RL37: Striking While the Iron Is Hot
RL37: Striking While the Iron Is Hot
Reduce the time to close
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This week’s Retained Learnings post is unbearably straightforward, but it took me a while to learn.
The phrase, “Strike while the iron is hot,” applies to sales, job hunting, and investing.
We help companies hire better, faster, easier -
My business, The Military Veteran, helps companies hire military veterans.
We don’t have the most creative name for a company, but we do have an unbeatable product and service. We help companies hire the most talented and capable teammates in the world.
We charge a premium price point because we take exceptional care of our clients - we dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to serving them well. We do this by making hiring easy, fast, and fun - we take care of the logistics so our clients can interview and hire exceptional talent.
In the early innings of the business, our process looked like this -
Scour LinkedIn for great candidates
Reach out to them to tell them about the role
When interested, send them a Calendly link to find a time to connect
Interview them later that week or next week, depending upon availability on both sides
One day, I decided to make a subtle change
Rather than allowing candidates to book calls in the future, I did everything possible to get a candidate on the phone as soon as possible after they registered an interest.
This small change dramatically impacted our process.
Why?
When a candidate registered interest in a role, at that moment, they were -
Excited about the new opportunity
Envisioning what the role could be
Eager to learn more
These positive aspects wane as time passes, however.
Between when I sent a candidate my calendar to book a time and when we met, I lost a lot of great talent.
Acting quickly meant we could interview more candidates for each open role, send higher-quality candidates to our clients, and increase our velocity.
Lesson learned - when a counterparty is ready to take action, act quickly.
For those of you who don’t work in recruiting…
It’s still applicable!
You still find yourself selling all the time -
New initiatives at work
Investment opportunities
Hiring candidates for open roles
Creating buy-in for your projects
These are all examples of selling that you will run across regardless of your occupation.
Moving quickly to seal the deal works because people are fickle. A massive problem today is less urgent tomorrow or next week.
When a sales target, investment opportunity, job offer, or candidate comes your way, and they might interest you - act quickly to get them onto a call.
Moving fast is uncommon, and it provides an advantage.
When is the last time you let a great opportunity slip by without acting quickly?
Are there processes that bring ‘efficiency’ by sacrificing speed? If so, can you redesign them?
Let me know by hitting reply to this email.
Best,
Brendan