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(This is a direct transcription please excuse any typing mistakes.)
When it comes to high growth recruitment companies they all have one thing in common and that’s an obsessive focus on marketing and sales.
Why does that produce the results that they are looking for? And what is that based on? So that is the subject of today’s podcast.
Today’s subject is all about what successful high growth companies focus on.
It is the M and S word; marketing and sales. The two vital elements that will grow any recruitment business.
Our own mentor is very to the point when it comes to business growth. He talks about three key things.
- Number 1 getting leads in the first place.
- Number 2 converting those leads and
- Number 3 delivering a service that’s how businesses is grow.
Yes there is a management structure underneath all this but fundamentally unless you’re getting leads into your business, in a number of different ways, unless you can convert those leads and deliver the service then you don’t have a business.
A couple of weeks ago we were talking to a particular organisation in the midlands. They have identified that one of the four key elements to grow their recruitment business into an agency with multiple divisions is by investing in marketing.
To an extent that they have invested in having two marketers and they have a plan to help develop their marketing people through training and coaching and importantly by giving them resources so they can do their job.
What is the obsession with marketing and sales?
It is interesting that some recruitment companies we speak to, they say they want to focus on marketing but yet for some reason don’t move into action? Then they wonder why they don’t get the brand recognition they want and business development seems like hard work.
“Marketing is all about creating a demand for your particular recruiting service.”
So your recruitment consultants need a hand so that when they do pick up the phone and when they do speak to people and they do start to engage with people at networking events or through Linkedin or whatever; people (candidates and clients) recognise them. This happens through brand recognition and positioning.
Today I want to briefly talk about the 4 key elements of marketing that are important when it comes to positioning you and your recruitment organisation. They are known as the four P’s of marketing.
Grab a piece of paper and on that piece of paper draw a square and in that square then draw two lines one vertical one horizontal so you have four boxes. And in the top left hand corner just put product and then in the bottom left hand corner put price, top right hand corner put place, and the top right hand corner put place and the bottom right hand corner put promotion. And these are the four P’s of marketing.
These are the elements that you need to focus on. And when you do that, that makes a huge difference to where you spend your money, how you use your resources, and how you will become the dominant player in your sector.
Product
So first of all let’s think about your product. And your product is your recruitment service. Now it is a product and is a service combined because what you are providing for both clients and candidates is unique and is a complex process which you may not have sat down and thought about.
How many areas are there? How many moving parts are there when it comes to providing a candidate for an organisation?
So therefore how do your profile this recruiting product of yours and there’s a lot more than you think.
And often this is where people fall down. Because they can’t identify and they can’t communicate really well, what is it that they are providing for somebody?
This then takes it on to the next point which is all about pricing because we will all pay a lot more for a product or service that gives us more features, benefits and ultimately value.
Pricing
If somebody is going to be paying a 10% or 30% fee what is the service that you are offering, who is the target market that you are going to go for, and how you going to communicate with that particular market so that you get your 30% fee or you get your 25% fee whatever that might be ?
Cost and our willingness to pay a particular price is based on our perception of value.
Having spoken to literally hundreds of recruiters thousands probably in the past few years we can see that there’s some exceptional service delivered at a ridiculously low fee by people who probably are not making much profit and they’re never going to be able to scale their business.
So it’s about how you position yourself from a costing/investment point of view; this needs to be a key pillar of your marketing strategy. Now the next area we’re going to talk about is placement.
So where do you place your product? So you know a general context outside of the recruitment world it might that I go through a wholesale channel, or am I selling in retail. Where am I placing my product to sell?
Now in recruitment that can be; are you on a preferred supplier list? Are you on a retainer? Are you perm? Are you contract? So it would be those areas that you think ok so where am I going to place the product that I have to sell? And that really then starts to inform the next step about promoting you, your brand and your offer.
Promotion
So how am I going to promote myself? How can I get the word out there? How do I create brand recognition? How do I stand out in a market place? This is where marketing makes its magic and the companies that dominate market well and consistently.
Therefore for these organisations, when people pick up the phone or you’re talking to them and they start saying; “oh yeah I’ve heard of Smith and Nephew recruitment or I’ve heard of ABC consulting. They have heard of you because they have seen you everywhere.
One of our clients always talks about how their clients say to them that they’re all over Linkedin and that’s because they have a real strong presence on all their social channels so they’re sharing content multiple times a day on social media.
So there’s a level of content about them and their service offering and it’s making them stand out as the go to player in their specific recruitment area.
The good news is that this is possible for any recruitment company that takes action.
Is that you?
Important
As an ambitious recruitment organisation, THE marketing strategy to master is email marketing. It will consistently deliver both candidates and clients.
In a special complimentary training Webinar, we give you the template for writing emails we use for our clients and the exact 4 campaigns that are working now.
You can register here.
