One common mistake that many recruitment organisations make is being ‘general’ when it comes to working with clients and candidates.

It reminds me of the classic BBC drama called, “Boy’s from the Black stuff”.

In it, Yozzer Hughes one of the characters was known for his phrase which went along the lines of, “Gis us a job!”, normally followed by, “I can do that”. Remind you of any recruitment companies you might have come across?

A good recruiter could probably work lots of roles, whether they eventually place them is another matter.

The facts are this ‘business model taking every job or client going’ isn’t going to enable you to grow your organisation and scale how you want to; it will also impact your fees: General recruiters are normally at the bottom of the pile when it comes to their billing revenues.

In a previous article we shared the importance of the inch wide mile deep strategy and what I want to share now takes this to a deeper level.

 

First steps: Remember the gold is in the Niche

 

 

It’s a recognised fact that people pay more depending on the level of expertise they purchase. This is true in recruitment. On first sight, this might appear counter intuitive; “surely less to go at can’t equal more profit?

Well, it can and does, and I see it all the time.

One new independent recruiter, I work with decided to niche down. Suddenly he was making placements every week at a decent fee level. A couple of years later he has now built a team around him, and he is likely to hit seven figures very soon.

 

Your ideal client and candidate

Now, this is a new concept for many recruitment companies and today’s marketing capabilities mean that you can identify and contact specific ‘prospects’ that years ago were hard to find.

Let me explain more.

First, think about your ideal clients. What are they like? An analysis will reveal that there is a common thread amongst them, I guarantee it.

This process is known as identifying your target Avatar or Buying Persona.

 

How it worked for a client of mine

I won’t reveal the detailed niche, and one of my clients had one of those light bulb moments when she realised that all her ‘best’ clients (based on her profit and role criteria) were similar.

 

 

All were women between 35-45 who were directors of HR in a specific sector. They were married or with a partner without children. Even I thought it was spooky how it was playing out for her!

What was interesting was that they all had similar drivers, challenges and styles of working which enabled my client to communicate with them in a specific way, both in word and verbally.

This is powerful stuff.

Imagine if you are presented with a list of potential contacts and are now armed with the knowledge of who your ideal client is, do you think your marketing might be better or that your sales presentation might finally hit the spot? Trust me they will.

 

Did you know?

Here is something else that might blow your mind with possibility. When it comes to advertising both on social media and Google, you can get super targeted.

For instance, using our example, you could go to LinkedIn and create an advert that targets women only at director level in your specific sector between the ages of 35-45; wow!

 

 

In Facebook, it gets even better. You can do the same and add in their interests. How good is that??

This is only one way to use this data there are lots of others.

Targeting is key and deciding to identify your ideal client, and candidate persona has potentially the ability to double or treble your profits.

Ready to take action ? I hope so. If you want to learn more about promoting your recruitment brand, we are running a workshop in London.

 To find out more email us here.

 

High performing consultants are the lifeblood of any successful recruitment organisation. The challenge starts when your recruiters underperform. There is a solution and I cover it in-depth in my latest ebook; How to Convert Your under Performers to Consistent Billers in 14 Days or less. You can download it here.

 

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