This month’s google+ hangout was discussing “Is recruiting a sales job… is recruitment still a sales business?” Well, obviously the answer is yes – but that didn’t stop us finding three strong personalities and spending an hour getting hot under the collar about it.
Our guests were Brad Shackleton, Roy Ripper and Bill Boorman (biogs at the end). Our usual host, Alan Whitford, attempted to keep the conversation on track whilst Mark Stephens (Technology in Recruitment Alliance and founder of the F10 Group) and Louis Welcomme (Colleague Software) got the occasional word in! Additionally, when Bill disappeared 10 minutes into the show Mitch Sullivan (well know friction causer) kindly joined the panel.
It was a lively debate with some very annoying technology glitches and completely unnecessary swearing plus lots of input from twitter and the comments section of the hangout toolbar. You can watch the hangout here:
I’ve sourced a few blogs which I think support some of the themes discussed:
- Does anyone ever really ask “sell me this pen” any more? Well if so – here is the Best Answer to “Sell Me This Pen” I Have Ever Seen
- USPs – Unique Selling Points – do they exist in the recruitment agency marketplace?
- Is building a “trusted relationship” different from selling? 7 Ways to Stop “Selling” and Start Building Relationships and When Selling is the Worst Way to Win Customers
- Roy states that the number one business development technique is marketing out a good candidate > 10 tips for speccing out candidates
- Greg Savage’s superb In recruitment, everybody sells, baby!
- Mark Stephen’s blog ahead of the hangout: #rechangout: Is recruitment still a sales business?
- Roy Ripper has a training video entitled ‘10 Selling Skills EVERY Recruitment Consultant MUST HAVE!‘ you might like to check out
- If you want a feel for what Mitch is like in real life read “Recruitment is a sales job” which he wrote a year ago.
Finally, two of our guests have kindly has shared a summary of their main points/position.
1. Old school recruitment sales training (commodity based) doesn’t work in the new world
2. Recruiters today have to be trained well on ‘consultative selling’ and those skills constantly practised and developed to remain relevant.
3. Keep focusing your efforts on targeted key accounts and prospects using traditional sales methods, e.g. marketing candidate calls, recruiting calls, etc
4. Develop a content marketing strategy and plan to assist with your sales and drive inbound leads as well as stay in touch with your existing clients, candidates and prospects. Your inbound lead generation should include SEO, blogging, social commenting and downloadable assets like reports, whitepapers etc.
5. Find the most appropriate social platform to engage your audience and leverage social media where appropriate.
Is Recruitment a sales business? The long and short answer to this is YES! But there is no point banging on and on at a sales team saying “SELL SELL SELL” if the leads, prospects, jobs, and candidates are all of poor quality. No matter how many you create, your hit rates will be poor and therefore your billings per month as well! Time is money and so there is no substitute for quality over quantity.
The biggest challenge I see recruiters facing is firstly a fear and lack of belief and confidence in knowing how to actually originate and win new ‘profitable’ business. In order to recruit for the most profitable clients and candidates only, you firstly need to win the chance and opportunity with them to do so. And the execution of the actual recruitment process itself is no different. After all, it’s all about encouraging and influencing two people to go on a ‘Blind Date’ to hopefully embark on a new relationship. And for recruiters to have the greatest chance of success in achieving that and increase their billings month on month, they need a powerful sales strategy and process in place.
In a more buoyant economy there is also more competition. Hence more and more business owners and recruiters are now realising that if you want to improve the sales performance of your business and people, you need to focus as much time working ‘ON’ your business as you do ‘IN’ it! Hence we are currently seeing huge demand right now from small, medium and large size businesses looking for business development coaching in order to get ahead of their competition and win the business in the first place, and high performance sales coaching for executing and controlling the delivery of the recruitment process itself.
In an industry as competitive, fast moving and still so rewarding as the recruitment sector then there is no denying that an effective sales process is key throughout, and the skills required to do this are absolutely crucial to finding, securing and winning new and repeat business with the best clients and candidates in your market. Fact!
Our next hangout will be in February and details will be here soon.
* Guest biogs:
Brad Shackleton – Former Top biller at UK FTSE recruitment company, descendent of Antarctic explorer – Sir Ernest Shackleton, X-factor participant, student of the infamous Tony Byrne and founder of the Recruiting Excellence Coaching Academy.
Roy Ripper – Well known recruitment training expert who et up an excutive search firm with James Caan, trained with Tony Byrne, worked alongside Ann Swain at Learning Curve and now works in his training and consultancy business, Ripper Recruiter Training.
Bill Boorman – Bill has worked in and around the recruiting space for the last 30 something years, having been a director of a national recruitment business and founded a training company providing training and consultancy to recruitment businesses around Europe.
