Required Traits for Acquiring New Clients in a Tight Market

470436199Being in the sales profession in the staffing industry is a time honored tradition. According to the American Staffing Association, there are about 17,000 staffing firms in the U.S. and with intense competition to tap the same talent available to all, the market situation is bound to be cramped. Acquiring new clients in a market tight situation is the heavy bag that countless staffing sales professional have tried to carry and only the successful ones are rewarded with pay, status and prestige of being among the best in the industry.

Have you ever wondered, why do some sales folks appear to be naturally more successful than the others? How can you become that ‘one’ person in a market that already has many competing against you for the same share. With 20 years’ industry experience, I have noticed certain traits that are common among successful sales professionals that help them to acquire new clients regardless of the shape of economy. Indicating a few below:

  1. Passionate about being successful. There’s absolutely no second way to state it – It’s much more than the ‘want to win’. I first realized this while playing basketball. The ball was free on the floor and I went after it, but I was out hustled by a teenager whose actions indicated as if his life depended on getting the ball. I saw his craving for the ball and in the course of action, the boy scored the ball too. Similarly, successful sales professionals in our industry want to be successful more than their need to breathe.

PREMIUM CONTENT: 2014 Staffing Industry Sales Force Compensation Survey

  1. Genuineness to helping clients. Every single sales professional wants to close on every deal and cash a commission check, however, the incredible ones truly want to help their clients to be successful. Owing to this perspective, they go about doing things differently. They don’t just show up and talk about their firm (something we call “show up and throw up”), instead, they ask questions and learn about their customer as opposed to talking about themselves. They find out on – Why a client wants to meet with them? What problem is a client trying to solve? What are those minute details of the problem? There on, they have an honest conversation about how they along with their firm can benefit the client and resolve the issue.
  1. Team players. When I first entered the industry I worked for a small firm and the sales gentleman would buy lunch for the staffing team every Friday. Wonder Why? It’s because he knew that without them going above and beyond to fill his orders, he could sell the best deals on the planet and yet wouldn’t be fulfilled.  Of course, we have all seen the other side of this. The ‘Me-First’ salesperson who brings in great orders are never filled only because the delivery team is not connected to him in a collaborative way irrespective if the amount of metric management system in place to fill the orders.
  1. Relationship with temporaries themselves. When I was a recruiter, our top sales person always took five minutes of her daily schedule to meet the candidates. It’s a lesson I learned and remembered because when she was speaking to clients she could accurately tell them about people that we were putting to work for them on a daily basis. By doing this, she wasn’t just talking about our recruiting process or our metrics or our invoicing, she was describing the top level talent that our soon-to-be client was going to receive from us. It was much more personal and very effective.

Staffing is, more than anything, a relationship business. If you commit yourself to being successful and then work hard to ensure the success of your customers, your temporaries and your co-workers, you will be one of the successful sales personnel.

MORE: How to find your next sales star

Michael Wehby

Michael Wehby
Michael Wehby is a regional director at IT staffing firm, Aditi Staffing. He can be reached at michaelwe (at) aditistaffing (dot) com.

Michael Wehby

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2 Responses to “Required Traits for Acquiring New Clients in a Tight Market”

  1. […] Being in the sales profession in the staffing industry is a time honored tradition. According to the American Staffing Association, there are about 17,000 staffing firms in the U.S. and with intense competition to tap the same talent available to all, the market situation is bound to be cramped.  […]

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