Centred Excellence

Today I’d like to talk to you about the one thing most managers are rubbish at that will transform your results when you master it 

Most people will agree that managing people is one of the most difficult tasks in business. Yet there is one simple thing that can make all the difference – delegation.

Too many managers are so caught up in “I can do it quicker myself” or “it’s not going to be done correctly” mode that they run themselves ragged trying to do everything. The thing with this is that not only are you working on activities that are low or zero return per hour activities which is not smart, but your team is left feeling micromanaged and by doing this YOU are really stifling the growth and success of your teams results.

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world is Sir Richard Branson. He’s known for his unusual approach to business that typically breaks all the rules of conventional business. Branson believes firmly in teamwork and delegation. To the degree that in every new project his primary mission is to make himself redundant so that the project can be successful without him. He delegates, encourages people to step up, come forward with their ideas and take on responsibility.

You wouldn’t see Richard Branson out shopping for the office coffee or invoicing or spending all his time making sales…   He finds people that are capable, gives them the tools to be successful and empowers them to take over as soon as possible.

Sir Richard Branson recognises that his time is valuable and that he doesn’t need to be actively involved in every affiliated project. When he is involved he spends his time identifying people who have the ability to take charge and lead projects on their own. His focus on delegation is one of the reasons he has so many different successful enterprises.

We can all learn from this no matter how big or small our business is. We need to identify other people who can be trained up to take on certain responsibilities. Similarly we need to know what the most valuable tasks are to spend our time on. Sometimes it is worth hiring someone to help with your admin because it will enable you to spend your time on tasks that will bring in the business or develop the team. The additional cost of hiring someone seldom becomes an issue in the light of the additional revenue you are able to generate.

What most managers don’t realise is that when you delegate tasks, you’re up skilling and developing leaders. You are encouraging them to take on responsibility and trusting them to complete what’s been assigned to them.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

To people who are serious about developing their careers this can be a huge motivator, making them work harder which in turn helps to grow your business. Trust your team enough to delegate to them and focus on valuable tasks. Remember though that Delegation is Investing others with the responsibility for accomplishing a task or project and giving them the authority to get the job done while retaining accountability oneself.  So when delegating there are a few steps to consider:

Delegation has the power to really transform your results when you master it and help you create a top billing team with top billing results.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post The One Thing That Will Transform Your Results – Delegation! appeared first on Centred Excellence.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

There is one thing I’ve noticed about top billing recruiters and top billing businesses. They do things differently and this is why they are successful. In everything from management mindset to how the team operates there are key elements that contribute to their success. If you’re serious about your team smashing targets then these are 9 things you need to consider:

Top performing teams don’t just happen on their own – most often there is a strong leader at the helm who is leading the way. How you lead your team will largely depend on your mindset. Top performing leaders believe that almost anything is possible, they take responsibility for their team’s success, they take action and are resourceful and they don’t believe in failure, only feedback.  A top performing team has a top performing leader.

Successful teams have a clear vision of what they want to create and what they want to achieve. This is set and directed by the team leader. In other words the vision starts with you. If you don’t have a clear vision and goals your team won’t either. A strong vision that’s shared encourages people to keep at it when challenges arise and goals provide the stepping stones to keep on track.

Do you know what is your team’s strengths are and what areas can they improve on? Unless you know your current reality it’s difficult to formulate a plan to change and improve.

Because there are only 3 ways to increase revenue: ie. increase your average order value; increase your number of sales; or increase the ‘spend per customer’. You want to be looking at ways to increase results, normally it’s a matter of making a small tweak that makes a big difference. For example: developing a specific niche where you can get higher fees for specialist candidates that are really sort after; or focusing on a higher salary level or really making sure you are working quality jobs rather than working on just any job.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

If you want your team to smash targets then they need to be accountable to the goals they set. If there is no measure to achieving goals then it’s easy to let them slip. Creating systems where you can easily pull stats can help your team review where they are on a weekly basis where they need to focus on in order to get to target.

A top performing team needs energy in order to maintain momentum and this can be achieved in a number of ways. Have fun activities, competitions, incentives that may last an hour, a week or 3 months, reward milestones with things other than money – team socials, top performing clubs, it’s important to keep the variety there – people get bored with the same things – so spice things up and make them fun.

You can’t create a top performing recruiter from someone who isn’t cut out for the industry. This is why hiring and on-boarding the right people is so important.  Choose people that are hardworking, motivated, open to learning, who take responsibility seriously and work well in a team. It only takes one bad apple to destroy the team efforts so make sure that everyone on your team has that potential to be a top performing recruiter.

While it’s important to work with a vision in mind, it’s equally important to be happy where you are now, knowing even though you haven’t reached your goals yet, you’re working towards them. Enjoy the process of building up your team and the journey to smashing targets and each day will be a reward in itself.  Don’t be too busy hitting focusing on hitting the end goal that you actually miss the main purpose for the business which is being in the now….

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post The Most Crucial Habits To Master If You’re Serious About Your Team Smashing Targets appeared first on Centred Excellence.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

If you want to know the difference between a top performing business or team and a mediocre one, look to the manager and you’ll find something interesting. They think differently and they act differently. Top performing managers seem to have a mindset that just breathes success. Sometimes it all appears to be so effortless, even when things are going wrong they end up coming out on top.

I believe that success has far less to do with who and what we are and far more to do with how we think. A shift in mindset and opening our perspectives on how we approach things can make all the difference in the world.

These top performing beliefs and mindsets may not be true to everyone, but if you just open your mind up to the possibility that there could be another approach, you may be surprised at the results you get. Imagine if no matter what life throws at you and no matter what challenges you have to overcome, you could face them calmly and confidently knowing that there is solution. Wouldn’t that be a far less stressful way to live?

1. Live at cause – this means a life of no excuses, no shifting blame to someone or something else. Instead you take responsibility for your own life, knowing that you can chose how you react to a situation, so if its something that you don’t like, then just chose a way to react to it so that it’s more useful for you.

2. Leave your ego at the door – As much as we’d like it to be, building a successful business is not always about us, it’s about your team. When we start to have an outward perspective instead of thinking about what’s in it for you, you tend to build better relationships and find it easier to interact with others. People are more receptive because they appreciate your genuine interest in them rather than focusing on what’s for your own benefit.

3. Be the change you want to see – This famous saying by Ghandi is so true. So many people want change, but they don’t want to have to change themselves. Sitting back expecting others to change will not inspire your team. If you want things to be different then the initiative needs to start with you.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

4. Treat your team like they were clients – This is a really powerful mindset, when I learnt and really grasped this everything changed in my business.

Well all these things and more are what you should be doing for your team.  If ever you are in doubt about how to deal with a team situation, ask yourself what would I do if this were a client…then take that action.  Bottom line here is that now your team are actually your clients – your success and salary is dependent on how they perform….

5. The next mindset is there’s no failure just feedback – Encouragement achieves far more than criticism, especially when it comes from a manager. Just because someone doesn’t succeed at something doesn’t mean they have failed, it just means they haven’t been successful – yet! Choosing to look at the situation as feedback means that we can continually learn from our experiences rather than getting discouraged by set-backs.

6. The next one is people have all the resources they need to make the changes they want – We all have untapped abilities to achieve and learn new things. There are no unresourceful people, just unresourceful states of mind. If we are feeling negative it doesn’t mean we are incapable, we simply have to change our mindset.

7. Finally the last mindset of top performing leaders is that If something is possible, then it’s probably possible for me – There are very few limits on what people can learn. Just because you don’t know of a solution, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It’s simply a matter of figuring it out – and knowing it’s possible.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post How Top Performing Recruitment Managers Think appeared first on Centred Excellence.

“How Fit Your Recruitment Business Is For Growth… 

[This is a direct transcription from the video please excuse any typing errors.]

If you are familiar with the 80/20 Pareto principle, you will be aware that as much as 80% of your time is generally wasted.  In our day to day life as a recruiter that’s as much as 6 hours a day that is wasted on either low or zero return activities.

Richard Branson and Lord Alan Sugar all have the same 24 hours a day that we have, so how do they achieve such great results?  One of the most important things I learnt in business is that time is more important than money.  The reality is that you can always make more money but you can’t make more time.

Therefore it’s crucial that you use your time effectively and you become really conscious of where you focusing your efforts and spending your valuable time.

Here are 7 fundamentals that can drastically change the way you view and use your time:

“How Fit Your Recruitment Business Is For Growth… 

1. Value time more importantly than money. Most people are fairly good at watching their money. They know what they are spending and what they are saving, but they can’t say the same about time. Most people are totally unconscious of how they spend their time and waste huge amounts of time on things that give them very little return. When you start to think of time being more valuable as money you naturally start to utilize it better.

2. Time spent is a decision. Many people make the excuse that their time is not their own. Their days are spent fielding one interruption after another or constant chasing up on people for information. While it may often feel as though others are demanding your time, ultimately that decision is up to you. If you refuse interruptions or structure your schedule to only deal with queries during certain time periods you will find your time wasting decreases.

3. Analyse your time. Do you even know what is taking up most of your time or do you just drift through each day hoping to accomplish something? The truth is that most of the time we aren’t very aware of how much time is spent on activities that don’t contribute to bringing in revenue. But playing daisyslots and thinking about your next move is an exception for making wise decisions. However that doesn’t stop right there, you should read more about how to be good at it to be able to dominate casino games like never before. By doing a simple time check diary for a few days, making notes what you’ve spent your time on every 15-30 minutes, and then reviewing it after 3 days, you will be surprised how much time you waste. Just a simple awareness of this can help you become more productive.

4. Set time boundaries. Checking emails, social media and answering phone calls or staff queries can end up taking most of your day if you allow it to. Allocate specific times when your staff can consult with you and in between do not allow them to disturb you. The same applies to email. Don’t leave it open on your desktop. Instead set a reminder to check your email once an hour. That way you can focus on your work without distractions.

“How Fit Your Recruitment Business Is For Growth… 

5. Time = Results focus. Being busy isn’t the same as being productive. If you want to waste less time then your time needs to be focused on those activities that will deliver results. Admin might be important but it isn’t where the money is. Clients on the other hand do hold the purse strings. Therefore, focus your efforts on tasks involving clients that will bring in revenue.

6. Time and team KPI’s. What is the one thing that can make a big difference to your revenue? In my business this was getting first interviews so for 12 months at least I made this the focus of KPI’s. I knew that for every 7 first interviews we’d get a placement so focusing our time on that KPI would deliver results and it did, netting us an extra million pounds revenue in that year.

7. Only work certainty. Once you’ve been in the industry for a while you will get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Consultants often waste a lot of time working on dead-end jobs or candidates. They know it won’t go anywhere but somehow they feel they should work on it anyway. Stop working the dead end tasks and instead consistently focus your time on tasks that have promise of delivering revenue.

Remember that the results you get will be a direct reflection on where you focus your time. If you reduce the time you waste by just half you can be three times as productive. It’s your time, be wise how you use it.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 7 Fundamentals To Cut Out 80% Of Time Wasting Out Of Your Life appeared first on Centred Excellence.

Exactly What You Need To Cover In The Initial 8 Weeks To Successfully Train and Onboard New Resourcers… 

Hiring the right people for your recruitment team has to be one of the biggest challenges that most recruitment business face.  It’s ironic really that we are expert at recruitment, yet when it comes to hiring for ourselves it’s something that A LOT of recruitment businesses are particularly rubbish at.

Why is this?  In my experience, it’s because most managers hire based on gut feel, rarely test for specific behaviours and don’t have a set process that is followed.

As John Travolta said– the secret to a successful marriage is choosing the right person to marry in the first place. You can’t expect a duckling to grow into an eagle, and for me, the thing that sets top performing recruiters from others is purely their attitude.  You can teach someone how to recruit, but you can’t teach someone how to be self motivated and persistent.  They either have it or they don’t.

So here are 4 key things to have in place to guarantee successful hires:

There are certain attributes that make a great recruiter. Traits such as persistence and resilience, people with experience of overcoming big blocks in their life.

People that are goal orientated and who are driven internally to be successful.  Top performers talk about being the best and making a difference because its important for them that they are recognised for what they are capable of.

It’s important for top performers to always to be learning and progressing and they love a challenge and will have an innate ability to prioritise what the most important things are to focus on.

Before you even start interviewing, decide what predetermined criteria is important for your business and then build a recruitment process around this specific criteria.

Exactly What You Need To Cover In The Initial 8 Weeks To Successfully Train and Onboard New Resourcers… 

When interviewing, use questions that will give you evidence that this person has a specific behaviour as part of their personality.  Competency questions are useful, for example:

Can you tell me about a time that you had to overcome a major challenge?  What was the challenge and what did you do?  Or

Tell me about a time you achieved exceptional results? Or

Tell me about a time you have got a colleague or other department in the business to go that extra mile for you?

As part of the interview process, tests show how someone will really react and highlights their true abilities.  There are people who are great talkers, but when it comes to walking the walk, they aren’t able to take action.

Some of the tests you should consider include: getting them to speak to candidates and ask them to extract certain information from them or getting them on the phone and ask them to find out hard to find information about a company.

I’m also a huge believer in psychometric testing – mainly because it helps us to look at someone neutrally rather than falling into the halo or horns scenario where because you like someone, at an unconscious level you will look for evidence to back that up  and delete anything unconscious that goes against your beliefs.

Exactly What You Need To Cover In The Initial 8 Weeks To Successfully Train and Onboard New Resourcers… 

Find out what’s important to them about becoming a recruitment consultant and why they want to get into recruitment.  This will draw out their key motivations and also show you if they have top performer traits.

Because what someone values will determine how they spend their time, you are looking for people that will spend their time being successful. Also knowing their values will mean that you can check if their values match yours.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 4 Key Things You Must Have In Place To Guarantee Successful Hires appeared first on Centred Excellence.

Hi I’m Nicky Coffin and welcome back to our Recruitment Business Owner Training Tips.

Getting your team up to a top billing level takes a lot of effort and focus, so once you’ve got there you want to be able to maintain that level of performance. When you achieve this your team will get consistent billings and go from strength to strength.

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

What is the secret to getting this right? Here are 3 essentials to focus on to maintain momentum and billings:

Most of us underestimate the value consistency has. Many of the recruitment managers I work with tell me that they get easily bored quickly and that they like variety. Studies show that it takes repetition – in order for something to become a habit. You may need to say something 2000 times before it becomes part of the muscle or you may need to repeat actions every day for 30 days before it becomes an entrenched habit.

When you make changes in your team, even if these are just small tweaks you need to ensure that everyone is consistently taking the action needed for the change. In one example a recruiter identified that just sending out 3 CV’s a day would mean that she billed £300k per year. She consistently worked  on this one focus, finding and sending out 3 good quality CV’s a day. In the beginning it took a lot of time, but slowly the results started to show. After two months she had doubled her billings. The focus on the most important thing daily had become a habit and it showed in the results.

There are many ways to keep a team motivated and a lot will depend on the personalities and individuals in your team. Don’t be afraid of incorporating fun or friendly competition in to the mix.

Being able to have a laugh as well as focus on working will create a fun atmosphere in the team. Even friendly teasing can be good, as long as it isn’t demeaning or hurtful. When people are relaxed they tend to work better.

Team competitions are also a good idea as it recognises people that get the results and encourages individuals to match the efforts of their colleagues.  Another way to keep your team motivated it to have team building events outside of the office where everyone can get to know each other better in a social setting.   This doesn’t have to be something big – maybe just drinks on a Friday or monthly team lunch at a local café.

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

There is always an opportunity to learn and encouraging this culture of continual learning can help keep momentum going. This doesn’t always have to be you that leads it.  Get your consultants in your team involved – it could be anything from learning how to use the database, or do a great Boolean search or how to negotiate 25%.  The truth is everyone in your team will have something that they are excellent at – work out what it is and how you can utilise this skill to cascade knowledge and also help to develop others in your team.

All you need do is to facilitate the development – set times to have the training sessions and manage the timetable of who is doing what when.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 3 Essentials To Maintain Momentum And Billings appeared first on Centred Excellence.

Hi I’m Nicky Coffin and welcome back to our Recruitment Business Owner Training Tips.

Today I’d like to share with you two of the most important things Recruitment Managers should do yet 95% of Managers don’t…

Have you ever experienced this?  You sit down with your team, set their weekly targets, agree what needs to be done and at the end of the week when you ask them what they have achieved, there are loads of things they have not completed?

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

Well if you haven’t experienced this, then you are one in a minority.  The truth is most managers I work with either totally forget to follow up, or never schedule a follow up in the first place.  And when it comes to reviewing and monitoring what’s working and what’s not working, they may do this a bit, yet its’ never consistent.

These 2 habits – Reviewing and Monitoring are for me so important, when you do this consistently, you will help your team to achieve consistent results.

Think of a coast guard rescue station. When a mayday call comes in they prepare to launch, but they gather a whole lot of additional information before they actually head out. They try to establish where the boat was last seen, what the weather conditions are, how many people are on board and what their situation is.

All of these things will influence their decision on what resources to use and what needs to be done to save the people involved. They don’t blindly head out just because they know they have to go to the rescue. If they launch before establishing what, where or how, they could waste precious hours and completely miss the people that need help.

The same applies to managing a team. You can’t work out how to get somewhere unless you know where you are heading and what specifically needs your focus.

When you sit down with your team to work on their 90 day and then weekly plan you first need to assess what they have been doing that’s working and what’s not working. One of the best ways to do this is through Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and ratios which shows them the quality of their process to see what is yielding results and what isn’t.

Now I know that for some managers tracking and analysing activities may seem like you’re micromanaging your team. But in recruitment one of the only things you can manage is activity – you can’t manage results.  By getting them to increase their activity and quality of their process will help to manage better results.

Remember too that individuals in your team may need different KPI’s but they should always be linked to critical activities. Choose simple KPI’s for tracking activities such as number of CV’s sent, list interviews, jobs won. Sit down with each person in your team individually and look at their activity for the past 3 months. Assess that in terms of the results they are getting now and it may highlight some important areas to tweak.

“Your team does a lot of work – but they could do better. “ 

I worked with one recruiter that was consistently a top biller, she never failed to reach £30k every month. But when she hired 2 new consultants suddenly her billings dropped to £10k per month.

When I asked her what she was doing differently she couldn’t identify anything specific. However, as we dug deeper we discovered that her candidate registered to placement ratio had gone from having to see 2 candidates to make a placement up to 10 candidates to make a placement.  She was doing something different with her candidates.

When we looked at what it was, she used to always have face to face meetings with candidates, but now having to manage 2 consultants she’d stopped doing that because she felt she didn’t have the time anymore. Just having the ratios and being able to drill down to what the problem might be allowed her to make small changes.

She prioritised face to face meetings once again and within 4 weeks her billings were back up to previous levels. This is just one example of how important monitoring activities and ratios are for managing performance.   It shows you very quickly where the problem is so that you can change it.

The key to monitoring and reviewing is to have a system and start to automate processes. Get your consultants to capture data so that when you need to pull a report all the information you need is already in the system. Have weekly and monthly reviews and prioritise time for your team to focus on key activities.

Block time in your diary to get away from the busyness of the office and be able to review the activity and results so that you know where you team is winning and where they need to improve. It is only when you have a clear view of what is going on that you can helicopter up and see what small changes can be made that could make a big difference.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 2 Of The Most Important Things Recruitment Managers Must Do appeared first on Centred Excellence.

Hi I’m Nicky Coffin and welcome back to our Recruitment Business Owner Training Tips.

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can make a big difference in reaching your targets. Top performing recruiters are constantly tweaking just a few simple things that makes a massive difference to their results and how they utilize their time. Today I’ll share some of the secrets that can turn an average biller into a top billing recruiter.

There are really only three basic ways in which you can increase your revenue:

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

Let’s consider these things in terms of recruitment. There is not much to differentiate a mediocre candidate and a great candidate. There doesn’t seem to be a significant difference in earning 22% fees or 25% fees. Or even a great job versus and alright job. But those little differences all add up and here’s how you can use them to your benefit.

Many recruiters spend a lot of time and effort trying to fill jobs that really aren’t fillable. What if you were to focus on only working on the A-grade jobs? How much time will you save? Think of the quality of candidates you can attract if you are only working the great jobs. The first thing to do with your team is define what an A-grade job is, and to be thorough you can also classify a B, C & D job. You want to focus on the A jobs and discard the D jobs.  Also making sure that you have fillability criteria there too.  Because you can have an exclusive or retained job that’s impossible to fill.

You can do this by being really thorough and taking time when taking on the job. Asking probing questions so that you can be really clear on what is wanted – quality rather than quantity.

The same applies for candidates. Focus on getting really quality candidates that increase your chances of placing them.

The 2nd thing can turn an average biller into a top billing recruiter  is become a niche specialist:

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

Have you heard the saying an inch wide a mile deep?

Create and focus on specific market niches. Becoming a specialist, a knowledge leader and an expert  in your space will mean that people then seek you out to help them. Being a specialist will enable you to attract the top candidates and the top jobs in a specific industry. When you can achieve this then you will be able to generate higher level fees and business will come to you. It goes against everything in our pschy to do this, people think by having lots of variety and different jobs will give them more opportunities and therefore security then they just spread themselves too thin – always have to start something from scratch.  Actually what happens is you become a jack of all trades and master of none. Niche is the way forward –and a niche can be a specialism or a geographical area…

The 3rd thing can turn an average biller into a top billing recruiter to focus and only work certainty:

By this I mean work on the jobs that you know you can place, the quality jobs and the quality candidates. Often 80% of a recruiter’s time is taken up on dead end jobs or dead end candidates. If there’s a candidate or job that you aren’t 80% sure you can place then delegate it to someone else. Only spend your time an effort on jobs that you know will bring in good revenue.

With these three small tweaks you can start to consistently be more productive and generate more revenue. It’s true that the small things can make a big difference, just make sure that you are focusing on the right small things that’ll help you achieve your goals.

That is our recruitment manager training tip for today and if you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 3 Easy Tweaks That Could Add £££££ Onto Your Bottom Line appeared first on Centred Excellence.

One of the things that highly successful businesses do is to model success and today I would like to share with you 5 things that we can learn from geese that will help any Recruitment Business Owners to transform results.

Have you ever watched a flock of geese fly overhead and wondered how they stay in a perfect V-formation and how each and every year they travel thousands of miles arriving at their destination successfully? Scientists that have studied geese and their migration habits and have found some interesting answers. So what can you learn from geese and apply in your own recruitment business to improve performance and consequently results.

How Fit Your Recruitment Business Is For Growth… 

When flying in formation there is always one goose leading the group at the front, directing the flock where to fly. However, it’s not always the same strong goose at the front leading. The geese take it in turns to rotate this role so that each leader has a chance to rest and to be at full strength when they have to take the lead once again.

In business you don’t always have to lead from the front. As long as people know where they are heading, anyone can take the lead.  Sometimes it is wise to take a step back and allow someone in your team to take the lead for a while. Delegating responsibility will not only free you up to focus on other tasks, it will also encourage your team members to step up and take on more responsibility as well as up-skill and empower them.

The V-shape that geese fly in makes it easier for the flock to fly long distances. This formation creates an ‘uplift’ that enables the geese to fly 71% further than if they were flying on their own. The geese in front create a slipstream that makes it easier for the geese at the back of the formation and by rotating positions the whole flock benefits.

If you think about this in the context of winning business – it makes sense for the person best at opening up the relationship to go in initially and win the business, then this can create a slip stream for others to then expand and deliver on the account.

Also generally business objectives are long term, kind of like running a marathon, or as in the case of the geese, crossing the Atlantic. Similarly as a recruitment manager you need to consider what formation will help uplift your team so that they can achieve in the long haul. How can you rotate responsibilities so that everyone gets as change to lead in front and to rest at the back? How can you continuously uplift your team?

When one of the geese gets ill or is too weak to keep up with the flock it doesn’t just get left behind to fend for itself. Instead two other geese will drop down and stay back with it until it is strong enough to once again join the flock.

How can you employ a similar strategy with your team that are maybe struggling? Remember they are still part of your team. If they are left to figure things out for themselves its unlikely that they will be able to get back up to the same level as the rest of  your billing team. But if you assign two strong team members to mentor, coach and support the struggling person they may quickly learn the skills needed to once again make a full contribution to the team.

How Fit Your Recruitment Business Is For Growth… 

When the flock is migrating it is the geese at the back that make all the noise – that honk as they fly. This is to signal to the lead geese that everything is okay at the back and to encourage them to keep going.

In a similar way you can encourage your team to celebrate successes not matter how big or small, and also provide feedback on a regular basis so that everyone knows they are on track. Building up a culture of encouragement and accountability in your team can also help you achieve your goals more effectively.

A goose on its own will not be able to make the long trans-Atlantic journey. They only achieve this remarkable feat because they work together as a flock. The geese are ‘buddies’, they know each other well and this is how they manage to fly so far together.

Develop genuine relationships with your team that extends beyond the office and your business targets. Arrange social and team building events and get together’s where you team can get to know each other in a more relaxed environment. Doing things together outside of work can really pull a team together.

Applying these simple principles can help you build a stronger a better performing team. Use the analogy of geese flying in formation with your team and encourage them to work together to achieve your goals.

That is our recruitment manager training tip for today and if you would like to know 9 specific strategies to enable your team to bill more then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

I look forward to seeing you next time!

The post 5 Discoveries From Geese That Will Help ANY Recruitment Manager Transform Results appeared first on Centred Excellence.

Everything you work towards in getting your team to being top billers will fall to the wayside if you aren’t able to maintain performance. Managing people is always challenging because they’re individuals with different motivations and methods of doing things. Consistency is key and here are 4 things you can do to help your team consistently billing above their targets.

It’s important to bear in mind that not everyone is motivated by money. We are all individuals and therefore we all have our own very specific motivators; in my experience money normally falls to about 3 /4 in the most important ranking, many people are more interested in being part of something that is successful where money is then a by product of that success.

When looking to motivate individuals in your team you need to take the time to understand their individual goals, values and personal interests.  To find out what motivates people you need to know what’s it’s important to them.   Simply ask them –” what’s important to you about your career or job” and listen to their answers.

When motivating your team think about linking the target to them personally.  It must be their goal you’re motivating them towards, not the company’s.  People are far more likely to buy into and be motivated by a goal if it’s their goal and it’s meaningful to them on a personal level. Help them to visualize it, even carry with them a picture that makes the goal more real. Small things like this can really help motivate them towards a goal.

Too many managers tell their recruiters what they want to do and then send them off to go achieve their goals and then expect everything to just happen on it’s own. If you want your team to be top performing recruiters you need to coach them and guide them through the process. Big goals need to be broken down into smaller goals so that there is clear path to achieving them.  Also because your team will hit obstacles and road blocks, they will need help working through them.

So if you have an annual target they need to reach, break this down into monthly and weekly targets.  Help your team to zone in and identify a plan of what they need to be doing on a daily and weekly basis in order to meet those targets. In other words, how many placements do they need to make? How many clients do they need to be seeing or calling? What specifically will they do to find the clients?  How many candidates do they need to interview?  Where will they find great candidates specifically?

Provide your team with training in areas that they aren’t strong in. For example if someone in your team is less confident on the phone then train them on how to open a  call, build rapport, ask tricky questions and overcome objectives. Role play exercises can help them start to gain more confidence in this area.

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

Make sure that you regularly training your team – a smart way to make it easy for you to do this is to get other people either in your team or someone else to run the sessions, picking other consultants that are strong in the area to train the rest of your team.  As long as they are an expert in this area, they can train others – for example you could use a resource to teach a newbie to find and search for candidates.  It doesn’t have to be someone with loads of recruitment experience.

Delegation is one of the most important ways to build up a top performing team. Delegation involves trust and confidence in another person’s ability to do a task. As a manager it can also free up your time so that you can focus on more important tasks. Delegating builds people up. By giving them responsibility for tasks that are part of your job role not only helps to upskill future leaders but it helps to retain great people as it  can be hugely motivating.

These four things are instrumental in creating a top performing team. Motivate, coach, train and delegate effectively and your team can achieve even more than they set out to.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

The post 4 Things You Must Have In Place To Get Your Recruiters Billing Consistently! appeared first on Centred Excellence.