This Article by Barbara Fox, prepared for the April 6, 2005 issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.

Life in the Fast Lane

Executive searchers can be among the most persuasive people on the planet. They have to talk their way into offices of contented executives, who have no thought of changing jobs, and persuade them that they want to uproot their families and sally forth with a new job in a new company. Michael Zinn, who does retainer-based executive search, has had more than 25 years in the business and has his pitch honed to perfection.

He says, up front, "We were retained to do a confidential search, and my first assumption is that you are very happy where you are but also that, if it were the right opportunity, if it were made very attractive, and it were very good fit, and we could handle it very very confidentially, you might be open minded about learning more about it."

Zinn has a method for weeding out the people who will turn the search process into a way to negotiate a salary raise at their old jobs. "I make them go through a series of Yes/No decisions to invest a nominal amount of time." First he and the candidate spend 45 minutes on the phone, then he invites the candidate to a 90-minute sit-down meeting. It may not be totally convenient to set aside that time. "The guy or gal who is 'not real' will not commit to that, and I tell them to give me a call back if they can make that commitment."

Zinn has just moved from 301 Ewing Street to 993 Lenox Drive. The son of a dentist and an interior decorator, Zinn grew up in Binghamton, New York, and went to Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania, graduating from Ithaca College in 1975, and has an MBA from St. John's. After briefly working for an insurance company, he moved to the 10th largest executive search firm, where he was the "right hand man" of the founder. The firm sold for $29 million and Zinn started his own company in 1988.

At one point he had a dozen people working for him and did $1 million a year, but now he has a three-person firm and does all the searches himself, saying, "I found there are certain skills you just can't teach. I found I am much more comfortable doing 12 to 15 searches a year rather than trying to do volume work and relying on others. I am much more comfortable being much more focused and more hands on. I can still make a lot of money with this model and the clients are happier too."

Saying that he competes with the big firms, like Korn Ferry and Hedrick & Struggles, Zinn prides himself on being able to get to the candidate that other search firms can't. "There is a reason why clients have been with me for 15 years," Zinn says. "I have the experience to relate to senior level people and understand what their needs are. I have more experience in getting the candidate to say, 'I might be interested if it's done the right way.'

Be persistent. Talk to enough people in the organization. If one person doesn't give you a straight answer, somebody else will.

Be private. Zinn always asks the person who answers the phone, "Are you his (or her) personal secretary?" If the answer is no, he asks to go into voice mail. "Or you call back at another time until you get somebody you can trust."

Be candid. "Candor is so welcome," says Zinn. "At the senior level, it's a game that is understood. Executives get these calls all the time."

"There's an art to this," says Zinn. "When I had a lot of staff, I was making a lot of money, but I was never totally confident that they were doing it to the level that I could do. Now I am making a very good living, and I can be more selective about the searches I am willing to take and the deals I am willing to accept. Everybody out there is trying to cut deals."

Michael D. Zinn & Associates, 993 Lenox Drive, Suite 200, Lawrenceville 08648. Michael D. Zinn, president. 609-921-8755. Home page: www.zinnassociates.com