I recently led a Tele-Seminar entitled, “How to Produce Big Results in a 4 ½ day Work week” and as part of the format, I conducted an interview with a friend of mine who had billed $1 million as a solo recruiter. During the session, he allowed me to grill him about specifics on how he used his time and controlled his focus in order to produce such big numbers. Incidentally, he billed this amount at a time when his average placement fee was just $7,000. Here are some highlights from our dialogue:
You must have a burning desire（你必须有强烈的欲望）: If you want to be a big biller you must have a burning desire to do what it takes to get there. If you’re lukewarm about your goals you can forget hitting those big numbers. This level of success starts with a passion for what you’re doing.
You need to be clear on the “why” or benefit of being a big biller（你非常清楚为什么你要成为一个顶级猎头或者说成为顶级猎头的好处）: If you become a big biller but lose your marriage and health in the process then you’ve gained nothing but a shallow ego trip. Here are some examples of a clear “why”:
I want to pay off my house in the next 3 years so I can have more freedom
I want to take 4 weeks a year to travel around the world
I want to sponsor 20 hungry children per month
See yourself as already there（把你自己想像成你已经成为顶级猎头）: My friend spent some time everyday reviewing his goals- both personal and professional. Here’s a personal example of how to do this; my wife and I recently set a goal to pay off our house by my 40 th birthday (4 ½ years away). In order to make it fun, I set up a specific reward which is that we’ll spend 2 weeks at the Blue Parrot Inn in Playa Del Carmen Mexico staying in the penthouse suite with a rooftop balcony. I printed off a photo of this exact balcony from the internet and put it in a gold frame in our bathroom. Everyday that I see this photo I picture myself sitting on the balcony with an expensive maduro cigar in one hand and a dark beer in the other, feeling totally affluent and pleased that the house is now paid off. In my mind, I’m already there, it’s already happening.
Be “ruthless” about who you will work with（“无情直接“地对待和你一起工作的人） : Every big biller that I know has clear guidelines regarding who they will and will not work with. They are able to communicate this with both clients and candidates and are often very direct in regards to expectations and requirements. Bottom line; you must respect your time and only work with people who do the same in order to hit high numbers.
Work in blocks（在整段的时间内工作）: You’ve heard this before I’m sure but this is another common denominator in top producers. My friend said that he did not answer his phone- at all- during outgoing calling blocks. You must be able to separate execution from reacting if you want to excel.
Plan meticulously（仔细的计划）: Again, you’ve heard it before but it’s a must. My friend used legal pads, index cards and a simple ACT database the year he billed $1 million- but he planned each and every call in advance.
Track your numbers like a mathematician（像数学家一样追踪你的数据）: Boring? Maybe, but it’s another hallmark of high production. Enough said.
Create systems for everything（为所有事情创造系统）: My rule is if you have to do something 3 or more times in a month, you should have it documented. Don’t repeat things from scratch that you could have systematized.
Neglect the administrivia（忽略行政上的琐事）: Learn to say “no”, delegate and automate. From a certain point of view, there are really only 2 categories in your work: revenue generating activities- and everything else. You've probably heard of the 80/20 rule which says that 80% of a typical salespersons success comes from 20% of his or her activities. One of the characteristics that big billers have in common is that they consistently focus on the 20% and virtually nothing else.
More often than not when we are trying to decide what to focus on during the day we are actually choosing between a wide variety of tasks that could all be classified as a “good” use of our time. Big billers have a finely tuned ability to gravitate toward the best activities while allowing many good, but less important, activities to go undone.
Well, there you have it. I assume this is a lot of information that you’ve heard before- and that’s the deceptive part. Because you’ve heard it before, it sounds trivial. We all want a new, shiny magic bullet. However, it’s the execution of these ideas that separates mediocre production from exceptional production.
If you’re fat and you ask my advice on how to lose weight, I’ll say, “eat less and run for 30 minutes a day”. You may have heard it before, but if you really did it everyday, you’d lose the weight. Same thing goes in terms of increasing your skill and production as a recruiter. It really is all about mastery of some basic things that you’re already doing.
在这个短短的人生路上，我们的遇到的风景、听到的声音与过往路牌都是不一样的，而且也会遇到各式各样人与多个选择的岔路口。