Launch Two People

A lot of people live day to day with mediocrity. Whether that be with a mediocre boss, job, salary, friends and even life partner.

Why Settle?

People find it hard to cut. They get used to life as ‘OK’, but rarely is ‘life great’.

Why not strive to glow every day.

If you never give yourself the opportunity to pursue excellence, you’ll never get that opportunity? Sounds simple and rather silly – but human nature doesnt like change too much.

Your culture and your standards are defined by what you settle for.

So in a recruitment sense, why settle with mediocre staff, clients and candidates?

Life is too short. Make some tough decisions - and guess what? You can always go back to mediocrity if you choose.

It frustrates me to see people down, whinging, unhappy etc or ‘just OK’. You have choice.

Many people fear loss more than they fear gain, but when they eventually ‘gain’ they wonder why they ever settled. The upside is far too great.

So personally and professionally – don’t settle.

I bet most people could drop a client or two if you had to pretty quickly, and you would feel pretty damn good about it. Select your life. Don’t let it select you.

- Jonathan Weinstock

The best recruiters become trusted advisers quickly, and stay as trusted advisers.  Relationships with clients can change over time, although big billers tend to have fewer, but higher quality clients – where they are well respected and achieve ‘trusted adviser’ status, while never jeaporsiding, nor taking for granted that status either.

How do you achieve this level of relationship. Sure, you’re not just another recruiter right?

It takes time to build trust and demonstrate your skills and values, so here is a checklist.

• Understand where you can add value and understand where you are just being a pest
• Listen to your client, and demonstrate you understand their needs based on your previous achievements
• Send fewer and high quality candidates that fit the bill
• Follow up as promised
• Be a good loser – if a client finds a candidate through another source whether that be through their own networks or through another recruiter – congratulate them, and hope the candidate works out
• Maintain the relationship particularly when the client is not actively hiring, whether that be through email, newsletters, face to face, or other forms of contact. Show you care, and actually care

Clients respect a recruiter when they:

• Interview candidates based on a recruiter’s recommendation
• Take advice from a recruiter if their expectations are unrealistic
• Return a recruiter’s calls promptly
• Use a recruiter exclusively

The best measurement of your reputation is to ask your clients the following questions:

1. Would the client come back to you again for more assistance? (did they have a positive experience and did you deliver?)
2. Would they recommend you to other companies for assistance? (would they refer you to others?)

If the answer is yes to both questions, then you are doing a great job.

Why not try and blow your clients away, provide an amazing service, and keep your clients and candidates coming back? There’s really no other alternative.

I remember the very first cold calls I made when I started this recruitment business. Most of those first calls I made are still clients of ours today, so we must be doing something right.

- Jonathan Weinstock

Most companies sell hard to win over a candidate in the first interview and then assume their job is done. This however is just the beginning.

So you are interviewing someone for a role at your company. By now you know what’s compelling about your company and how you are going to sell it to a prospective employee – right?

All your hiring managers know how to sell your company in an interview and all focused on the same page delivering the same message? Interestingly most people don’t have a clear EVP (employment value proposition), nor is it consistent if you asked different hiring managers. If not – then you’re not ready to hire.

So – what is it you sell? How often and to what extent?

Here is a quick guide.

Selling the five F’s to a prospective new hire

1. Fit – show how the candidate’s goals fit in with your company’s vision, mission, goals and values
2. Family – does your company take the candidate’s family situation and their needs into account
3. Freedom – ‘A’ grade talent don’t like to be micromanaged. Demonstrate your company provides the autonomy to make decisions.
4. Fortune – top candidates don’t move sidewards or backwards financially so demonstrate the ability for financial upside and reward
5. Fun – do you prefer a dull and boring environment or is there an element of fun in the workplace alongside the opportunity to build positive relationships.

How often?

Be ready to sell your company to a prospective hire at the first interview. Then post interview. Upon commencement and even during the first 90 days of commencement.

Most hiring managers forget to reinforce the 5 F’s and as a result, good candidates drop off during the first 90 days. Its imperative to manage ‘buyers remorse’ and help give the candidate the confidence that they made the right decision.

Simple, but effective. Write your 5’F’s script today if you don’t have one. Show real examples and demonstrate authenticity with your 5 F’s.

Not only is this great when hiring for ourselves, but more importantly, we educate our clients with their 5 F’s strategy when selling and interviewing our candidates.

Pic 2 – Your position description as a leader

Pic 3 – some key messages we live by

Pic 4 – Your daily performance review

Rather than tell you – I thought I would show you a sneak peak into our organisation.

As a leader – how are you different? Are you inspirational, motivational, a great coach, teacher? Do your staff trust you? How do you give feedback? Let me explain.

Pic 1 – Today  is a great day at Launchtwo! – Ring our head office number and lets see how we answer the phone? Not only is today a great day, but everyday is a great day. We live this principle.

Pic 2 – Do your staff know what your role is and how you are measured? Do you fit the profile – are you right for the job as a leader? Have a look at these traits, and rate your manager!

Pic 3 – Some key messages we live by. A great way to start the day is to get on the phone before checking emails – especially during the critical and valuable calling time. Do 10 calls before 10am and then check your emails.

Failure is not an option – 50% of sales and success is really a head case! – so we can try and control this. Manage your teams attitude. I forgot to mention there is a sporting picture in my office also that has a message “PERSISTENCE”.

The other messages are self explanatory and we have covered in earlier blogs.

PIC 4 is my favourite – are you accountable to your team? How about rating yourself every day, or even better, get your staff to rate you on these key things. How am I doing? Did you even know this was what you are supposed to do?

If you haven’t realised, I am quite passionate about growth, and growth comes from great leaders who know what they need to do and deliver it, consistently.

GET EXCITED! ALL DAY – EVERYDAY (thats my message for the day).

- Jonathan Weinstock

For anyone who wants to become better in sales and become a better sales leader, the best seminar I’ve ever been to by far was earlier this year when I went to a Jack Daly seminar (www.jackdaly.net). You will walk away inspired, motivated, with a number of practical take away tools you can implement into your organisation immediately.

The biggest lessons I learned were: (cutting straight to the point here)

1. In order to grow your organisation fast – you need to grow your people in quality and quantity (not focus on growing sales) – with a whole host of strategies and systems to make this happen i.e. regular one on one coaching, mentoring, group training etc even for top performers. Top performers still want to grow and earn more.
2. The biggest mistakes companies make (which is why they cant grow are):

• Mistake #1. Most companies make their best sales guy into a sales leader. What happens is that they eventually work out that it is a different skill set, and their sales drop and their leadership skills suck. Best example is in sports, often the coach of the team isn’t necessarily the best player, but they are the best student of the game and best mentor.
• Mistake #2. Many companies make their sales managers also sell. What happens if you are running a team meeting and your phone rings? Selling and managing at the same time can be counter productive and distract your focus.

All of this relates to our game in recruitment. How many micro agencies out there simply can’t and won’t grow. Apart from a lack of resources, the owners won’t let go. Their leadership isn’t great. They must keep billing and managing etc. They haven’t got time to lead and manage with focus. With the larger agencies, how many leaders or managers are actually being coached and mentored to become better leaders?

Watch what happens when the leadership is right with full focus. Morale is at an all time high, you become an employer of choice, energy and performance levels are high, the quality of skills in your team improves, and the rest flows from there. How much easier is it then to grow from this solid foundation?

Then the question is how do you do all this?

Jack gives you a number of tips and strategies as to how, but here is one classic example. A new staff member starts on Monday (not the ideal day to start, by the way). The receptionist doesn’t know their name, asks them to wait at reception. Then, their desk, computer and business cards aren’t ready. No one’s around to help with training. The new starter then goes home at night and their partner asks ‘how was your first day?’ They reply, “nothing special”.

In our organisation, we have a “Welcome party”. The receptionist knows their name and knows who is turning up. Their desk, computer and business cards are ready. We have a surprise welcome party for the whole office with home baked muffins. Induction schedules are booked and planned. Training is ready. The new starter hopefully goes home ranting and raving to their partner about how amazing the organisation is and how nice all the people are. What an amazing first day. That’s my goal – to blow my new starters away on Day 1, and continue on from there with more surprises to come!

Jack is all about ‘systems and processes’, ‘systems and processes’. What are your leadership ‘systems and processes’?

- Jonathan Weinstock

I’ve interviewed a number of recruiters when hiring for ourselves over the years, and it’s interesting to hear what people say when you ask them what sectors they recruit for. How often do you hear, “I do a bit of this and a bit of that, in the past I’ve done this and I’ve done that” (read between the lines – an expert in nothing).

Pop quiz. If you were on trial for murder, and you were looking for representation, would you go for the guy who dabbles a bit in murder cases, or would you go for the specialist murder expert who has had years of experience and successful track record who might charge a little more, but guarantees to know his stuff better and give you the best chance of winning? It’s a no brainer.

So if you are a client looking to recruit staff – who should you use to help fill your role? At the end of the day we are only as good as the candidates we have (best and available talent) at any particular point in time – so while on the odd occasion a ‘newbie’ or a ‘dabbler’ might get lucky every now and then – over time they simply won’t be able to consistently outperform a proven stayer and specialist. Which network would you rather tap into when you need?

Even better example – How about recruiters using R2R’s? Ever called another sales or HR recruiter and asked them ‘got any good recruiters on your books?’ or would you prefer to go to a R2R?

So out of 3000 recruitment companies in Australia, gees – there are a lot of competitors that I love coming up against.

What market are you fully obsessed with? There’s no prize for 2^nd place in our business.

The only exception I can see are recruiters in regional areas, or small metropolitan areas, where it may make sense to split desks and work with candidates across multiple sectors simply because their may not be sufficient work within a sector. This still opens the door for someone to come in and pick a niche within a niche and become the #1 ‘go to guy’ in that niche who will always end up winning out.

So to clarify – if you want to work for us, please save me the hassle and don’t bother if you’re a generalist and claim to cover multiple sectors. We have enough ‘light weights’ in the industry. If however you are a specialist and “murder expert equivalent” (haha), with a ‘following’ within your niche or sector, we would love to hear from you.

- Jonathan Weinstock