From: Bob Marshall [mailto:bob@themarshallplan.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 8:53 AM
To: stevescott@corsairexec.com
Subject: Bob Marshall - Is It Time To Quit?
Is It Time To Quit?
Bob Marshall
July 2015
In this article, I have borrowed liberally from an excellent little book by business guru, Seth Godin, entitled, The Dip. Based on this book, I will discuss the proposition that knowing what to quit and when to quit are essential tools you need to carry on your daily treks into the wonderful world of recruitment.
Sports Culture
For many of us, we were raised in a sports culture. Because of that we were all bombarded on a daily basis with the bromides about never, ever quitting. Who hasn’t heard the famous quote by Vince Lombardi that, “Quitters never win and Winners never quit”? Well, that was bad advice—and I love Vince Lombardi! But winners quit all of the time…they just know what to quit and when to quit.
The better advice would have been “Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.”
Opportunity Cost
What is Opportunity Cost?
Here is your definition: The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen; the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.
We have all saddled Dead Horse Clients and been saddled by Dead Horse Candidates. That will happen. It is in the nature of our profession. The key, then, is to identify these two huge time-wasters, as soon as possible, and ‘quit’ them.
Once you realize this dynamic and make a unilateral commitment to never again waste your time with the ‘Dead Horses’ you encounter, your job will become a lot more fun and a lot more profitable.
The DIP
What is a DIP?
According to Godin, “A Dip is a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing.” A Dip is differentiated from a Cul-de-Sac which will never get better, no matter how hard you try!
Sometime this is a hard distinction to make—whether we are in a Dip or in a Cul-de-Sac—but it is essential that we make the right decision so as not to waste our time. After all, we want our JOs to be difficult to fill (hence the reason for our existence) but not impossible to fill (hence the end of our existence)! We are here to solve the hard problems.
Everyone, everyday, faces dips. But there is a Silver Lining in that cloud: The harder it gets, the more your competition will fall away. It’s how you push through the dips that will allow you to become successful and become a scarce entity—a Power Broker in your chosen niche.
If you can get through the Dip, if you can keep going when the system is expecting you to stop, you will achieve extraordinary results. People who make it through the Dip are scarce indeed, so they generate more value.
The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value.
When to Quit
“It’s time to quit when you secretly realize you’ve been settling for mediocrity all along. It’s time to quit when the things you’re measuring aren’t improving, and you can’t find anything better to measure. Smart quitters understand the idea of opportunity cost. The work you’re doing on project X now is keeping you from pushing through on project Y. If you fire your worst clients, if you quit your deadest tactics, if you stop working with the people who return the least, then you free up an astounding number of resources. Direct those resources at something worth conquering and your odds of success go way up.”
Quitting is not the same as failing. Quitting allows you to free up your resources so that you can be exceptional at something else.
Quitting as a short-term strategy is a bad idea. Quitting for the long-term is an excellent idea.
“Strategic quitting is the secret of successful people/organizations.”
In the words of famous General O.P. Smith during the Korean War, “Retreat, hell! We’re not retreating; we’re just advancing in a different direction.”
The Fallacy of Diversification
When faced with the Dip, many will want to diversify to create multiple streams of income. And yet, the real success goes to those who obsess. “The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.”
“A woodpecker can tap 20 times on 1,000 trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap 20,000 times on one tree and get dinner.”
In the immortal words of legendary basketball coach John Wooden, “Never mistake activity for achievement.”
Seven reasons you might fail to become the best in the world:
*You run out of time (and quit);
*You run out of money (and quit);
*You get scared (and quit);
*You’re not serious about it (and quit);
*You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit);
*You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard);
*You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent).
The Motivation of Pain
It seems to be human nature to continue to do what you are doing, something you are used to—even if it stops working so well—rather than to quit and move your resources in a new direction.
There is the famous tale that illustrates this point. It is entitled, “Get off of the nail!”
This is how the story goes:
One day a man was walking down the street on his way to work. As he walked down the street, there were dogs on just about every front porch and they all would bark as the man walked past them. However, there was one dog that the man remembered, because this dog was just sitting there and he was whimpering and whining and moaning, you know the little whimpering sounds dogs make when they are wounded or in some sort of pain.
Well this particular dog was just sitting there on the front porch making those sounds. The man was curious as to why this dog wasn't barking like the other dogs and why he was whimpering. He couldn't figure it out, so he just kept walking to work.
The next day he was in the same situation where he was walking down the street and saw the dogs once again and this same dog that was moaning and groaning the other day was doing the same thing today and he just couldn't figure it out. Well, he walked past for an entire week and every day the dog would be there moaning and groaning. So, finally, the guy got fed up, he said "let me find out what's going on." So he went and knocked on the door and a guy came out and said, "Yes, how may I help you?" He said, "Sir, is this your dog?" "Yes, that's my dog." "Well, what's wrong with him?" The owner of the dog said, "What do you mean?" "Well, he's been sitting here moaning and groaning, whimpering and whining for an entire week. The rest of the dogs are barking, your dog should be barking too, why is he moaning and groaning?" The owner said, "Well, he's actually sitting on a nail." He said, "What! Your dog is sitting on a nail. Why doesn't he get off?" "Well, it just doesn't hurt him enough yet."
So why don’t we all just quit unproductive situations? Because, for most of us, it is just not that painful yet!
Establish Your Identity
It’s OK to quit a ‘Dead Horse’ JO, Candidate, or Client, or a feature or a design; but never quit a market or a strategy or a niche.
Don’t quit because something went wrong. Quit because you tried your hardest and nothing made it better!
It is absolutely essential that you set a time frame—a drop-dead date—and once you reach that date—if you are not successful—you need to strongly consider quitting and broadcasting your resources in another direction.
If you are trying to influence a market (your niche), it is an easier proposition. Sure, some of the people in a market have considered you (and even rejected you). But most of the people in the market have never even heard of you! The market doesn’t have just one mind. Different people in the market are seeking different things.
Influencing a market is more of a hill than a wall. You can make progress, one step at a time, and as you get higher, it actually gets easier. People in the market talk to each other. They are influenced by each other. So every step of progress you make actually gets amplified.
Make sure your marketplace is just big enough for you to make an impact. Too large and your message will get lost. The word won’t spread and reach critical mass. Too small and you won’t be as successful. Over the years I have been a big proponent of having a large enough marketplace to sustain any recruiter in any economy and create a Low Risk Operation.
The Principle of the 1500 Company Contacts
This is where the Principle of 1500 works so well.
One of my recruitment ‘aha’ moments came when I met with the AE of the Year at an annual meeting of a very large recruitment organization. I arranged a one-on-one meeting because I wanted to know how he survived, and indeed thrived, during a recession year to become the best of the best while the rest of us suffered. When I asked him how he did it, this is what he said, “I doubled, and even tripled, my marketing call activity.” Aha! Most of the tenured recruiters weren’t even making marketing calls at this point and so were failing as their existing client companies were failing. This AE of the Year was looking for new dynamic business and leaving the old failing business behind.
A free economy marketplace is constantly correcting itself. While some companies fail, other companies will rise to take their place. Some win. Some lose. And so we market on a daily basis to ‘vector in’ on the winners because they are the ones that need our recruitment services. And often, an added benefit is that we can find some of our best candidates among the losers—the companies that are downsizing, experiencing lay-offs or simply going out of business. In a sluggish economy where there are more companies failing, big billers might double or triple their marketing activity to find the few companies that are flourishing. But they continue to find them!
We can’t call everyone in the world, so the big billers figured out years ago that you need to set parameters around your specialty—to ‘delimit’ your niche. No matter how “marketing challenged” we are, most of us can make 25 marketing call attempts in one 8 hour workday. This becomes our daily marketing target. Now just multiply it out: 25 per day equals 125 per week; equals 500 per month; equals 1500 per quarter. So ‘1500’ became the magic marketplace niche number—our initial goal.
Once we determine those 1500 client contacts (keeping in mind that approximately 80% of new job creation comes from small and medium-sized companies), we want to verbally recycle those potential clients four times per year. Touch them electronically the other 8 months of the year, but call them 4 times per year. Then, based on the 4% placement rule, we should place with 4% of the 1500, or make 60 placements per year. Multiply that 60 by an average fee of $10,000 and you have your $600,000 yearly desk. Multiply that 60 by an average fee of $20,000 and you now have your $1,200,000 yearly desk. It’s all in the numbers and the big billers understand this.
The Warm Call
The next task is to turn those first-time (cold) calls into warms calls. This is how it’s done.
Steel yourself to make those 1500 calls in one quarter. Of course, you will be leaving a lot of messages and that’s OK. Just make sure that your message is a scintillating one. Godin says, “Selling is about a transference of emotion, not a presentation of facts.” Once you have accomplished this feat, you will never again have to make another cold call in your career as a recruiter. Now every call will have turned into a ‘warm’ call because you have already called each Company Contact once! And that’s how you develop your warm call marketplace.
Bob Marshall began his recruiting career in 1980 when he joined MR Reno, NV. In 1986 he founded The Bob Marshall Group, International, training recruiters across the nation as well as in the United Kingdom, Malta and Cyprus. In 1996, he returned to working a desk full-time, while continuing to train recruiters. In 2015, Bob will begin offering his one-year TBMG Consulting Partnership proven training system in selected US and international territories. To learn more about his activities and descriptions of his products and services, contact him directly @ 770-898-5550; bob@themarshallplan.org; or visit his website @ www.TheMarshallPlan.org.
Bob Marshall
President
TBMG, International
247 Bryans Drive, Suite 100
McDonough, GA 30252-2513
770-898-5550
520-842-5550 (fax)
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