There are too many pot holes in my road !

Yes, I know it’s been a while, however, I am now ready to pen a few words or a few thousand !

The road ahead has too many pot holes for my liking and the rear view mirror is not really where I want to travel, so it’s time to get the map out and plan a new route.
My world is changing and for the first time I have a blank canvass, so for a coach and entrepreneur that in itself is quite a stressful place to be. You see I have spent my life fixing, adapting and creating opportunities for others, which in turn has created opportunities for me. This time however it would appear that it is all about me !!!
Since the down turn in 2008 business/life has changed and we have all had to adopt and cut our cloth accordingly which for someone like me is always a nice challenge as 90% of my waking life has been about one challenge or another.
I started my working career at 16 and by the time I was 21 I had worked my way through a few small jobs in sales with some success but my big break came when I joined Haagen Dazs. I had at this point already secured my first mortgage which looking back now seems incredible in light of todays housing market. By the time I was 23 I has opened my first business bank account and had plans a foot to start a new business but alas my confidence got the better of me and I continued in corporate life. I moved into different verticals, namely FMCG, Media, Hardware, software and finally found my home in recruitment. I bought and sold homes along the way and in 2004 after getting married decided to relocate my life to the South West where I am still based today.
I have never been unemployed for more than 5 minutes and to date have run and founded 4 businesses which have made me self-sufficient for the last 10 years. So looking in the rear view mirror for a moment I am pleased with whats in my past. I haven’t done it all myself, I have lots of people to thank and loads to be grateful for as you can imagine.
I have however, come to the end of a journey, over the last 2 years my life has completely changed and as scary as it is, I am now ready to embark on a new route.
So my first call today was to my coach Bev Hamilton whom I have worked with successfully before and without doubt she will kick me into touch.
So in essence this blog will now change course but to start with I will diarise my own journey of the coach who is being coached. Its going to be fun, challenging and a voyage of discovery so best go and dig out the life jacket.

Bon Voyage for now !!

Emma

The Recruitment Coach

So tucked up in bed with a rather annoying head cold I thought I might make use of the time and peruse The Sunday Times. My usual tactic is to separate all the sections into piles of “like to read” and piles of ” a challenge but maybe one day I will give it a go”. The first section to get my complete attention being a head hunter and coach is to dive into the back pages of Style Magazine to read my stars for “Leo” for the week ahead and to make a quick comparison as to what it said in Saturdays Telegraph Magazine, as that is still laying at the foot of the bed. Depending on how motivational it is, I then move to either the appointments section or the property pages to quench both my passions.
Over the course of the next 15 mins I then tend to get an appetite for either a move of home, the next building project or a whim to turn my hand to interior design which of course is going to be supported by a lucrative recruiting project that has come out of my critique/SWOT analysis of an advert in the appointments section currently being poorly managed by a competitor of mine.
I think the market I chose to build my business in is the most competitive vertical I have ever worked in and at times, seems to be full of ego’s which is a great shame. In the old days of recruitment you were targeted to call every job ad in the papers and try to leverage /steal business from your competitors by offering a cut down price or to play back up supplier. The desired outcome was that their chosen recruiter would let them down or fail as you hoped and expected they would and that you, would ride up on your white charger and save the day, hoping to god to negotiate a larger fee for the next hire they award to you. Voila! Job done and on to the next victim or walking invoice as they were affectionately known in the back office !! Thank god those days have gone, having left all that behind ten years ago, but my fear is that there still are a few companies lurking out there so beware.
There is nothing wrong in scouting for new business from the appointments section but what most recruiters forget or just haven’t considered is that the client has already committed and generally spent a good £10k for that “rather splendid ADVERT” in the press. They have probably already tried the contingent route, job boards, their own network and a few referrals, so in all honestly why are they going to choose you. If you or your current employer can’t answer that question then my advice would be that you move directly from the Stars section in the magazine to the holiday section. Maybe, with some time away from the “mediocre service” you are looking to bother this new client with, you may just have a light bulb moment! understand what your USP is, what the client might be missing already or even better realise that there are enough clients out there already for the recruitment vertical to double in size without leveraging/stealing your competitors.
If you can’t afford to spend on a holiday right now then my advice is to grab a coffee head to Waterstones and by a book on how to write a great CV as I think you might need it if your employer is still embracing such “80′s sales techniques” alternatively, give me a buzz and I will help you turn it all around !!

Signing off now to add another box of tissues to already full bedside table of cold remedies !! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday …

Emma

The Recruitment Coach

Happy New Year to all my readers and WELCOME to the new blog!
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it…
Here’s to a great 2010 for everyone