By: Tony Barlow | tbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com
It is that time of year; goals, hopes and dreams are everywhere, and why not! Setting aside time to hope and dream is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to our work in healthcare. The challenge of course is that healthcare is notorious for too much work and too few people. While we should be looking up for what is new, we are stuck with our heads down working hard to get our daily work done. My goal is to attack 2020 with a new perspective, some new ideas and realistic goals for what the year can hold. Will you join me?
No good forward-thinking plan can start without a little look back. Maybe you have already done this step, December and the holiday season are a great time to reflect and look back at the year. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the time. Here are a few questions to run through and assess last year.
- Did you try any new tools, techniques or strategies for sourcing in 2019? How did they work?
- Did any of your old standby methods of sourcing lose ground?
- Was there anything you completely left behind or pushed to the wayside in 2019? Why?
- How did you divide up your time in 2019?
- Looking back did you commit enough time to sourcing or did you fall behind?
- Was your pipeline full?
Take a moment and consider these questions, if you are a recruiter or lead a team of recruiters this is a great first step to creating an awesome 2020.
So now that we have looked back, we get to do the fun part of looking forward. The first thing I want you to do in 2020 is set aside more time to look back and look forward. This shouldn’t just be a yearly process; you maybe knew that. ???? Set aside some time on your calendar each month to assess the month and think about the month ahead. Consider what is happening with doctors during this phase and adapt your approach. Tightening up this process alone will show some results! If there are tools that just aren’t producing like they used to, it’s a perfect time to commit less time to them, likewise if you saw an uptick in good leads from another tool or sourcing technique that one needs a larger time commitment.
Here is a quick example from our team. Each month we send a number of email campaigns for our clients and then take some time to analyze the results. In 2018 we noticed that our more specific subject lines were performing really well. In doing research we discovered that vague subject lines are often a red flag for physicians in identifying search firms. This was a differentiator; we could set our clients apart from search firms with focused and specific subject lines. In 2019, we implemented that idea across the board and the results were excellent for our clients!
The bottom line to all this is that it just takes time. Looking back and looking forward takes effort and diligence on our part. The good news is that in the healthcare space we work in there is room at the top! Your effort to look back and then forward on a regular basis will help you step up and away from the crowd; helping you, your hospital and your opportunities stand out.
We love to work with hospitals just like yours to source physicians. We set ourselves apart by always representing our clients to prospect physicians and never ourselves. It is like adding another valuable member to your team! Learn more here. Shoot me a note if you are interested in learning more about how we can help your team source more physicians in 2020. You can reach me at tbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com.