How to ‘rev-up’ your sleepy recruiters!

The market for agency recruiters is relentlessly tough right now.

Many are battling declining demand and skittish clients who are at best unreliable, and at worst openly aggressive and uncooperative.

It’s hard to stay motivated in this environment. Yet here we are, with a job to do, overheads to cover, salaries to earn, and targets to meet.

But spare a thought for the leaders of recruiting teams who are caught in a downwards spiral of dropping fees, and ever increasing inertia.

How do recruiters get each new day started?

Mostly, it’s with a coffee, then a browse of email, then a furtive peek at Facebook, then a visit to the loo, then a chat about the weekend, then a glance at the football scores from overnight, than a chat on the phone with mum, then take your daily call from your deadbeat candidate-cum-stalker, and then…. plan for lunch.

Yes, I know, I am being harsh. But only a little. Many recruitment teams look like a group of librarians practicing being quiet for the first hour of the day. For many consulting teams it seems we start the day really, really slow… and then we slow down. I understand why too. Constant rejection will do that to you.

So how we do we start the day with a spark? With a flurry of activity? How do we get the team energised, on the phone and doing productive stuff?

There is a way…

I call it  ‘10B410’

Or if you like things a little less cryptic, “Ten before Ten”

It’s simple. At 9 am, or 8.30 am, or whatever time you want to get things cranked up, the 10B410 begins. The goal is simple.

Every team member makes 10 real, productive, meaningful, phone calls, where they connect with a client or candidate and achieve a meaningful outcome. You can define ‘outcome’ as you see fit, but typically it’s setting up a meeting with a client, or selling in a candidate, or doing a reference check, for example. With candidates it could be briefing on a job, or debriefing on an interview, or asking for a referral.

And those 10 calls have to be made, completed and documented in the database… by 10 am!

But to count, the person has to be spoken to and the outcome achieved. So it may take 30 actual calls to hit those 10 conversations.

Imagine the fireball of energy amongst a team of 8 recruiters all trying to make 10 connected calls in an hour. As mentioned, it could be clients or candidates, and it could be for a huge variety of reasons, so no one, new or veteran, could have an excuse not to hit the 10.

Suddenly, instead of 8 dopey and mopey recruiters frittering away the first hour of the day, we have 80 great connections with our customers, which inevitably will lead to 80 more.

And away we go! The start of a busy, productive and fun day.

Add your own twist to my formula, but this is the way to start the day with sprint, not an hour of yawning and aimless web-trawling.

Try it…

10B410

Call it the “Savage Power Hour” if you like, and then send me 10% of your increased billings. 🙂

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  • Posted by Greg Savage
  • On September 17, 2013
  • 26 Comments
Tags: Coaching recruiters, customer service, Leadership, Recruiter coaching, recruitment, recruitment skills

26 Comments

Tim
One way to kill a recruiters mood? give them another KPI, and out a time limit on it!
    Greg Savage
    Its not a "KPI" Tim.... its a team-working exercise to make it easier for people to get a tricky part of their job done..together and in a supportive environment. In fact where ever I have done this, the recruiters have absolutely LOVED it. Really embraced it and found it made life easier and more fun. If you read the article, properly, you will see that my recommended calls include doing reference checks, or setting up interviews - or with candidates, briefing on a job, or debriefing on an interview. These are core, critical components of any recruiters job and I would love you to explain to me how these actions "annoy recruiters and their clients" "
    A Nother Tim
    Thanks Greg. Now summer is approaching I would advocate 9 B4 9. This involves taking three of you client/candidate group for 9 holes of golf before work. No grumpy recruiters then. Guaranteed
    Ross
    Tim, I think you missed out a critical word in your first sentence. You needed to include ''mediocre' between 'a' and 'recruiters'.
Bob
Tim, What great suggestion do you have?
Neil Bolton
"A group of librarians practicing being quiet": Yes! That's what I see all too often! Greg, this is one we are going to implement, with our own spin. This will be FUN! And that's the key to it. A team working towards a common goal, one which is short, reachable and will create a great office vibe. Thank you yet again!
Brad
Hi Greg, Certainly the times I have been in the environment where a set number of calls has been set (quality calls and outcomes) I have found the volume needs to be high - as you've mentioned. Providing your recruiters are competent (which is a whole other topic), the challenge I see is the effective preparation in anticipation of the morning call cycle. If 30 calls were to be made to gain 10 quality outcomes... thats some serious prep which needs to be closely managed. We then start heading into an operational discussion which would be good to hear your thoughts on. Thanks Greg, the chatter with the folks I share an office with are looking at implementing the ten before 10 strategy as of tomorrow! (Thats you I'm talking about B2)!!!! Brad (B1)
Babs Khanduja
Great idea Greg, will give this a blast this week. Do you try and do this every day or would that dilute the effect of the task over a period of time? I was thinking trialling it one day a week to start & increasing it's occurrence over the week as the staff get used to it & buy into it, thoughts please? Cheers & another great blog/article. Babs
    Greg Savage
    Not every day Babs. Too much. Loses its freshness. Once a week is good for a start and increase from there if its working. And mix it up. Maybe all candidate calls on one day. A mixture the next time. Good luck
Glenn
Hi Greg, Great idea! For consultants who fully grasp the opportunity that a successful career in recruitment offers them then this would be embraced as a productive and effective use of time. I'm constantly surprised to see the amount of recruiters who think they should be entitled to be in the top percentage of income earners in the country by putting in the minimum amount of effort and commitment to their profession and their own personal development. The brutal truth is this; without measuring, managing, and driving the use of each person's time within a recruitment team there would be far fewer placements. What is it that science says about an object at rest?! Keep up the fantastic ideas and content Greg! As always thanks for sharing them.
Patrick Quin
A long time ago Greg - in fact the mid eighties - in a sales organisation I worked for (AMP) we all had to make 20 meaningful calls between 8 am and 10 am every day. that was supposed to result in four meetings arranged daily which should result eventually in one sale. So five sales a week. It certainly worked but it was definitely hard work. If you ran out of people to ring the receptionist would rip a couple of pages out of an old Sydney telephone directory and you would start at the top and work through it. Sales people laugh when I mention this but it was hugely successful and if you didn't do it - well you had to find work somewhere else.
Tanya
Another brilliant article Greg! I find your innovative and fun approach extremely refreshing.
    Greg Savage
    Thank you Tanya.. you are very kind,... and I appreciate the feedback...Greg
Mitch Sullivan
Trouble is Greg, something like this, to me at least, just reinforces the behaviours and practices that has devolved recruitment agencies to the place they find themselves in today. If I was in charge of a recruitment agency I would change the sales model to one where each experienced recruiter sell solutions rather than transactions - resulting in (in time) each recruiter having between 5-10 real clients for whom they own their entire candidate representation in whatever market(s) they specialise in. Obviously that would require them to be trained in modern-day sales techniques - but when they are trained, they'd be able to secure real commitment from clients, which would mean that all the other recruitment activity (outside of job acquisition) would take care of itself. Then, the type of phone activity you describe in this blog could be tailored and used only with trainee recruiters as part of their learning process. Most agencies seem to be on this rather illogical circular journey that just continually feeds the same behaviours and outcomes that deep down they know is no longer working - and as much as I often agree with you Greg, on this occasion I think this particular piece of advice is just another one of those sticking plaster cures that most recruitment trainers seem locked into delivering at the moment.
    Greg Savage
    Fair enough Mitch. The world is changing fast. Indeed most of my presentation in this series ( http://tinyurl.com/lg47uo2 ) makes that very point, and advises recruiters to abandon their current BD efforts almost totally in exchange for far more sophisticated strategies, such as this https://gregsavage.com.au/2012/05/29/massage-your-clients-social-ego-for-a-happy-ending-29512/ The advice I offer in todays' blog is tactical, low level, and designed help with the tools most recruiters have at their disposal right now. I totally agree with you this is not the way forward long term
    Navid
    Mitch, I agree that focusing on quality of work and forming valuable relationship is quite important, in it fact must be top priority. The article above however is not necessarily to promote quantity over quality but rather to change the mindset from "it is an easier and more comfortable option to waste time" into "I'm here to do a job and better my craft and I can only do it by focusing on my work". I don't believe there is anything wrong with refocusing your attention onto what you need to be focusing on and if you have figured out a formula to do it in a more fun way then so be it.
Navid
I should make a signature that says "Great Post Greg" before posting on here. The above is a good idea. Apart from that fact that it may result in a positive outcome, the idea is "change of mindset". Think about it. Are you going to be in a better mindset browsing the internet or, if you manage to have 10 conversations (regardless of their outcome). Recruitment is about polishing your craft all the time and you are not going to be able to do that unless if you throw yourself into it practicing.
Jeremy
This one really works Greg. We did a similar thing called 10 by 10 at my last company, and in my current company we have a BD Hour starting at 09:30 every morning. It's created a much better atmosphere in the office and helps everybody start the day with a sense of urgency!
Alan Allebone
I have noticed a lot of organisations are at present letting recruiters go! What is a good idea is to be more pro-active AND AGGRESSIVE with the marketing aspect of our business. Get on the phone do more marketing. have a set time each or every other day where EVERYONE hits the phone and markets whether reverse marketing or whatever!. Get these guys who like to play on the computers off their AR-E and sell sell sell. Old fashioned basics, have a sheet and write down the details of the companies, contacts and record the conversation and the outcome. get those client visits again. push push push. It does seem at present our biggest competitor is our client so try reverse marketing if you have not done it before. get the team to go through all the old job orders filled or not filled, call the client and check who is in the chair now and who has joined recently. If someone in the team gets an order ring the bell shout and let everyone know! make it fun but EVERYONE MUST DO IT. no excuses from anyone. have a set time say 2 hours etc etc. there is just so much more we can do now whether it is summer, winter or whatever. Pleas do not send emails PHONE AND GET OVER THERE TO SEE THE CLIENT. Good luck to all of you.
RM
10before 10 is a sales tool that has been around for a while. In a sales performance seminar about 9 years back I first heard of it. It will condition your recruiters to be more activity and sales focused. I used to manage teams and we would use it to help struggling recruiters. Get them to write the name of the 10 clients they spoke to and the reaction. Just the task of 10 connected calls before 10 will energize them. It's psychological, even if they have 10 dud calls I swear they will have a more productive day than if they send emails, texts, find out who looked at them on LinkedIn and see if any business in their sector is seeking an internal recruiter to push paper around! I swear to you, this is a proven sales technique that works.
Danny
It works for us, however we just do it for an hour I like the 10b410 concept. Im going to use that one! (sorry Greg no 10%) To be honest my team is a young keen but not massively experienced one. I use this time to see who has made a list of people to call, whether they are on the right track etc. Also helps me because I sure as hell better get 10 good calls if they are! I come out of my office and everyone batters it, it gets the blood flowing. Dont get me wrong its not the silver bullet or anything but there's nothing wrong with it. sometimes people (rightly) don't want the boiler room 80's - sell at any cost, lets not worry about whether we can deliver at all scenario. But there are an equal amount of people that seem to turn away from the phone and on to blogs, emails, Linkedin and other medias, Greg you said it in one sentence on twitter the other day "followers are vanity, placements is sanity!" Good thread
Tom
10b410 is as old as gods dog!! Cant believe none of you knew about this already?!
Brett
Hi Greg, Great idea, we implemented this and have since changed it up by doing "10b410 kissing frogs" so basically getting in and getting the perceived tough calls out of the way first thing in the morning to leave you with the princes "nice calls" for the rest of the day. The junior recruiters we have taken on board recently really took to this idea. So once again thank you.
Simon
Greg, I first read this 2 yrs ago .. loved the idea .. and wanted to implement it. I was slammed from above and below for wanting to change the quiet laid back culture. Naturally not all consultants want to do 10B410, but the biggest concern was the sales managers didn't either! There's no helping some businesses. Obviously I moved on..

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