommendations and endorsements for the work that you want to do.

9. Be polite. Be courteous. Basic, but also missing in a lot of requests that I get. That also relates to your photo. I actually find some photos offensive! Sometimes it’s just the look on someone’s face that makes me think less favourably of them – maybe it’s because I’m a ‘visual’ type personality.

10. Above all don’t lie! Not a great way to start the relationship. I’m amazed at how many friends I’ve actually got. My initial reaction when I get a request that says someone is my friend is to want to shout at the laptop “NO, you’re not. I’ve never met you in my life!!” Delete follows very quickly. LI sent a request for me recently without me being able to add a personal note – I immediately wrote to the person’s email and apologised.

What’s been the impact? 

Well the visibility of my profile has certainly changed. I was already in the top 1% of profiles viewed in 2012 (or so LinkedIn told me), but the graph speaks for itself. 30 – 40 views was quite normal per week for me… not now.

Also, you can see the increase of appearances in searches where I started to ‘sell again’, but even with Christmas and New Year, the 3 months to Mid March has increased by 50%.

So apart from profile, what are the actual business results?

In the first 3 weeks I had 7 companies approach me to utilise my services. 2 of these were companies that were linked to recruitment, that would like me to promote their business and take a % (which I don’t do) and the other 5 wanted Connemara UK to help them with projects, that they just happened to be organising this month. So my sales calls to the Directors have actually been 30 minutes+ each time and with clients already wanting my services – how easy is that? I’ve not had one “No” from these clients.

So in summary, I can understand why everyone raves about LinkedIn for the recruitment industry. What a sales tool… it does all of the leg work for you and you can do it every moment you have some spare time.

Update: July 2016

I wrote this blog 3 years ago and am glad to say that I have still not had to do any ‘cold calling’ as such and all of my work in the last 3 years can be attributed to LinkedIn in some way, shape or form.

This year I focussed on utilising LinkedIn to create international work for me. I used the same hints and tips that I’ve shared here and in numbers terms, I’ve connected with nearly 400 international recruitment directors, and set up 25 meetings in 5 different counties this summer, with 12 proposals for work. It doesn’t matter where you’re based, this works anywhere in the world.

My connections keep growing and my recommendations and endorsements still come in every week. I think one of the biggest impacts was writing a blog of useful information each week and sharing it with my LinkedIn groups. It was always targetted to be informative and I never sold myself or my company.

I’m getting closer to 5,500 connections now and have to say no, more than I say yes, to people wanting to connect with me. I still stick to just relevant connections.

 

Angela Cripps, MD       http://www.connemarauk.com