The Recruiter Campus: Recruiters- Do You Have Trouble Planning?

One of the first challenges recruiting firm owners and recruiters bring to me as a coach is "Mike, I need help planning" and/or (read a 'whining' sound into this) "I don't plan well or at all!"

Well I have good news and bad news! This won't be the 157th article you read on good planning, on how to devote a period of your day to map out strategically what you will do next week and tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I believe you need to do this, but just between you and me-- please keep this a secret-- I was HORRIBLE at it! That doesn't mean I didn't plan, but putting together lists, filling in forms made me want to stick needles in my eyes!!

Here is what it took me over 10 years to learn. Most likely poor planning is a result of the recruiter or recruiting firm owner having a very weak short and long term vision for their business. You see, "making a lot of money" is NOT a vision and frankly it is not even compelling until you can answer "How MUCH money?" and for "What SPECIFIC purpose?"

Here's a quick question to see if this applies to you:

Do you relax with a sigh of relief when you have billed enough to cover your personal and professional overhead for the month?

If you answered "yes", you may lack a vision or a purpose for your work beyond paying the monthly bills. As Michael Gerber says in his book Awaken The Entrepreneur Within "A business without a vision has no soul; a business without a soul has no heart, no passion. A businsess without passion is a business whose demise has already been foretold."

You see when you know WHAT you are building for WHAT purpose planning becomes easy. You simply say "I want to be 'there' and now I am 'here', what do I need to be doing right NOW to get just one or two steps closer to that target. Do that every day and now you have a plan!

OK, it's a bit more complicated than that, BUT if you do the couple fairly simple items of defining WHAT you wish to build and determine WHAT exactly that will provide you both personally and professionaly you will be doing more than 80% of the recruiters and recruiting firm owners do in our industry!

A lack of vision is just one of the sins recruiters and recruiting firm owners make building their businesses. For others you can ENROLL here for a FREE 7 part audio series delivered immediately to your inbox on the 6 other sins recruiting firm owners make and how to avoid them.