Executive Wisdom for Business

My Opinion on the Recruitment Profession

My latest paper on the recruitment profession addresses issues that are top of mind for many and most. 



• Attracting job orders
• Ignore consensus
• Selective acquisition
• Creating opportunity
• Go to where the money is
• Metrics that matter
• 
Leadership
• Pricing 



You are able to download the PDF of the paper, at no cost from my website. You do not need to give your name or email address, or sign up for a newsletter or anything else.

Surthriving in Recruitment - 2009 & Beyond

By the way, if you do wish to sign up for my monthly newsletter, you can do so by following this link: The Executive Wisdom Times Monthly.

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

Questions about your business that you should know the answers to

Watching the State of Origin rugby league match last night, the advertising kept leaping out from the screen. Why do organisations spend so much money on advertising? Why does the ANZ bank spend a fortune on the naming rights to the stadium? Why do companies buy expensive television advertisements?

Does signage at sporting arenas cause you to make purchases?
Is "ANZ Stadium" going to influence us to bank with that financial institution?
Will a television commercial be the catalyst for you choosing to spend $50,000 for a motor vehicle tomorrow?

How might you quickly and effectively increase your business results?
By having real people, develop real relationships, in a valuable and meaningful way.

Here are some questions to stimulate your thinking about your business:

1. How many active clients do you have?
2. Imagine you increased that by just 10%; what would that mean to your business results?
3. How do you generate inquiries for your business?
4. How well are those methods working for you?
5. Where does most of your business come from?
6. Do you have systems in place for actually measuring your business performance at a human (not financial) level? Yes your P&L is important but it is a lagging indicator. How about measuring the conversion of leads into sales? How about measuring referrals from sales? How about measuring proposals to sales?
7. What are you doing to ensure clients come back and invest with you again?
8. How many times in a year would a typical client engage your services?
9. What would be the result for your organisation if this number was increased by just 10%?
10. What is the average life of a client?
11. What do you genuinely do to stay in touch with your clients?
12. What is your client "default" rate? That is, what percentage of your active clients would cease to do business with you each year?
13. How much business are you losing each year as a result of these clients leaving you?
14. Typically, how much does your average client invest with you each time they engage your services?
15. What would be the result if you could improve this by just 10%?

You have a choice. You can waste your money on advertising, naming rights and signage. Or you can invest in having your people interacting with your clients in a real and purposeful way. Implementing strategies to engage, excite, and earn the right to do business with our clients may not be as quick or as easy as paying a PR firm to run an advertising campaign. But if we have our people striving to improve the answers to these 15 questions at least, it has to be more effective!

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

Live Webcast - Networking Smart for Results

Our next live webcast is on June 30, 2009.
9.30AM GMT +10.00

Networking Smart for Results
Learn how to intelligently business network.
Every business person networks. Few business people achieve the results they should. It's not about socialising and handing out business cards.

• Develop a plan and be effective with your time and approach
• Understand and utilise the linkages between "giving" and "getting"
• Create memorable impressions and develop relationships
• Make networking a process for building your business investment

Limited to only 19 people to maximise the value of the webcast through interactions, Q & A, etc.
A recording of the webcast will be available to all attendees to download after the event.

Register for the webcast here.

The worst of times ... the best of times

There has never been a better time to be in business, especially in professional services. Conventional marketing wisdom always urged us to target classes or target masses. If you want to work in forensic accounting you are probably targeting the classes and if you want to work in mass delivery of individual returns with 24 hour tax refunds you are targeting the masses. Simple enough!

But a lot has changed. Clients want value, service, convenience, choice and lots of attention.

This isn't bad news. Quite the contrary. This is a great time to be in business armed with knowledge, enthusiasm, and an inquisitive mind. We have the opportunity to set strategies for our business that will bring challenges, fun and profit.

What's your vision for your organisation?

1. What value do you deliver to your clients?
2. What problems do you solve?
3. What improvements do you make?
4. Who specifically wants one or all of those three assets you offer?
5. Who is willing to write a cheque for it?
6. How specifically do you reach those people?

You must make yourself and your business known to those people identified in point 6 above. A millionaire client of mine said, "I don't care if I can't squeeze another customer into the shop, I still keep promoting. Because I have to keep convincing my customers that ours is still the place to come."

His point being that the real sale comes after the sale. We all must become unabashed, relentless self-promoters. Oprah continues to promote herself, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Gillette all continuously market their brand to us. We are never so good or so busy that we can afford to stop marketing.

The partner of a legal firm asked me to lunch. It wasn't until after we finished our main course and began settling in to coffee and cheese that he opened up. "Ric, I need you to come and assess the professionals on staff and tell me which of those it makes sense to let go."
"Let go? Why?"
"Revenues are down, and prospects of short-term improvement aren't obvious. To maintain profitability, if I release a few lawyers, we will lower our wages and therefore expenditure, significantly."
"Are these all good people?"
"Sure are; it's going to hurt to cut some of them."
"Then don't. Why have them as your competitors when the recovery cycle hits? Let's educate them in ways to become a further asset to the firm by developing their marketing, networking and business development skills. I'm also going to work on your delegation skills so you can release some of the workload you are carrying over to these people; and then we are going to get you out personally marketing and promoting the firm."

In the 1700s battles were fought with the general on his horse, sword drawn, leading his troops into battle. That's exactly what managing partners of legal and accounting firms need to be doing right now!

Yes, these have been some pretty challenging and tough times lately. This is also the best time for quality, value-based businesses to stand out from the crowd and be a class above the rest. These are the best of times.

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance


 

To whom are we listening?

Here is an actual advertisement. I have changed nothing, except to leave out the names to protect the guilty and stupid!

***Advertisement***
TRAIN AND DEVELOP YOUR TEAM by renowned British training consultants with more than 7 years experience in the Middle East.
Meet the co founder for a presentation in the UAE on the 8,9,10th June.

Client list of our trainers:
Abu Dhabi Gas ... etc etc

Training subjects:
Leadership and Management
Sales
... etc etc
Performance Management
Business Skills
Marketing

Charging fees well under the market price.
Contact me for more information ... etc etc

***End of Advertisement***

Why, why, why ... would you engage these people to consult to your organisation in areas such as leadership, performance management, sales, business skills and marketing? Their advertisement alone explains that they will NOT improve any of those listed skill sets. "Hire us because we are cheaper than everyone else and we will teach you how to be better than everyone else."

I don't think so.

You want someone who knows and understands value, results, successful achievement of objectives educating, coaching and working with your organisation. This firm obviously understand the level of value they can provide and charge to that level ... the lowest prices. It makes sense that the value they deliver is the lowest, as well.

My consulting advice is sought after regularly by organisations from the Middle East and elsewhere. Why choose an Australian consultant to fly to the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, etc to deliver advice and coaching?

Because the clients know and understand that I deliver significant increases in business and for that I charge appropriately. I have a strong value expression, provide options on how to work with me, along with offering considered ways to then further expand on the good work we do together.

You have to be competent to deliver what you say you can deliver. Offering to improve the business performance or sales performance of an organisation while offering the cheapest prices in town makes zero sense. Nobody will trust a dentist with bad teeth; an unkempt and scruffy financial adviser or an overweight dietitian.

To whom are we listening? Who are our role models, mentors and exemplars? From whom have we decided to accept advice?

Many trainers, coaches, consultants and speakers take their benchmarking from the happy sheets. Just making people "feel better" in insufficient, especially if there is no actual improvement.

Offering to be the best while expressing the least, by the way you value your own services is naive. Expecting the best from a professional adviser while paying the cheapest is much worse because it is harmful! You get what you pay for.

Ric Willmot - Delivering Breakthrough Executive Performance

If you want to speak with Ric about helping improve your organisation, no matter where in the world you are, contact us.