There are 19 ways of generating new business and it is vital that you do each one:
Personal Relationships
You should always look at who you know from our personal lives and professional lives before even thinking about picking up the phone. These relationships are already made, and it would be ignorant and wasteful not to immediately chase these.
Regeneration of old clients
Again, these relationships are already made, you should always be looking at points of least resistance.
Reverse Marketing
Every candidate that you send to clients for active roles MUST be reverse marketed via email in the hope of generating new business. Our candidates are our products and you are wasting them by not exposing them to the wider market place. This is a very easy way of generating new clients as it solves immediate needs. It also goes to show the importance of the database, the more contacts on the database the more people get to see our candidates which will in turn naturally increase the amount of interest in the candidates profile. You are to call all the recipients of the CV after it is sent. This gives you a very real opportunity to chat to hiring managers that you may not have had previously.
Reference Checking
As a market leading recruiter you should always be taking reference as par of course, however this presents an excellent opportunity to generate new business. Once you take the reference you can ask a series of simple questions that will allow us to generate business. Would hire x again? Do you often hire profiles like x’s? Are you looking to hire at the moment?
Flipping
This is a very simple but effective way of generating new business. Speculatively headhunt or candidate call a senior hiring manager with the initial view of getting them a new role. Demonstrate the consultative and skilful way in which you do business and build a level of rapport/influence. Once this is done either pitch in a candidate to them or just outright as them the question about them becoming a client.
Lead Generation
This is another fundamental and standard part of recruitment. Ask your candidates where else they are interviewing. It will help us find out more about them because if they hated/loved other businesses you will be able to change their search slightly to suit these experiences, however, a great by–product of this is that you find out who is hiring at the moment and therefore it is important for us to contact those hiring managers safe in the knowledge you are able to generate candidates that they will be interested in hiring. The more detail when generate the lead the better e.g. hiring managers name, when they interviewed, salary, if they went directly or through an agency etc.
Cross selling
As a business with multiple arms it is important that you look to our colleagues and understand who they are working with to be able to understand whether you would be able to deliver to those businesses.
Networking
You should always be looking to develop our business and an easy way to do this is attend networking events. They provide a warmer way for you to approach potential clients as it shows you care about your job, want to educate yourself and don’t want just want to sit behind a desk all day. They are a lot more informal than client meetings and will provide you a lot more time to speak to potential clients than a cold call will.
Referrals
This is a very easy way of generating business. Ask your clients, candidates and network if they know anyone who is hiring and get them to put you in touch with them. The people you work with should be proud to recommend your business as you do such a fantastic job, but also getting new business that you have been referred is 400% easier than getting cold business.
Marker intelligence
Reading about current affairs and industry press is always a great way of generating business. You may find out about a merger or acquisition; a new CEO being hired or something of that ilk. Dropping an introductory call on the back of knowledge only goes to show how strong a recruiter you are.
Back filling
Once you place a candidate or know about a candidate who has left/ leaving their role, you should automatically call their boss and offer a new candidate as a solution. The biggest problem with losing a long standing member of a team is the fact you have to replace, you could create a situation where you are “in the right place at the right time”.
Hot boss tracking
From Headhunting, Networking and from job boards, follow the likely bosses that will leave in the next 6 months and proactively market towards them. Often “bosses” that move roles will have a large mandate to create changes in the organisation they join, if you get in early you could be a fundamental help in hiring new talent. The first 100 days is always the most important for any new boss.
Targeted calling
Choose 10 potential clients that you really want to become a client. Find as many contacts as possible (a minimum of 5-10) and call 1 contact from each client once per day to introduce our services and USP’s.
Unscheduled visits
Ensure you maximise every client visit by dropping in on other local target clients who are nearby in the hope of meeting the relevant person. There is something to be said for an individual who turns up out the blue, it shows they will go the extra mile to generate a client and therefore it is showing the client that they will go the extra mile to generate a candidate. Not only this, it shows that if the recruiter will just turn up, they must really believe in the service that they are offering.
Advert chasing
Go on job boards daily, see which businesses are advertising directly, and send them blind cv’s for the role, or call them offering our services.
Mailshot marketing
Send interesting marketing, salary surveys etc to potential clients. You have to mix it up and add value to a potential clients life other than just sending a series of blinded CV’s. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate to the market that you are an expert in your field.
Marketing
In the same way that email marketing is great to demonstrate expertise, marketing is very important as it may encourage a potential client to call us, or at the very least, it turns a cold call into a warmer call if they know who you are. To get someone to buy off us they have to be comfortable with us, our business and our product, a good marketing strategy should allow potential clients to identify and be comfortable with our business.
Cold Calling
Choosing contacts of company’s you want to bring on as clients and call them with the intention of demonstrating what you do.
Create raving fans
This is the best way to generate business. Do an amazing job with every candidate and client that you come across and you will generate raving fans, they will talk about you and be proud to refer you business even without you asking.
Identify the types of clients you are good at working with
Generate a list of target accounts
Do your research on each account
Identify the right person or decision maker to approach
Choose the approach strategy
Implement the approach
CV / Linkedin stripping
Speak to candidates – Who they have interviewed with, Who they rate / who they don’t, Who their competition is, Where have your friends worked
Job boards – Direct adverts
Google Searches (including google maps)
Referrals
LinkedIn Searchers
Database
Social Media
Industry relevant websites
Industry relevant publications
Industry Awards
Industry Directories
Speak to Clients – Where they want people from (who they have taken from in the past), Where they don’t want people from, Who is their competition?
Consultants who know nothing about the potential client
Consultants who never get back to them
Arrogant consultants who tell us what is wrong with the client as an employer
Consultants who send irrelevant unsolicited CV’s
Consultants who mail shot without considering their clients specific needs
Consultants who over-promise (especially at a face to face meeting) and then under-deliver