The Client Rich Recruiting Firm
A common belief is that recruiting industry success starts with the number of job orders you bring in. This is not true.
Recruiting industry success actually starts with the number of quality job orders (QJOs) you bring in! Therefore, the question isn’t just how to get more job orders, the question is how to get more QJOs.
If you're buried in SJOs (fill in the blank for the "S"), you're not client rich. You're just buried in crap that diverts your attention and resources from where it needs to be. The most successful recruiting firms know this. The others don't.
The first step to generating a consistent flow of QJOs is to have a healthy inflow of quality prospects who want to talk to you. This is the end goal of all effective business development strategies for recruiting firms!
To achieve this goal, you must position yourself as a trusted advisor with your prospects rather than just another recruiting firm. You forfeit the trusted advisor position when you try to “chase and convince” prospects to work with you. Generating a healthy flow of quality prospects who see you as a notch above your competitors is what business development for recruiting firms is all about!
Recruiting firms have four potential strategies to get quality job orders
- Repeat business with current and past recruiting clients.
- Referrals to prospects from clients, candidates, and other sources.
- An effective lead generation program that's driven by high-quality digital marketing.
- Leveraging information and resources that most firms miss.
Since each of the above business development strategies for recruiting firms has its pluses and minuses, it’s unwise to rely on any one or two of them. For example:
- The problem with relying too heavily on repeat business is that it can lead to a sudden drop in job orders if a client stops hiring or the relationship changes.
- There are two problems with an over-reliance on referrals:
-1. You don’t control the quality of referrals and can fall into the trap of saying YES when you should say NO.
-2. If you reject prospects referred to you, you risk harming your standing with those who referred them.
The most successful recruiting firm owners and leaders know that combining all four business development strategies for recruiting firms sets them up to become client-rich recruiting firms. When you become proficient in these four strategies:
- You protect yourself from a sudden drop in QJO’s that can offset your best months.
- You can be more selective about the clients you accept because you have an abundance of new prospects who want to speak to you!
A few words about cold calling.
Some recruiting firm owners and leaders still believe cold-calling is the most effective recruitment industry business development method. Cold-calling refers to calling prospects via phone who either don’t know who you are or haven’t shown any sign of engaging with your marketing material.
In most situations, cold-calling is ineffective because:
- Few people answer their phones when they don’t know the caller and rarely return voice mail messages.
- Most prospects are tired of cold callers, so If they answer your call, they’re rarely open to talking to you.
- Even if you overcome the above cold-calling hurdles, you’re likely to be viewed as a commodity, making it very difficult to succeed with clients.
- People who cold-call get worn out and frustrated and usually lose confidence and enthusiasm.
Because of these cold-calling limitations, business development strategies for recruiting firms need to emphasize the above four strategies. Repeat business results from the quality of your candidate delivery and communications with your client. These factors are critical and should always be a core focus of any recruiting firm's business development strategies. The remaining strategies can be broken down into marketing and sales strategies as follows:
- Marketing strategy- automated lead generation.
- Sales strategies- increase prospect referrals and leverage information and resources that most firms miss.
Unfortunately, the two above efforts usually fall way short of their expectations because they are not well-designed and executed. Like most things in life, it's not just what you do but how you do it that counts.
Below are the common reasons that most recruiting firm lead generation efforts underperform:
Problem: Lack of clarity on the ideal target audience/s (e.g., Industry, company size & titles).
Outcome: You reach out to the wrong people and waste valuable time, money, and resources.
Problem: Low rate of acceptance from your LinkedIn connection requests.
Outcome: The effectiveness of your LinkedIn campaigns are minimal, and you have an increased risk of complaints that can harm your standing with LinkedIn.
Problem: Using a ”connect & pounce” approach after connecting with your prospects on LinkedIn, For example, “Thanks for connecting…, let’s set a time to talk about how we can help you.”
Outcome: You alienate prospects who could have been nurtured with more effective tactics. This results in a major loss of potential future revenue.
Problem: Poorly designed and executed email outreach program to engage new prospects.
Outcome: A valuable business development resource is squandered. As a result, you fail to develop the inflow of qualified leads that are essential to your growth.
Problem: You use inefficient, manual processes to send messages to your audience.
Outcome: You can’t send out the volume and frequency of messages to generate your desired results and end up wasting time and money in the process.
Below are the common reasons that most recruiting firm sales strategies underperform:
Problem: Lack of proper training on the best practices to leverage client relationships to get more referrals.
Outcome: You miss out on “golden opportunities” that are available to you. This costs you significant money and forces you to work harder than you need to.
Problem: Lack of proper training on the best practices to identify and act on information and resources that can be leveraged into quality conversations with prospects.
Outcome: You squander business development opportunities that are “there for the taking”. This results in you losing valuable revenue and performing below your potential.
How many of the above issues have you experienced? The Recruiter’s Coach has extensive experience helping recruiting firms design and execute successful lead generation programs and stealth sales strategies that work.
Putting it all together.
The optimal results in new business development come from the synergistic effect of combining marketing (a quality lead generation program) with sales strategies that leverage information and resources that most firms miss. This is how you become a client-rich recruiting firm!
Lead generation for recruiting firms, when done well, enhances your credibility and name recognition. Your target audience develops an affinity with your brand from the content delivered through various media over time. This is a key component of how to build a recruiting business!
Sales strategies for recruiting firms that boost your referrals and leverage information and resources you already have provide you with a leg up on your competition. You talk to more prospects who are open to you, which increases your number of quality job orders!
The Recruiter’s Coach can help you design and execute a recruiting firm lead generation program that:
- Combines LinkedIn, email, and your website in a manner that magnifies your brand awareness and credibility.
- Provides a proven step-by-step approach you can successfully implement without being overwhelmed.
- Is designed to be adaptable as the market changes.
The Recruiter’s Coach can help you design and execute stealth recruiting firm sales strategies that:
- Teach you how to identify, capture, and act on information that passed unnoticed in the past.
- Increase your number of effective prospect conversations and quality job orders.
Why The Recruiter’s Coach vs. Other Lead Generation & Business Development Resources?
Lead generation refers to automated digital marketing to operate on a large scale. It’s become vogue today for recruiting firm business development. That’s both good news and bad news. The good news is that to achieve success in today’s digital world, you can’t rely on old sales techniques like cold calling.
The bad news is that overreliance on lead generation is also an unwise business development strategy for recruiting firms because it overlooks some highly effective sales tactics needed to maximize your revenue. The Recruiter’s coach helps clients with the entire business development picture, which includes but isn’t limited to lead generation.
Most companies that offer lead generation/marketing training do it via online training and “group coaching calls. But what if this isn't the right fit for you?
The Recruiter’s Coach provides one-on-one coaching to help you quickly learn and implement new processes and technology. Most people who participate in online training with group support never complete or implement the training. The fact is that:
- There’s no substitute for talking privately about challenges you’d rather not discuss in a group.
- When you’re in a group meeting, you have limited time to get help on your specific challenges. Other members need time, and you may not wish to sit through their conversations.
- There’s no substitute for having an instructor share their screen and record training specific to you. Reviewing recordings can fast-track your ability to understand and implement new processes and technology.
- There’s no substitute for having an expert to talk you through the fears, doubts, and procrastination that are the enemy of execution.
Successful business development strategies for recruiting firms are not just about having more conversations with prospects who want to talk to you. To become a recruiting firm that is client-rich rather than just lead-rich, your efforts need to be integrated with the following:
- A quality sales process to convert the right leads and reject the wrong ones.
- A recruiting model based on retainers or exclusives so that you are not “just another contingency commodity.”
- A recruiting process that consistently delivers quality results and accommodates the increase in new job orders that arise from the lead generation efforts.
The Recruiter’s Coach methodology emphasizes developing quality clients with quality job orders. Time, money, and resources wasted on poor-quality ones cannot be invested where it is most rewarded and appreciated.
The Recruiter’s Coach truly understands recruiting firm owners. We are not a marketing company wearing recruiting firm branding. I worked ten years as a recruiter and 15 years as a founder of two successful firms .
I understand the reality you face by adding a new marketing project or implementing new sales strategies on top of your already busy job.
