Jed Clampett on ROI

On October 24, 2011, in HR Technology, HRExaminer, Industry Analysis, by John Sumser

Jed Clampett on ROI - HR Examiner

Last year, Jed Clampett ranked 5th on the Forbes list of the richest fictional characters. With $7.5 Billion in weath created from the oil on his property.


Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire,
Kinfolk said “Jed move away from there”
Said “Californy is the place you ought to be”
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.

Hills, that is. Swimmin pools, movie stars.

The Beverly Hillbillies

Last year, Jed Clampett ranked 5th on the Forbes list of the richest fictional characters. With $7.5 Billion in weath created from the oil on his property, Clampett ranks with the great billionaires of our times. As I sat through the presentations at the Recruiting Innovation Summit, I realized the Jed’s view of Investment and Return was worth exploring.

Imagine that you’re Mr. Clampett. Obviously, the very best approach (Benchmark) to oil exploration and discovery is “shootin’ at some food.”

Here’s what you’d be telling people at the next Oil and Gas Exploration Conference:

Investment: $750 (Shotgun, case of shells, buthcering tools, wood for the smokehouse)

Results Funnel:

- Four hours hunting
- 25 Shells Expended
- 500 pieces of buckshot
- 10 possums missed
- 2 possums shot
- 1 possum run over (still good eatin)
- 1 oil well discovered

ROI = $7.5B divided by $750 (10,000,000% Return)

It’s really hard to overstate the degree to which the important successes of today’s social media pioneers are not repeatable. Like Jed’s amazing discovery of oil in his backyard, social media success stories have a one time value that comes from being an early adopter.

The point is that evangelism is a great thing but the promises exceed reasonable success expectations. That’s how it is with early adopters. They get the vast majoroty of the benefit from new technologies.

So, if you’re doing oil and gas exploration, hire a geologist. If you’re doing social media carefully architect your ambitions.

The whole ‘shooting off the porch’ model just doesn’t scale.

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelvangel Mike Vangel

    I always enjoy reading HR Examiner and it was great to meet you at Facebook at #RIS11 but respectfully disagree with what you’ve said here.  The 10/24 article should’ve encouraged people to test, measure & align their social media recruitment efforts to their individual business needs rather than say it’s too late.  Underlying premise according the the article  is if you’re not an early adopter you’re too late? And if you’re an early adopter it’s just  blind “luck”?

    If I follow your logic, you are encouraging recruiters to not even try to replicate a successful sm recruitment process if someone has already done it before them. Don’t bother attempting to measure and benchmark. Don’t set goals and objectives.  Your premise is so defeatist and self-serving. It’s the complete opposite of what we should be encouraging leaders in recruitment to do.

    I get it. The possibility of failure can be scary and many people don’t want to own that. I would tell you and your readers to get over that and accept that you may fail along the way but you’ll learn from it and your processes (and results) will improve. Perhaps it’s human nature that people want to find an easy excuse to lay down and quit as opposed to putting in the effort to make something work. And admittedly it does take considerable effort.  It’s easier for many people to casually dismiss than to actually test and try and optimize.

    I would counter that if you measure, you can analyze, and if you can analyze, you can optimize. Through accurate measurement you can determine the true ROI of your social media recruitment efforts and invest your time and resources to it appropriately regardless of scale. How else could you determine its success?

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