CLOSING IS FOR COWARDS: How to make more deals without having to summon courage, go to a therapist, or half-heartedly use a script that scares the daylights out of you. Look, you’re fully formed. It’s too late to rewire you. Some of the great billers Danny mentors are not CLOSERS, they are COWARDS who have learned to compensate. They use the client to close, sometimes the candidate, sometimes their manager. But they know under what circumstances to employ their coward’s playbook. They read the signs. We’ll show you how. A coward trying to use a traditional take it away close, only takes away money from his ATM. It doesn’t have to be that way. In a LinkedIn world, we get objections we never got before, from candidates who are not serious. That’s why internal recruiters get turndowns. In almost EVERY deal you lose, you were being sent signals, (sometimes muted, to be sure) and you chose to ignore them, or were too busy "overcoming the objection". The problem with most Rebuttals is they have the word “BUT” in them, and whatever someone says after they say the word “but”, generally means they didn’t hear a word you said. So your candidates tune out and tell you what you [...]

Hey Danny, What do you think of our 20 commandments? 1. Thou shall have a written plan every day. 2. Thou shall have 50+ dial outs every day (always a mix of marketing + recruiting calls). 3. Thou shall interview 10+ headhunted candidates every week (headhunted candidate = a candidate who is working, is not expecting your call and is only passively seeking a job - not on job boards). 4. Thou shall have at least 4 sendouts every week (16 for the month - either by presenting on active tested mandates OR securing interviews by doing MPC calls). 5. Thou shall get at least 2 job orders every week (8 for the month). 6. Thou shall use the script, role-play it every week and know their rebuttals. 7. Thou shall update CATS for any candidate / client activity (no commission paid on placed candidates who are not added or properly added to CATS). 8. Thou shall always test a job order within 1-2 business days after receiving it before flooding / covering it with 4 more sendouts (within 4-5 business days - you can test it with Internet candidate but make sure that you have at least 3 headhunted sendouts for the mandate). 9. Thou shall have [...]

Hi Danny, I want to have you walk me through something here. On the last couple of deals I have been working on, I have been finding I am not getting sufficient candidate commitment. Of course, in my defense, I am working with strictly passive candidates. Now I have another situation where I am not sensing I have good control on the situation. Working with a client - Great company, great benefits (401K + Pension matching at 11% fully vested in 2 years) then there's the job... WOW - this is an amazing job! It's all new technical development in the latest technology. A very well funded project - great political capital to boot! Dream job! Except- Location, Location, Location. This client is located in the middle of nowhere. The Chief Technology Leader knows this. He's done a good job getting a very well planned out project and he's seeking my help to find him talent. I have found a candidate who is an excellent match and is in a degree of career pain. He's also very interested in the benefits package and he's frankly very interested in the work that he's interviewing with my client for - he also confided in me that after 13 years of [...]

Danny Replies: I assume you want a solution besides the one I’m inclined to recommend… (AKA screaming into the phone, “Are you serious? Do you know how hard it was to find this candidate?”) This situation calls for two classic closes, whichever resonates for you. You shouldn’t need both. REDUCE TO ABSURDITIES: First you show empathy. I understand that even though you changed the hours, they are your hours, you run your shop as you’d like, etc. It is easy to take an emotional stance, let me suggest something. Most studies show that in the typical 8-hour day an employee is truly “working” about half that time. And we all know there are people who can do 8 hours of work in 4 and people who take 8 hours to do the work that can be done in 2 hours. There are 480 minutes in a day, 96000 hours in a calendar year of working. Instead of looking at the number “30 minutes”, I think we should consider that she is really asking for 6.5% of the 480 minute day. (6000 of the 96000 she will work for you this year.) Isn’t it reasonable to believe that if she is as good as we both think she is, [...]