Planning for Your Best Year Ever in 2026
The ‘Atomic’ Approach
–A Six Part Series–
Part Four
by
Bob Marshall
December 16th, 2025
The Central Theme Behind What We Do
At TBMG, International, we live by a simple philosophy: the classics of recruitment success never change. They may evolve with the times, but the core principles remain. If you share that belief, you’ll fit right in.
We follow the Golden Circle:
We treat this business as a Process, not a Series of Events
Why we do what we do:
We believe timeless recruitment principles drive consistent results. Those who embrace these principles achieve more, and we encourage you to do the same.
How we do what we do:
We repeat and reinforce these classic principles regularly until they become second nature for the recruiters we coach.
What we do:
We provide expert, affordable coaching, training, and proven recruitment tools—and we make sure our recruiters know how to use them consistently.
We believe in the Partnership Approach:
We focus on the Knowledge Deficiencies
You focus on the Execution Deficiencies
Part Four – Advice from the UK
Mike Crosswell & Blue Arrow
In the late 1990s, Mike Crosswell was the owner of Blue Arrow, then the UK’s largest privately held staffing organization. Mike wasn’t just successful — he was a true industry legend, and I was fortunate to also call him a close friend.
I met Mike during my time serving as Vice President of Corporate Development (Training) for a global staffing firm that relocated me from San Diego to Atlanta. We had offices across the United States, as well as in the UK, Malta, and Cyprus. Part of my role was to travel internationally, working with recruiters and managers to help elevate performance and results.
One evening in December, while I was in London, Mike and I had dinner at the Hilton Langham near Oxford Circus. As often happens in our profession, casual conversation eventually turned into a serious discussion — this time about goal setting and planning for the coming year.
I asked Mike how he approached this process at Blue Arrow.
His answer was simple, direct, and eye-opening.
Mike explained that too many recruitment firms allow their annual goals to be set from the bottom up. Individual recruiters estimate what they think they can produce, managers roll those numbers up, and leadership accepts the total. He called this “undercut management” — a system that almost guarantees conservative targets and year-end disappointment.
At Blue Arrow, they did it very differently.
First, Corporate decided exactly what total revenue the company would generate in the coming year. That number wasn’t a wish — it was a commitment. Next, they reviewed historical performance across all offices and allocated pieces of that total goal accordingly. Mike likened it to cutting up a large apple pie: every office received a slice based on reality, not hope.
Once those office targets were set, each manager was asked a single, direct question:
“Can you attain this number?”
If the answer was yes, the goal stood.
If the answer was no — or even “I’m not sure” — the follow-up question was immediate and powerful:
“What can we at Corporate do to ensure that you will hit this number?”
Support, resources, hiring plans, training — whatever was required was discussed upfront, not after the year had already gone off track.
Then the process repeated itself at the office level.
Managers returned to their teams and divided their office goal among individual recruiters using the same disciplined approach. Each recruiter was asked the same two questions their manager had just answered. The result was a clear, cascading commitment — from Corporate to office, from office to recruiter.
By the end of this process, there were no surprises. Managers knew what support they could expect. Recruiters knew exactly what was expected of them. And leadership knew where potential breakdowns might occur before the year ever began.
Using this structure, Blue Arrow consistently hit their numbers — and avoided the frantic, reactive scrambling that plagues so many firms in Q4.
A Short Story to Bring It Home
Years later, I worked with a mid-sized recruiting firm that struggled every December. They were always “close,” always blaming the market, and always promising that next year would be different.
When we reviewed their planning process, the problem was obvious: their goals were nothing more than rolled-up guesses. No ownership. No accountability. No support plan.
We implemented a simplified version of Mike Crosswell’s approach. The following year, for the first time, they missed their annual goal — by less than 2%. But more importantly, they knew why, and they fixed it early the next year.
They’ve never gone back.
That was the simple brilliance of Mike Crosswell — clarity, commitment, and leadership from the top down. His advice is just as relevant today as it was that foggy London evening so many years ago.
Next week: Part Five — A S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Goals & Objectives
Bob Marshall began his recruiting career over 45 years ago at MR in Reno, NV. In 1986 he established The Bob Marshall Group, International, where he has trained recruiters throughout the United States and also in the United Kingdom, Malta and Cyprus. With a dedication to executive recruiting, he continues to offer his proven training systems to individuals, firms, and private corporations both domestic and in select international territories. To learn more about his activities and descriptions of his products and services, contact him directly @770-898-5550/470-456-0386(m); bob@themarshallplan.org; or visit his website @ www.TheMarshallPlan.org.