One of the biggest challenges for recruitment business owners is having mid tier consultants that can’t quite shift into gear and perform as they should. Through my years in recruitment management and training I have developed 7 tools that can help managers get mid-tier consultants performing.

1 – Championing Your Champions

Who are the consultants that are really bringing in the business? The Pareto principle states that 80% of earnings are usually generated by 20% effort. In the recruitment industry this is especially true. The top 20% of your team generally bring in the majority of the business. So what do you do with the remaining 80% of the workforce that aren’t performing as they should?

Business Success Team

Many managers will spend a lot of time and effort trying to ‘fix’ the lowest performers.  Unfortunately this rarely pays off and can be very frustrating. I believe that it is better to champion the champions. However – there are those mid or lower tier performers who are not performing yet – that have the potential and willingness to work towards becoming a top performer –so make sure that you invest time with these people. You will know who they are – normally working long hours, keen to learn, wanting to make it work, motivated to change – these are the people worth working with. Choose them carefully and invest time with these consultants and your Champions and it can be well worth your efforts.

 

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2 – The Magic Wand Question

Often the task of motivation falls to managers. The problem is: How do you motivate consultants that can’t see past their present circumstances? To address this I use the magic wand question – when things are going wrong I say:

“Imagine you put a magic wand on your business, go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and everything has changed so it’s just how you want it to be.  What’s changed? What’s now happening?   What do you see, hear and feel specifically?

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Then I would ask the consultant – “How can you get this happening in your business now?  What do you need to start doing, what do you need to stop doing?”

This question takes away all the challenges and reasons why something might not be possible and describes an ideal world – their positive outcome. Use this tool to get consultants thinking about a new reality. 

3 – Link their Goal to their Values

As much as the magic wand question can get consultants thinking about what they want, it won’t translate into motivation unless they understand why it is important – both you as their manager and to them as consultants. So when you have their goal – ask them why this is important to them – what will having this outcome give them or get for them?

4 – Values Elicitation Questions

Every single person has different motivators – and what people want, what they really want motivates them to act.  Values are your key drivers and are really important to you.  As a manager, by asking these questions, you will be able to uncover your consultants hot buttons – so you can find out exactly what you need to do to motivate them.

 

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 5 – Compelling Goal Questions

This tool helps managers guide consultants through the process of goal setting their 12 month goal by asking specific questions. The important aspect of this tool is that answers need to be positively framed. The questions help people think about their goals in terms of their motivations and values and bring them back to a personal level by highlighting what is important for them.   You can then break this 12 month goal into 1/4ly, monthly, weekly and daily goals – which shows a consultant exactly what they need to do each day consistently to achieve their year end goal.

6 – SMART Goals

Goal setting is an important part of getting consultants moving in the direction that they need to be going. The SMART goals tool ensures that goals are specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and time-framed.  So that you can review and monitor are they on track or not.

7 – Belief Assessment Questionnaire

Once goals have been set, the next step is to find out how motivational that goal really is.  Each question rates the goal according to a statement on a scale of 1-5. Working through the questions and the rating scale will help establish if the goal is worthwhile and realistic. It will also help work out the steps needed to achieve the goals, if the person has the right competencies and if the person is capable of taking on the responsibility of achieving the goal.

If you would like to know exactly how these tools work please sign up for our free webinar which will show you how to do them and also the templates you need.

I hope you found this article useful.

If you want to learn how to set up your business, so that it stops under-performance once and for all, then join my free webinar:  The 5 Secrets Our Clients Use to Build 7 & 8 Figure Recruitment Businesses

 

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