Recruiters Guide to Business Development
Business development is crucial to the success of your agency – whether that be over the phone, through social selling, account penetration or via referrals.
In the latest Recruitment Pulse survey conducted in partnership with Talent Nexus, 81% of recruitment agencies ranked winning new clients as their top priority. With a global pandemic adding additional barriers to business development, it may be time to re-evaluate your approach.
Here’s our tips for helping business development become your core strength.
Talk to your business development gurus
Every recruitment agency has someone that loves the challenge of business development and they are generally very good at it.
Talk to them about the strategies they use to convince hiring managers that your recruitment agency is the right fit for them. How do they position your services, specialisms and your approach? What tools do they use to identify opportunities, and how do they track and follow up on conversations in your recruitment CRM?
Practice makes perfect when it comes to business development. Run through call scripts with your colleagues to ensure you deliver them confidently and can handle objections.
Use testimonials on your website
When speaking to prospects for the first time, you need to be able to evidence your claims. Having video or written testimonials on your website from existing and past clients and candidates is a great way to prove your expertise and reinforces that you can deliver success.
Consider the clients you have gone to extra mile for or candidates you have given an exceptional service to and ask them to provide a testimonial. Reaching out as soon as the placement is made is key to capturing their positive sentiment.
The phone isn’t always the answer
While it may seem intuitive to start picking up the phone and making calls, it may not always be the best approach. Think about other ways you can approach the client first.
Social listening and Google Alerts can give you a more real-time view of their business helping you understand what potential clients are looking for.
Use your database. Access Recruitment CRM is designed to help you manage your candidate and client relationships. Make sure you review previous conversations. Consider emailing useful content to grab their attention and then follow up with a timely call.
Knowing who to call is half the battle. Research who to approach and seek out “lookalike” clients to those you already recruit for.
What value can your agency add?
Before you start approaching prospects, be sure you have planned your reason for the call and can articulate how you can help them.
Business development skills can become stale over time so look for new, relevant angles that resonate with current market conditions. What market insights can you offer? Have you conducted any recent research? Have you got an exceptional candidate with the type of skills they recruit for?
Promote your consultant profiles
Ensure your recruitment website has consultant profiles that inform your clients and prospects who team members are and what they specialise in. Profiles should include a short bio including experience and skills and contact details for prospects to get in touch. You may even want to add some testimonials to the profile so prospects can see what clients and candidates say about their experience of working with you.
Have all the conversations
This is a key one and strangely enough the one thing many recruiters forget. Conversations build relationships and trust. People essentially and fundamentally want to do business with people they know. It’s why referrals are such a powerful tool.
Get your recruitment agency off to a strong start to 2021.
Download our guide to discover how you can accelerate into 2021 to get the most from your candidates, clients and consultants.
