Let’s face it unless you have a team of consultants who consistently bill your business will never scale. 

We know you are a super-duper biller and yet you can’t keep jumping in when ‘they’ go off the boil. I appreciate that you are the foundation of the business and can bring in three or four hundred thousand a year on your own; however, your role is different now; isn’t it? 

It’s time to have a strategy in place to build the capability of your team so that yo yo billing becomes a thing of the past. 

We will share some straight forward activities to jump on now when it comes to creating consistent billers. First though if you haven’t yet downloaded a couple of our practical reports on developing great biling teams here are the links. 

Download our how to convert more sales report here. Then while you are at it grab our how to get underperformers back on track here. 

So, what are the steps you need to take? 

 

1. Start With The End In Mind-Get A BD Ninja

 

 

I know you will have already recruited your team and want to keep them billing and it’s worth stepping back to consider this as you plan. 

So often inconsistent performance can be traced back to hiring the wrong recruiter in the first place! 

360 recruitment is dying and fast. A consistent biller will be a BD star who is then supported by a resourcer. You can read more about that here. 

For now, let’s talk about interviewing and recruiting for BD capability. 

Just because they worked for a competitor or have great connections or live around the corner isn’t a good enough reason. 

You need a specific set of criteria, competency questions to ask, profiling tools and a minimum of two interviews; including some practical activity. 

Surprised? Hopeful not if you want more advice on this then email for a conversation here. 

 

2. Onboarding  

Onboarding and development? 

Not always a word or activity embraced in our industry and if it, it’s often an unstructured chat, and yet the evidence surrounding the positive impact of onboarding is unanimous. 

At a recent event, we ran one of the billing managers we spoke to was complaining that her team were constantly on social media and the phone …. and not resourcing candidates or schmoosing clients either! 

When I asked her what she had in her onboarding process, there was a blank look and the proverbial penny dropped! 

Onboarding= Expectations, and as Katy and I share on our Rockit 2-day event expectation leads to results. 

It’s virtually impossible to performance manage anyone that has not had a defined onboarding process that maps out what is OK and what isn’t. 

 

3. Training When Implemented=Improved Results 

We all need training and development if we want to be on our best game and ahead of the pack.  

Selling has changed and especially in the recruiting sector. Think about it we now have: 

  • A skills shortage in most sectors 
  • Social media and connection 
  • Generations who are attached to their phones 
  • Different marketing strategies; Facebook, Messenger Bots, webinars and the list goes on 

We have both attended training courses ourselves this year in Canada, Portugal, Ireland and the UK; why? Because we want to be the best that we can be at what we do. 

 

4. KPIs

KPIs seem to have lost favour?…. No idea why.  

A sales team without specific ‘things/goals’ to do is the root of yo yo billings. 

The great thing about sales is that when you know your numbers, you are developing a system that works and produces predictable results. 

If you know your CV to interview to placement ratio, then it does come down to a numbers game. 

Nothing is more critical to a recruiter than knowing what is expected of them and when.  

Effective billing managers keep their communication clear and their expectations defined; because they are backed up by what is working. 

Which leads us onto managing performance; the next cruicial step. 

 

5. Have A Performance Management System That You Use

As an old manager of mine once said; ‘what gets measured gets made.’ 

As a company, we subscribe to Harvard Business Review, and we noticed a theme recently in the various articles that poor performance management systems is related to poor organisational performance; not really a surprise is it! 

Here are a few question for you? 

  • Do each of your recruiters have performace objectives; both inputs and outputs? 
  • How often do you review performace; daily, weekly, monthly? 
  • If activities are off track what do you do? 

Talk to any high performing manager in recruitment and this process is nailed. If a consultant isn’t delivering; it’s normally, skills, knowledge or attitude and its cruical to uncover this fast so it can be addressed. 

 

What Next? 

If you haven’t downloaded the reports we mentioned earlier here they are again. 

Download our how to convert more sales report here.  

Download how to get underperformers back on track here. 

Then if you want support to scale your recruitment organisation get in touch here. 

 

Warm regards, 

Nicky and Katy