“I’ve just hired an experienced consultant – they should know what they need to do.  Why aren’t they performing? “  This is something I often hear from recruitment managers and directors.  Yet one of the key skills the recruiter they’ve just hired is lacking is the ability to sell and sell well.

So many people skip over this at interview thinking that they have just hired a recruiter who as if by magic will have honed selling skills that are performing at 100% all the time.

Sorry to disappoint, this is not always going to happen.  The truth we probably all know is that our recruiters can go off the boil and lack focus.  When this happens, selling often gets sloppy and people miss out vital parts of the jigsaw thinking that it won’t matter this time.

Selling is a system, in fact it is like a good recipe you need all the ingredients mixed together to get the best result.  Yes you can mix it up a little and trust me if you have ever eaten a cake when someone forgot the sugar you will know what the end result tasted like!

It is the same with the selling process. There are a number of components to the cycle from good prospecting through to the ultimate goal of making a placement and getting the candidate or client to refer your recruiter and your company to others.

Don’t Do Any More Business Development Until You READ THIS First!

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Where are Your Consultants Cutting Corners?

When your recruiter’s selling skills aren’t getting the results, look out for what in the process is being missed, avoided or botched.

No matter how skilled your team of recruitment consultants are this can happen at any point of the cycle. The new recruiters often make assumptions and attempt to close before they have enough information.

Your experienced guys and girls can get complacent and classic scenarios arise, like not enough leads to follow up to hit their billing targets for the next cycle. Or what sometimes happens is they lose their mojo and start avoiding closing clients.  Key sticking points that I see are:

  • Mindset issue-this is a big one and includes low self-esteem through to lake of specific measurable personal goals
  • Lack of consistent prospecting in the right pond
  • Lack of questions to identify the best candidate fit and exactly what the client needs
  • Avoiding answering objections with integrity
  • Closing
  • Follow up and feedback with past clients

The good news is there a number of ways to tackle this in your recruitment business.

Don’t Do Any More Business Development Until You READ THIS First!

Free Client Converter Tool and Tips… How To Get Your Consultants Converting More Sales Without Doing Any More Cold Calling… 

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1) Have a Dedicated Training Plan

Having a dedicated plan that includes training for your recruitment consultants in a selling process both through time and resource will definitely deliver a return on your investment.  The great thing about recruitment training is that it can form a major part of your performance management system.

2) Break Your Training Process for Selling into Bite Sized Chunks

As you are training, think about breaking the sales process into smaller chunks so that they are easier to learn.  When the consultant is confident in the smaller chunks, you can then build it up into the full sales process.  Here are some of the selling process elements you could break down:

  • Who’s your target market?  How to put together a list of prospects?
  • What’s the purpose of the call – what do you want to achieve or get from the call?
  • What to say to get through the gate keeper
  • What’s your elevator / introduction pitch?
  • What questions will you ask your client to establish how you can help them or if they need your help?
  • What objections might arise and how can you overcome them?

3) Identify What’s Stopping Them

In today’s world it is unfair to cut one of your recruiters because they are not performing before you have at least identified what the issue is, and given some help to address it.  Because the truth is in many situations the issue is either a lack of motivation or a skill that has not yet been mastered.   Your role is to help them find the solutions to what’s stopping and put that into an action plan!

As recruitment business owner or manager you now have the good news that issues like this are solvable and the tools, products and recruitment training are out there to fix most of your problems.

I hope you found this article useful.

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