HR: Like Sales, But Without the Commission...
July 15, 2011
Quick: Take a look at the picture to the right...
What is it? OK, I know that it's numbers, Einstein... What do the numbers represent?
If you said a sales funnel, have a free subscription to Jessica Lee Writes and Deadspin, on me... That's how I roll...
The point? There's something universal about the concept of the sales funnel. So universal, in fact, that I think it can be applied to almost any job in the world. You do activity to get results. You know that not all of your activity is going to be successful, but you also know that repetition is part of the process. You also know that you can limit the amount of dead repetitions by being smart about what you do in each stage of the funnel.
Let's look at my chart in the picture. These were some scribbles in a conference room at DAXKO last year, where I was meeting with a VP to discuss an open position in their organization. The top represents the total number of applicants or sourced candidates. Moving down, you've got the total number of phone screens I did from that pool, the total number of live interviews to date (with a question to the side - I could bring in 2-3 more that would compare favorably, but do we need to?), with a "1" at the bottom of the funnel to represent the ultimate hire. The only question now is whether the VP wants to see more candidates when she has two she really likes. Because I work with great people, she said she only wants to see them if they can compete with the 2 she likes (yes! right answer!).
2 main points to close this post:
1. Almost everything in HR can be broken down to the equivalent of a sales funnel. Don't believe me? Take employee relations. We work on issues and cases (the top of the funnel) and apply our process to resolve issues as you move down the funnel. What's at the bottom of the employee relations funnel? Probably getting sued, my friends. If you've been in the game long enough, you have an idea how many cases it takes before your company is sued, even if you're working your value-added process. (Allegations are free and anyone can sue - It's America!!)
2. To be a player in HR, you need to know the numbers in the funnel without having to look them up. I'm close enough to the position in question where I know my numbers. That's good, but I'm not perfect. I can't tell you what the numbers were for the last AE jobs I closed. Shame on me, that means I have room to improve, because I'm not the HR cyborg I thought I was.
HR. It's like Sales, but without the commission. At least for the true players...
Amen to that! Know your numbers.
Track your ratios... figure out if you are getting better or not. If you don't know your ratios and track them you can't figure out what works and what doesn't. Don't be that guy or gal who flails and tries different things but doesn't really know what works or what doesn't.
Great post KD.
Posted by: Sean Conrad | July 15, 2011 at 03:28 PM
The article is very helpful! Thank you for posting it! Personally, I had some problems figuring out how to organize my commission reports. After plenty of research I found this program that gives me templates for that very purpose, then quickly and painlessly converts my excel documents into pdf so I don't have to do it manually (which would end up taking aggravating hours upon hours). It provides my business a simple way to make individualized statements for our business associates, taking our commission reports and seamlessly transforming the rows and columns of information into a professional document. Check it out here.
Posted by: Joseph Becket | August 01, 2011 at 02:38 PM