Happy new year TEAM colleagues!
I had some thoughts on what would be good advice for TEAM business owners for 2022 – no surprise, some lightweight vanilla stuff :-
- Set a tangible goal for where you want your business to be at the end of 2022 and write a 1 page plan of action to make sure it happens (doing the same thing and expecting different results won’t work).
- The Recruitment industry has changed over the past two years – Clients and Candidates behave differently – make sure you do. Embrace the change needed for today’s market.
- Commit to some regular exercise.
- Invest some time in reading- 1 great business book – Winning On Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers by Fred Reichheld (Harvard Business Review Press)
- Invest time in something you love- a hobby or sport, you love it, get better at it. You’ll love it more.
- Go somewhere new. The world is small, experience it!
- Donate to something you care about.
I’ve committed to ALL of the above, and shared with family and friends for accountability.
Now for really true inspiration and guidance I asked our TEAM friends who have helped us all year with advice and guidance on improving our recruitment businesses for REAL ADVICE. They all came back with some great ideas, guidance and tips. See below.
Happy new year all – now and go and make 2022 your best year ever.
Simon Bliss, Chair@TEAM
A proven marketing method to use in 2022 is Account Based Marketing (ABM). ABM is sales and marketing aligned to convert the clients you want to work with. It’s rarely used in recruitment, but it’s now easier than ever to work this into your marketing plan.
James Whitelock, Managing Director ThinkinCircles: Recruitment Marketing
Hi TEAM and Happy New Year to all.
Here’s my thought for 2022:
Identify and focus on your strengths.
We all have strengths. You have a unique blend of strengths that make you, you. These could by attributes, skills or competencies. When you know what they are and you lean into them hard, they develop to become superpowers. Superpowers help you to deliver exceptional results. They’re your value proposition.
It can be a fool’s errand to constantly seek to strengthen weaknesses. Batman didn’t spend all his time trying to fly, even though he saw Superman do it. He focused on his key strengths – adoption of technology, stealth and having infinite money.
So, discover your strengths. Lean into them. Make them superpowers.
Are you a master resourcer who can find hidden talent? Double down on it.
Is it when selling where you burn brightly and outperform the pack? Get disciplined and become even better.
There are plenty of TEAM members doing this every day through TEAM Exchange.
Kapow!
Kind Regards,
Jeremy (AKA Alfred) FounderTalent Builder
Be the best leader you can be, build the best business you can build and value what you do, by…
- Investing in yourself: Even the very best in the business world have coaches and mentors to become the best version of them they can be, and turn strategy into reality.
- Investing in your people: So you can work more ON the business than IN the business.
- investing in your business: Apply the simple principals of marginal gains across the organisation and drive cash to the bottom line.
- Investing in your proposition: Add more value, deliver more quality and do things that others only talk about. Stop working ‘no-win/no-fee’ only and become a solutions provider/talent partner.
… and you will have an amazing culture to grow a sustainable profitable business for years to come.
Miles Lloyd, Milestones
I think my tip for tactical success is to start learning to say “no”. Over the years I’ve found myself getting embroiled in things that add nothing of value to my business, but that sap disproportionate amounts of time, energy and sometimes emotion. I’ve become much more targeted in my business, bringing in experts to do things internally that aren’t in my sweet spot and referring customers or projects that don’t quite sit right within my business to other experts within my networks who can add more value. This has given me time to focus on what works, what makes me feel good and what really delivers value for both my colleagues (subcontractors) and clients. What’s more, it’s enabled me to build strong relationships with some wonderful suppliers in this sector which have been hugely beneficial to me over the years.
Fiona Brunton, Brunton Consultancy Ltd
www.bruntonbidwriting.co.uk
Saying Hello to 2022 with Purpose
As we launch into 2022, it’s important to reflect on what we have achieved in this past year and get intentional about what you want to create in 2022. As individual personalities, we need to think about what qualities, habits and traits we want to carry with us into the coming year and be intentional about how we do it 😊
As you envision the year ahead, ask yourself: What did I learn this year? What did I do well? What did I let go of? What did I create? What tools and processes worked really well? What changes did I make? How did I show up that worked well – what specifically did I so? And how can I not only continue to do these things, but build on them? What do I need to work on? What do I need to stop doing? What do I want to start doing more of?
Then write down your answers to those questions.
It’s important to get clear on what you want to create this coming year – to be intentional 😊 You are the creator of your reality and whatever the seeker seeks, the finder will find…. You have the tell the seeker exactly what you want – otherwise it will find you all types of stuff you don’t want 😊
A great question to ask yourself that will help with this is:
If you had a magic wand and used it on your business and went to sleep. Overnight things changed and when you woke up the next day everything was exactly how you wanted it. What would have changed? What would be happening? What would you be experiencing? What would you see, feel and hear as if it were happening now?
Get clear on that vision – because that is a reality that you can create 😊
Then ask yourself – What’s the first step I need to make to start creating this?
Then JFDI that 1st step within 24 hours 😊
Nicky Coffin, Business Mentor for Recruitment & Executive Search Business Owners
Thanks Simon and Happy New Year to you and the TEAM!
- This year is going to be tougher than ever for many businesses trying to hire, especially in skills short markets and challenging locations.
- For those with new businesses or an unknown brand, it’s even harder.
- Many of these firms are struggling to get the results they need using the contingent ‘no win no fee’ recruitment model.
- As an expert in your field, it’s your duty to advise your client on the best strategy for addressing challenges in talent acquisition.
- A retained partnership can solve problems that a no win no fee model can’t.
- Learn how to position and deliver retained solutions to the benefit of all parties.
Louise Archer, Founder & Coach
Happy New Year firstly!
I completely agree that 2022 is going to be a year of huge opportunities for the industry. Which is going to take quality leadership to navigate through both the familiar and also new unfamiliar challenges that awaits. From a leadership perspective it is important that we create an objective for our teams that both speak to individual motivations as well as the goals of the business.
Once this objective is set then reverse engineer what it is going to take in order to achieve it.
Clarity in terms of activities and behaviours required from the team will create understanding of the “how” and will also create natural points of reflection throughout the year to ensure that everything is on track. Rather than arriving at Q4 needing to burnout your teams to make up for the deficits earlier in the year where there wasn’t any granular understanding on what was required.
Reflect on 2021 as to what went well, and how we can turn these behaviours into the trademarks of our teams and become habits that we fall back on to maintain continued progression.
Equally as important to determining what we need to do, is what we need to not be doing. With the amount of opportunities in front of us this year, efficiency is key, so what are our time or energy sappers that we need to stop doing.
As Jeremy says, focus on the strengths and the outcomes will look after themselves
Cheers
Mike Whatman
Team Head Coach
Happy new year!
Here’s mine:
Have a game plan (and know which game you are playing)
Many CEO’s are operating at different levels in the business.
To use a sports club analogy: CEO’s are figuring out how to win the game on the pitch (billing).
They are also head coaches building teams that can win (leading).
And they are also the GM (strategic macro thinkers) negotiating sponsorship deals, TV rights and new markets to sell more team shirts.
As the CEO of a recruitment business, you need to know which conversation you are having with your team. If you are a solopreneur, you’ll need an outside perspective to help you stay objective and analyse your game plan.
Take a step back and ask yourself where you are spending most of your thinking time? On the pitch, in the locker room or the boardroom. All three conversations work if done independently of each other.
Andrew Sillitoe
Hi Simon and All, – Happy New Year!
Here’s my ramblings….
Having an exit plan – yet most owners will say they don’t have one or need / want one at this stage. Secretly most are looking to sell, or at least get a decent pay out of some kind, at some point.
Otherwise, what’s the point? Why work this hard with barely a slight chance of a pot of gold at the end? It may sound like a paradox coming from me who is VERY pro enjoying the process and the journey over the destination.
But how many of us have actually thought it through?
Having an exit plan gives you guidance. Aspirations, goals – a roadmap to what success looks like. But look, I get it. You’ve either just got started or too busy working on growth, or really loving what you do so much you feel like you never want it to stop – so the last thing you want to focus on is, how to end.
Exiting the business you’ve just started or been the founder of for years is a tough thing to face, but business ownership – and leadership requires humility… And there is nothing more modest than taking a step back, evaluating what’s working – and what’s not working in your business, and correcting it in real time.
Getting in external people to provide new perspectives, guide, support and mentor you, be your critical friend, make you work smarter for the benefit of you, your colleagues and the business, and ultimately enable you to execute your dreams, and not just think about them, is more than likely going to be the absolute difference.
That is why we all need an exit strategy, and ideally as early as possible – Whether we plan to exit or not.
Chris O’Connell
Immediate thought springs to mind…
“Invest in your people!
Whether that’s using training and development to create an easy succession plan for yourself as you grow, or a structured onboarding program to make sure that new starters are effective, efficient and above all adding to the bottom line early on or what about executive coaching for yourself to give you an outside perspective on what you can achieve. Don’t leave it all to chance”.
Kind regards,
Angela Cripps, Managing Director, Recruiting Gym
train.recruitinggym.com
