Nothing interests a CEO more than the topic of increasing revenue. Nothing. If anyone tries to tell you different, they may be fooling themselves. Many elements need to be in place for a company to be considered masters at business development, and winning clients is very much dependent on a solid reputation of making quality placements and developing mutually profitable partnerships. But like all rewarding relationships, they are built on trust and dependability. The challenge is to continuously find opportunities to prove trustworthiness and dependability. A superior sales strategy starts with great planning and the right tools. Here are some winning strategies that should work for you:
1. Target prospects that have shared “core values” and not just “industry or niche industry” expertise. You have heard it a million times: “People do business with people they like and trust”. The same is true with potential clients: “Companies hire recruiting firms that they like and trust” and that share a common bond.
2. Share “placement, project and people success” stories. Whether you create, post and advertise a company marketing video that contains positive client testimonials, candidate accolades or a blog that describes a search assignment that was successfully executed, it is important to share this kind of information with potential clients.
3. Develop solid sales processes that are consistent and carried out by the entire sales team. In his book titled, Boxcar Millionaire, TomBlack, known as America’s Greatest Sales Trainer, advises that success in selling is dependent on only four key elements: Your values, the number of prospective clients you see, the quality of your prospective clients and the quality of your presentation.
4. Consistent and ongoing sales and business development training. Being a great and high achieving sales person does not happen overnight, nor does it happen by chance. Like a great athlete or entertainer, being a great salesperson takes practice, practice and practice.
Invest in sales training to keep your sales staff excited and fresh.
5. Best practices and communications when approaching prospects via social media. This one is important because when “prospecting” via social media, it can be a fine line between a quality approach and unappreciated spam. The approach needs to be brief, with professional language that is “benefit-selling” oriented for best results.
6. Pipeline. pipeline. pipeline. When do you develop new clients? Answer: Always and always. Clients are fickle and open job orders can be cancelled or put on hold indefinitely. Never assume that you have no competition, not as a recruiter and not as a recruiting firm.
7. Customer relationship management (CRM) and recruitment technology. Also known as CRM or RecruitmentCRM. Your sales tracking technology is just as important as your applicant tracking system, so why not combine the two? A comprehensive CRM must have the intuitive ability to help strategize, drive, support and manage the entire sales process from cold call to close.
