Results Driven

You often hear that phrase – “this is a results driven job – career, vacancy” etc., but for many that really means nothing.

Surely to turn up to work on time, do your work and go home – that’s the job right? Well that may be the case for a large proportion of the working population but if you work in any type of sales or money focused environment, from law to recruitment, to retail and catering you may well not be in that type of environment.

As an example if you work as a lawyer, barrister or solicitor within the private sector you have billing targets. These targets are annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly. The targets are measured by the notorious Key Performance Indicator system – and in sales this is usually CRM system aka Customer Relationship Management.

These targets are often divided into “activity” and “results”. The activity side are the actions you take to deliver the results and the result in all corporate endeavours is money. As I have worked in the recruitment industry for some time now I have intricate knowledge of what this activity is in this sector, namely – cold calling as business development, candidate generation, client meetings again business development, advert writing and written marketing. As an example, this can be broken down into “activities” = number of calls made a month, number of CVs sent, new candidates spoken to, new candidates registered. These activities can then be broken down into “results” from their work. Making x number of cold calls + number of CVs sent + number of client meetings = x number of vacancies, registering x number of candidates = x number of placements, which results in x amount of billing profit = commission.

Essentially this activity is a “numbers game”. The more you achieve these key performance activates the more you achieve the desired results.

Sounds simple right? Sounds easy?

That is far from the case. It does take a certain personality type to come into work day in day out with a dogged determination to meet these activity targets. Coming into work on time, working your allotted hours and then just going home is not an option – which is one of the reasons sales, recruitment, the legal profession, finance etc. are known for long hours, especially in the city.

For some people, perhaps even the majority of the people turning up is just the norm.

For me, and this is very personal and subjective, I just cannot imagine working in such an environment. I would clock watch, I would be bored, and there would be no lows and equally no highs. The thrills and enjoyment of closing a deal after weeks and sometimes months of hard graft is a dopamine thrilling joy.

So, although for many people work is just “work” – turn up, work, go home. For me it is more than that, it’s competitive, it’s interesting, it’s hard and difficult, thrilling – like a game, I want to win.

As I enter my 40s I hope that I have the energy and vigour to continue – people like Greg Savage give me the inspiration to know I can be making cold calls and closing deals into my 60s – now I must crack on!!!