You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

—Abraham Lincoln

Prospecting is interrupting.You don’t enjoy being interrupted. Neither do your prospects. When you interrupt, the responses can be cold, harsh, and biting. Sometimes you face personal insults.

It’s awkward to interrupt someone’s day. You can’t control their response, and this unknown leaves you feeling vulnerable. Anticipating their rejection causes fear and worry. Should your prospect react harshly to being interrupted, it can hurt. It’s an uncomfortable affair that’s emotionally easier to just avoid.

Frankly, in a perfect world military recruiters wouldn’t have to interrupt prospects. It would be a loving utopia where recruiters and prospects sat in circles and sang “Kumbaya.” In this world, qualified prospects would reach out and contact recruiters at just the right time, and no one would ever have to prospect again.

But that’s a fantasy. In the War for Talent, if you wait for prospects to interrupt you, you will fail.

Prospecting has always been about the willingness on the part of the recruiter to interrupt. Relentless interrupting is fundamental to building robust recruiting pipelines. No matter your prospecting approach, if you don’t interrupt relentlessly, your funnel will be anemic, and you will miss mission.

The number-one reason for failure in military recruiting is an empty funnel, and the number-one reason recruiters have empty funnels is their failure to prospect consistently.

Yet, in the face of this brutal and undeniable truth, most recruiters spend more time finding excuses not to prospect rather than just doing it. There are three mind-sets that hold recruiters back from talking to people and interrupting strangers:

1. Procrastination
2. Perfectionism
3. Paralysis

Procrastination

You’ve no doubt heard the children’s riddle “What is the best way to eat an elephant?”

The answer, of course, is “One bite at a time.”

It’s a simple concept. But when it comes to the real world and real problems, it’s not that easy.

Far too often we try to eat the elephants in our lives all in one bite, which results in stress, frustration, and failure. You can’t do all of your prospecting for the month, or even a week, in a single day. It is impossible, and it will never get done. That’s why it’s not “prospecting day”; it’s prospecting every day!

Yet recruiters put prospecting off—always with the promise that they’ll “get around to it” tomorrow or later this week or Monday or whatever is the prevailing excuse of the day. They delude themselves into believing that they can prospect once or twice a week and it will be okay.

And it’s easy to put prospecting off because in recruiting you are removed from the flagpole. You are in a remote location. You create your own plans for the day—often based on vague “guidance” from your chain of command. You make decisions on how many attempts, when you’ll make them, and through which channel.

Procrastination is an ugly disease that plagues the human race. No one is immune. You’ve got it, and I’ve got it. In fact, I have a PhD in procrastination—a bona fide expert. One year I bought a book called How to Stop Procrastinating (my New Year’s resolution). That book sat unread on my bedside table for three years until I finally sold it at a garage sale.

Every major failure in my life has been a direct result of a collapse in my self-discipline to do the little things every day. Frankly, that’s all failure really is. The cumulative impact of many poor decisions, slips in self-discipline, and things put off until it is too late. To add insult to injury, my failures were often accompanied by an embarrassing crescendo of desperate, hurried, and wasted activity trying to catch up and do it all at once, to save my hide.

It is in our nature as humans to procrastinate. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I’m tired, I’ll exercise tomorrow.” It’s easy to say, “I’ll start my diet tomorrow, I’ll quit smoking after this pack, I’ll make up today’s prospecting on Friday, I’ll start reading that book next week”! It’s in our nature to fool ourselves with these promises.

But there is no reward for procrastination. The failure to do the little things each day cripples your efforts to make mission. Lack of daily discipline results in mediocrity and failure.

To consistently deliver mission, you must develop the self- discipline to do a little bit of prospecting each day. You can’t wait until the end of the week, end of the day, end of the month, or end of the quarter to prospect. You must prospect every day. Every day. Every day. A little bit every day.

Procrastinating is easy, but the cost is great. Many recruiters don’t understand the price they have paid until they wake up one day and realize that they are staring down the barrel of an empty funnel, sitting on top of a big pile of should-a-dones, regret, and failure.

Procrastination is the grave in which mission is buried.

Perfectionism

I looked on as Petty Officer Second Class Schneider arranged his desk perfectly. Organized the prospecting list on his computer. Carefully researched each prospect on his list. Searched Google, searched Facebook, and reviewed in detail the history and call notes.

An hour went by. Then two. Finally, he made the first call—a call to a prospect on which he had done meticulous research. His call went to voice mail, as did the next call, and the next one. He sighed, “No one answers the phone these days.”

After three calls, he stopped to get a cup of coffee, check e-mail, and arrange things on his desk again. Forty-five minutes later he packed up his things and headed out to visit his schools. In his quest for perfectionism, Schneider managed to make seven prospecting calls in about three hours, getting nothing in return for his effort.

Petty Officer First Class Lord has a desk right next to Schneider’s. As soon as she sat down at her desk that same morning, she pulled a prospecting list and started dialing. An hour later she’d made 33 calls, spoken to 14 people, and set up two interviews with qualified prospects. Then she sent a dozen text messages to the numbers that didn’t have voice mail set up and sent 19 e-mails to prior service prospects she was attempting to engage.

It wasn’t perfect. She ran into a few snags, had a couple of calls that might have gone better had she researched in advance, and got a few harsh objections. However, she accomplished far more than Schneider. Lord is a top ten recruiter in her region.

In her Huffington Post article “14 Signs Your Perfectionism Has Gotten Out of Control,” Carolyn Gregoire writes, “The great irony of perfectionism is that while it’s characterized by an intense drive to succeed, it can be the very thing that prevents success. Perfectionism is highly correlated with fear of failure (which is generally not the best motivator) and self-defeating behavior, such as excessive procrastination.”¹

This statement describes perfectly why perfectionism is the archenemy of prospecting. It generates both procrastination and the fear of rejection. The late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.”

I’ve always believed that messy success (moving and taking action) is far better than perfect mediocrity (waiting until the “perfect” moment).

I’ll beat the recruiter who spends a call block meticulously researching each prospect on any day by just picking up a targeted list and calling. Sure, I’ll miss a few things here and there if I don’t read every note and know everything, but there won’t be enough of a delta to compensate for the activity gap between me and the recruiter who gets everything perfect before making a single prospecting call.

To be clear, I am not saying that researching or organizing your prospecting block is a bad idea. If you are calling high-potential prospects, it is a good idea to research in advance so that you can make the message relevant to their unique situation and engage them in a conversation.

Advance is the optimal word, though. Research is not prospecting. Do research before and after the Golden Hours (or Red Time) so that it does not encroach on your prospecting activity and productivity.

When you delude yourself into believing that research is prospecting, then perfect research, perfect organization, finding the perfect time to call, or having the perfect situation to talk to a prospect becomes an obsession that you use to shield yourself from potential rejection.

Most of the problem with perfectionism is self-talk. The voice inside your head tells you that when you get all of your little ducks in a perfect row, prospects will be putty in your hands. This self-talk manifests itself in behaviors that have you working hard to get everything ready and perfect but not actually doing anything. You plan to plan to plan to plan but accomplish nothing.

The solution is simple. Block time for prospecting. Set a goal for the number of touches you will make during that time block. Then do it.

Paralysis from Analysis

Talking to strangers conjures up our deepest, darkest fear—being rejected. The truth is we are all reluctant to call and talk to strangers. It’s not normal for human beings to seek out rejection, yet that is exactly what you are asked to do as a recruiter.

For this reason, humans tend to anticipate rejection, which manifests itself in the form of worry that creates paralysis from analysis. This problem is driven in part by perfectionism and is totally fixable. Here is what analysis paralysis sounds like emanating from the mouths of military recruiters:

• “Well, what if they say no?”
• “What if their parents say no?”
• “What if they say this or that?”
• “How will I know if . . . ?”
• “What should I do if . . . ?”
• “What should I say if . . .?”
• “What if I bring them in for an interview and they are not qualified?”

Rather than just dialing the phone, initiating a conversation in line at Target, or walking through their front door and dealing with what comes next, recruiters, driven by fear and worry, go on a “what if” binge, often followed by an attempt to get every duck in a perfect row. The result: Prospecting grinds to a halt.

Disrupting the Three Ps

When working with recruiters who are held back by one or all of the Three Ps, I get them focused on making just one prospecting call. Then the next. Then the next. One call at a time. Sometimes I get a list and sit next to them and dial, too. When they see that I’m not getting blown out of the water by prospects, it gets easier for them to let go of these mental hang-ups and disruptive emotions and take action.

Sometimes I must be direct to get them to jump into prospecting. I push them hard to “just do it.” Just pick up the phone and make the call. Let the “what ifs” take care of themselves. This is how we do it in our Fanatical Military Recruiting Boot Camps. We give the order, “You’ve got 15 minutes to make 15 calls and set one appointment. Go!”

No time to think, no time to plan, no time to worry. Just pick up the phone and dial. I know this might seem harsh, but a push is sometimes what’s required to break this destructive cycle. It’s not much different from how I learned to swim or how you learned to be a Soldier, Marine, Airman, or Sailor.

I was six and shivering. My toes hung precariously off the edge of the diving board that jutted out over the lake at Athens Y Camp in north Georgia. The hulking six-foot-five frame of Coach Poss, the waterfront director, towered over me.

We’d spent the last five days learning strokes, how to kick, and how to breathe, all in the safety of the shallow end. Now it was the moment of truth. Each student had to jump from the diving board into the dark, cold, deep lake and swim the ten feet or so to shore. It seemed like a mile to me.

I looked back at Coach Poss. “What if I can’t swim? What if I don’t come back up? Can I please do it tomorrow?” I pleaded. I stood on the end of that diving board staring at the water, running over all of the worst-case scenarios in my head.

Coach Poss began walking toward me. He was neither amused nor swayed by my begging for more time. There was only one thing I feared more than jumping into the lake, and he was getting closer by the second. He’d already unceremoniously hurled a couple of reluctant beginner swimmers from the diving board. I did not want that embarrassment, so I jumped.

I hit the cold water and went under. For a moment, I panicked. Then I stroked my arms and kicked my feet and burst through the surface. I remembered my lessons and paddled my way to the shore. The strokes were not perfect—more dog paddle than breast stroke—but I made it. I made it!

After that, you couldn’t keep me off that diving board. Coach Poss taught me to swim because he forced me to do it. He wasn’t worried. He knew I wouldn’t drown.

We’ve all found ourselves in the crushing grip of the insidious Three Ps. I observe recruiters endlessly obsessing and overthinking the potential outcomes of prospecting calls. They convince themselves that they need to gather more facts, just need a little bit more training, or that the timing is not right. They squander time worrying about what ifs and look at me with puppy dog eyes pleading for more time to get it right before diving in.

Think back to when you were at boot camp. You were asked to do and experience things that were foreign to you. At times you were afraid or hesitant. But your drill sergeant pushed you to do the things you thought you could not do. It’s been like this throughout your career in the military. You’ve faced adversity and succeeded. Through repetition, you gained obstacle immunity and resilience.

The human mind abhors the unknown. In its natural state, it wants to be safe and secure. It doesn’t like leaping off a diving board into a cold lake, jumping out of a plane, running into live fire, rappelling down a wall, or picking up a phone and calling a stranger (especially a teenager). It panics in the face of change and clings to the status quo. Then it begins to convince us that all kinds of awful dire consequences are imminent.

But at some point, you’ve got to move. Sometimes you just need a Coach Poss or a drill sergeant or a Coach Jeb to push you to take action.

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