Targets, KPIs & Dominos

People talk about KPIs and Targets as though they’re the same thing. They aren’t. To be simplistic, KPIs are a tracking tool so that you can predict how likely someone is to hit their target.

KPIs are the lead factors that tell you whether someone is going to hit their goals, and what factors to correct if they’re not.

KPIs

Most people just think of KPIs as activities - number of dials, connect time, that sort of thing. Totally useless and non-productive. Workers will do well despite them, shirkers will find a way around them.

The best KPIs are based around the required steps in your sales process. The obvious example is number of 1st interviews - but is that the interviews requested, set up, or actually happened? Those three numbers are often wildly different, and that can tell you an important story in itself!

You then track the conversion ratios between each of those steps, and compare across the team. Identify who’s the best at each stage, and use their performance as the benchmark for everyone else.

Ratios & Leverage

As shown in the video about The Power Of Ratios, that’s where the leverage for the business comes in. You can dramatically improve everyone’s performance simply by making them aware of what is expected of them - and if their colleague across the desk is doing it, surely they can too? 

That’s especially true if the ‘role model’ is different for each stage of the process, rather than a single ‘superstar. It’s much harder to think “well it’s alright for them, but…” if there are several people setting the benchmark at different stages.

Dominos

BUT, there’s a second type of KPIs: Dominos. Imagine those rows of dominos that people set off cascading to draw pictures and patterns. That all starts with the first domino. So, in my experience, does most recruitment. The domino activity isn’t always the same, and it isn’t always in the same place. But there’s always a first step that makes everything else happen.

And once you’ve identified it, even if everything else remains the same but you do the domino activity better or more frequently, the results go up dramatically.

What is the first essential step, without which nothing else happens? In the case of my business, it’s the number of DMs that we send out to potential candidates. Because DMs - Prequalification calls - Qualification calls - Profile marketing - Interview requests…etc.

But it could be: Cold calls to prospects - Conversations - Job Orders - Candidate contact - Presentation - interviews…

Actions

So, to summarise:

• Defining Process KPIs is a laborious job of mapping out the REQUIRED steps in the process (not the could/might stuff) and then collecting data.
• Improving KPIs means finding the best performer at moving from one KPI step to the next. And then working out how they do it, sharing it, and setting that as the benchmark for everyone else.
• Domino KPIs are the early-stage activities that set everything else in the process off. And it’s important to optimise and maximise those before cracking on with anything else. Because then the compounding effect of marginal gains has the chance to kick in. 
• And once you have this in place for year 1, year 2 targets can become based on science; If you achieve a 10% gain in each of these areas, you can improve your revenue by X%. So that’s the target and the personal development plan for the year sorted out!