The 2 Keys To Recruiting Industry Business Development

I regularly speak with recruiting firm owners throughout the US. They tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly about their businesses. The most common problems I hear about are related to business development. Their concerns fall within three buckets, and below is what they tell me:

• There is a severe reduction in hiring demand for the space/s we serve.
• Many clients and prospects say they can’t use outside firms right now to fill their positions.
• The high level of competition makes it much harder for us to get exclusives and retainers/engagement fees.

What do you hear from your clients and prospects?

The common thread in the above challenges is that they’re out of your control. What is in your control is the way you look at these challenges and the actions you take to overcome them. It’s easy to feel “down and out” about the environment, leading to a lower level of energy, effort, and confidence. These negative outcomes can cripple your effectiveness and lead to a downward spiral and business failure!

This article is intended to be an antidote to the “down and out” response by focusing your attention on the two keys to recruiting industry  business development: 

1. The weekly number of conversations you have with your target audience.
2. Your ability to connect, build trust, and differentiate yourself in your conversations.

To use a baseball analogy, you must increase your number of “at-bats” while improving your batting average. In a more challenging market, increasing your conversation numbers helps but is usually not enough to produce the results you desire. 

How we mislead ourselves

Under “normal” market demand conditions, mediocre quality efforts with digital marketing, referrals, and phone calls usually lead to a healthy flow of conversations with our target audience. And under regular market demand, converting a reasonable percentage of these conversations into new searches each month is easier. 

We learn to associate the quantity of efforts we make with the number of jobs we bring in. We then establish metrics that focus on increasing the quantity of key business development activities based on simple mathematical formulas. And this works okay under normal conditions.

When the demand in our space drops, our go-to solution is to increase the volume of these same business development activities. When that doesn’t work, we blame the market and accept that there’s not much else we can do until the market improves. 

While more activity is better than less, it’s usually not enough in a down market. Why? Because success is often less about what you do than how you do it. The most successful recruiting industry business development professionals execute many of the same tasks as their peers. They just execute these tasks differently than their peers.

We lose sight of the fact that we must incorporate new and better business development approaches to:

1. Increase the number of prospect conversations we have each week AND
2. Improve our effectiveness in connecting and engaging with our audience AND
3. Do a better job of differentiating ourselves from our competition.

The solution

Let’s consider how to implement business development approaches that maintain or increase the quantity of your efforts while improving the quality of your efforts:

• Improve your digital marketing quality (LinkedIn, Website, and Email) to encourage prospects to contact you or be open to your phone outreach.
• Use verbiage for your LinkedIn profile and Website that clearly states who you serve, how you serve them, and what makes you the best option.
• Use a LinkedIn connection and messaging approach that offers value and is engaging rather than overtly “salesy.”
• Implement a well-planned, strategic approach for your Email Marketing Efforts that sets you up for success. Here’s a free Proven Email Marketing Success for Recruiting Firms guide.

• Improve the quality of your prospect conversations via phone, video, or in-person.
• Quickly lower your prospects' defenses to build trust and increase their openness to you.
• Ask questions that go beneath the surface to uncover the real issues and build their level of trust and confidence in you.
• Clearly and concisely state why you are the right search partner for them. 

In summary,  upgrading your business development processes will not only help you when your market is down. It will also set you up to sour as the market conditions improve. Ultimately, you can either hope things get easier or choose to get better. I much prefer the “choose to get better” option. How about you? Let me know your thoughts on how this article impacts you.