(Editor’s note: Click here for the first part of this blog post series.)
The recruiter’s career is filled with disappointments . . . almost every week, if not every day. Candidates can do stupid things. Clients sometimes don’t return phone calls and don’t interview candidates in a timely manner, so your hot candidate moves on to another opportunity.
Clients could pay late, putting a damper on your cash flow. And sometimes you have a favorite client who leaves his employer and is replaced by someone who hates recruiters. Yes indeed, negative things are a big part of this business.
When I first got into sales, I was selling long-distance telephone service for a major carrier. At the time, I lived in Asheville, N.C., where I currently live. Our territory consisted of 17 counties that included all of those far-away places in the boonies of western North Carolina. I can honestly say that I was the top-producing sales rep for a 17-county region. There were two of us, and the other rep wasn’t very good.
It was brutal. I was kicked out of buildings, yelled at, screamed at, and threatened. I had a product that was truly a commodity and wasn’t very sexy. But I made it work. I learned how to sell. I actually was able to make a living above the poverty line. Each day, I would say, “Today is going to be the greatest day of my life!” and it turned out to be.
I still say that mantra each and every day. On my way to work, I expect that today will bring wonderful surprises. I expect that people will just call me out of the blue to give me their business, that people willingly return phone calls, and that I always get through to the decision maker because the secretaries are on my side.
I learned this attitudinal turbo-charging mechanism in the brutal world of long-distance telephone sales. If you can make it in recruiting or in selling long-distance, you can make it in anything.
One way to definitely change your attitude immediately is to expect another outcome, a positive and serendipitous experience so fantastic that you get excited about the possibility. Expect your outcome to be a certain way, and it will be.
If I am ever in the middle of a dire circumstance, one that seems to be hopeless, I instantly sit back, take a deep breath, and think of my friend Patrick. I think of Patrick’s life, the fate that became his, and I feel encouraged knowing that he would probably want me to be grateful for my life.
And at that point, my seemingly large problems don’t seem very large anymore.
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Scott Love, guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog and owner of The Attorney Search Group, trains, motivates, and inspires recruiters to achieve greatness in the profession. Visit his online recruiter training center for tips, downloads, videos, and articles that can help you increase your recruiter billings.