Proactive Recruiting Helps Stack Your Talent Deep

“Stack­ing the right peo­ple, in the right seats, is a game changer.”

Ever think that lead­ers should be more like com­mis­sioned sales­peo­ple in the sense that they should be con­stant­ly prospecting?

One impor­tant way direc­tors, exec­u­tives and man­agers can do this is through proac­tive recruit­ing. This helps lead­ers build rela­tion­ships with key (prospec­tive) employ­ees they want to add to their team. Fur­ther­more, this can also apply to new clients in some cas­es because they have influ­enc­ing con­nec­tions. This is no dif­fer­ent than a gen­er­al build­ing an army. You want to build your bench deep and stack it with talent.

In fast grow­ing com­pa­nies, some­times team mem­bers don’t make the cut, or you need to expand into a new region, or add more horse­pow­er and knowl­edge to the team. When that hap­pens, most com­pa­nies rely on exter­nal recruiters or HR to bring in peo­ple, and that process can be slow, expen­sive, and reactive.

Invest 1‑Hour Per Week on Proac­tive Recruiting

But if you spent just an hour a week on proac­tive recruit­ment strate­gies and activ­i­ties — like the exec­u­tives, direc­tors and man­agers do in some of the best com­pa­nies we’ve seen — you’ll build your own robust prospect lists.

For exam­ple, if a CEO and team of sev­en peo­ple each had a list of 20 amaz­ing high-per­form­ers you’d love to have in the com­pa­ny to con­tin­u­al­ly fol­low up with, that’s a prospect list of 140 peo­ple. (And, if you’re a busi­ness-to-busi­ness orga­ni­za­tion, there’s poten­tial for some oth­er busi­ness to come out of it, too.)

What would hap­pen if you bring in the next lev­el of direc­tors, say 20 peo­ple? That’s 400 A‑Players you’re in con­ver­sa­tions with every month and work­ing to bring towards your organization.

Then, when some of that amaz­ing tal­ent gets dis­lodged or frus­trat­ed, there’s a very good chance they’re going to come your way and land, just at the right time.

After 25 years work­ing with scal­ing com­pa­nies, we know exe­cu­tion is a dis­ci­pline but stack­ing the right peo­ple, in the right seats, is a game changer.

The Chal­lenge

• Where is your list of 14, 140 or 400?
• What’s your plan to fol­low up the 17 times it will prob­a­bly take to land them?

For more about hav­ing a Top­grad­ing vir­tu­al bench, join us for episode 69 of The Growth Whis­per­ers podcast.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.