One good thing about the rare anonymous jerks who complain about what I write here is that I no longer write everything. That and being busy have made me a bit more choosy about what I want to invest the time in, live with, and defend here.
There are two classic trainer lines I keep hearing that just bug me when they are not balanced or explained and usually they are not. First is the edict to all recruiters in the TFL reader industry… “You must make X ‘marketing’ calls a day.”
Then you see a planner example with 20 or 40 calls to 20 or 40 different people on it. I guess a lot of people do that, maybe. I know I was always told to but I never did. Things worked much better when I concentrated on getting new clients from referrals by current ones or by flipping recruiting calls. It also helped to focus on companies that seemed like good ones to do business with. I think anyone over 6 …even ladies/women/girls…has tried to build something at least once..Think how long it would take to nail 2 boards together if you had 20 or 40 nails lined up and hit each one once a day. For me, getting one client is a bunch of calls and a long time investment and a process of negotiation and getting to know each other. So…, the trainers’ way must work or they’d not all say it, but I promise you it is not the only one that works and I wish they’d point that out. I know it would have helped me much earlier in my career.
The other one that bugs me no end is “Stay off email and only make phone calls so you aren’t tempted to go check sports scores or sales yadayada” BULLCRAP! is the only thing I can say here. And BULLCRAP is pretty close to the word I wanted to say. Next time you hear that one go to Gallaudet University and yell at the class and see if they hear you better because you are yelling. Email is just one more mode of communication and it’s no harder or easier to screw off on email than it is to use the phone to call a buddy and talk about the absolutely fantastic Eagles concert I saw last night. All you trainers need to wake up on that one and start telling people HOW to use email not WHEN to use email. Anyone in this era who’s incapable of monitoring email while making phone calls needs a new job. Sure…it can still be done with paper and a phone and the monitor turned off. I can also walk to work instead of drive,take all day to thaw out a steak,drive all over town looking for a cell phone instead of using the one in my pocket and all sorts of other things I used to do in the dark ages but I don’t have to.
I save huge amounts of time and effort with these new tools. Enough for the occasional rant at least. We have some great classic trainers in our business and we have some really good guys teaching about new recruiting TOOLS…like Shally and Glenn…but where are the trainers teaching people how to leverage the communication modes instead of talking about them like they are tools of the devil?