You see, most of you know this, but do not "own" it deep inside. As recruiting firm owners we know that pretty much any work we do in November will lead to cash in January. Could some slip in December? Sure, but for all intents and purposes any NEW work you start now will be revenue in 2010.
OK, we all know this, but when do we do our annual recruiting business plans-if we plan at all? My experience is that most do their planning in late December and January. While any plan at any time is better than no plan at all, you have lost two months in 2010 of executing on a good focused plan for next year.
The good news in the market is most I have met at recent conferences where I have spoke as well as my coaching client base are seeing nice sustained increases in their business. Most are crawling out of the rubble to build and/or re-build their recruiting firm. I am telling them to start NOW!
I am coaching my clients to start hiring recruiters the right way with strong expectations and accountability structures. When these are in place your new hires make placements quicker and you weed the "wannabe's" out weeks and months before they drain you of precious resources you could be using on someone else.
Before I give you some solid tips on building a plan, let me share with you what a plan is NOT. A plan is NOT polling your office for what they will "sign up for" next year.
Doing a plan this way (I confess, I used to too a long time ago) takes control from you as the owner and makes it dependent on: 1) everyone being physically there at the end of the year, 2) all of them making their usually pie in the sky goals and 3) elements that you can't measure-other than pure placements-to insure execution.
In my next post I will give you a solid outline to build your plan for 2010. In the next few days I challenge you to start setting objectives for next year. What do you want your recruiting business to look like on December 31st 2010? What EXACTLY did you accomplish? Have those thoughts ready for the next column.
Been working on our business plan for 2010 since October!
Posted by: Pat Turner | November 18, 2009 at 02:00 PM