Okay, for the past three tip letters, I have at least mentioned the concept of accountability. What does it mean? Well, you can be as trusting as your profile will allow, and you let them BS you as well as their profile allows. and all you will have at the end is disappointment, and a severely damaged revenue stream. Let's face it, the kind of people we need to hire, our one-to-seven profiles, higher Power, higher Extroversion, lower Analysis with lower Conformance have every capability of stringing you along. They can be masters at it. Why? Well, attitude is probably the likely culprit. You see, in a tough market, when it gets harder to make things go your way, you just don't want to admit you can't cut it. So, rather than dig in and create more volume (remember the last news tip?), you start either inventing activity or hiding inactivity, while you hope things work out. Yeah, there is a good idea, hope things work out!

So, in every case where an individual's performance has slipped, or when a performer is new to the industry, learning the ropes, you need accountability, something that tells you that not only is there a plan to succeed, but a performance to back it up. And yes, it is called plan vs. performance. It gives you and that individual a chance to sit down and set up some common sense goals and minimums, then set up a schedule of coaching where you can go over the ongoing performance and look for problem areas. Minimums are critical, by the way, as those numbers, whatever the category, should reflect a minimum activity to KEEP THEIR DESK! So, don't inflate the minimums beyond status quo. Goals can be raised to attempt better productivity, though, of course! Surely, you would agree, that if an individual is doing a great deal of activity, and certain results are in place, while others are not, there is created, then, a training opportunity to bring the person in line. As an example, making 50 completed phone presentations a day, with only one or two inventory going to database means the performer is not asking. Hundreds of inventory per week, but no interviews means no closing, just gathering. Lots of interviews, but no send outs (temp and perm, by the way!) means closing against whoever represents the clients, or the client direct, is not there. And accountability plans will tell you the problem in the first month!