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Today’s blog is all about sales convincers, and how to get clients and candidates to work with you – something which all recruitment companies want to know about. Please excuse any typing errors as this is a direct transcription for your benefit.
Before we get into it, if you’re here because you are serious about scaling your marketing this year, which I really hope you are because that’s the way you’re going to grow this year, then download our marketing checklist. It provides you with an assessment of exactly where you are at the moment because, before you move forward and start that path or trajectory, you need to know what’s working well for you versus what isn’t.
Anyhow, let’s get into today’s topic, and that topic is sales convincers.
Now, many of us had a rather strange 2020. I know that’s an understatement, and some organizations really grew. The context here is recruitment, obviously.
Some had a disastrous year, and others started to reflect, have pivoted, have added new sectors, added new products, and thought through the next stage of growing their company.
Having done that, and most of us, I would respectfully suggest, want more business and more clients and candidates.
It’s a conversation topic that’s very hot at the moment in our Superfast Circle group because we’ve had quite a few new members recently. They are assessing and analyzing whether their messaging currently is working. How could they make it better, and what do they need to do to convince and persuade more people to work with them?
Ironically, at the same time, a lot is going on in the personal Superfast towers life, if you like. The focus here is around moving house; let me clarify that. Rather than moving house, it’s putting the house up for sale. The process has been quite fascinating in getting the house ready for sale and then getting estate agents involved.
A Real-Life Sales Trigger Experience
We’ve been thinking about moving house for the last couple of years, going somewhere different but still around the local area. But a lot happened during this time, and then we went straight into lockdown in the UK.
Last year, things again got paused. We decided, “Right, that’s it. We are definitely going to do something about it this year. If the time is right, the market in the UK is very buoyant. If we’re going to sell the house, let’s do it now.”
I know many of you are into property; however, it’s not something that we’re involved in. We’re not always on estate agents websites looking at houses, and in honesty, we didn’t know the exact process.
And it’s been a while, we’ve been at this house 16 years.
Luckily for me, my amazing, young, great–nephew, yes, he’s great in personality, but he’s also great as well in the sense that he is my niece’s son, and he is an estate agent or works as a sales negotiator and estate agent.
The first thing I did is ring him up, and said, “Okay, what are the questions I need to be asking? What do I need to look out for? How do I do this so that I get the right price and the right estate agent to represent us?”. Jonathan gave me all the information that I needed, which was incredibly useful. I went forth forewarned and forearmed.
The next stage was to contact the estate agents and get them round to value the house. I contacted three estate agents, one of whom we’d heard about, who potentially would be ideal for us. Then we arranged appointments, and they all came to the house.
It was rather strange seeing people again after so long, and the experience was quite interesting.
Triggering Sales Behaviour
I won’t say the names of the people that came, but it was fascinating. Bear in mind, we’re social distancing – one person came in and had no gloves, and didn’t have any foot covers or anything like that, which is what we’re meant to be doing at the moment.
Now, fascinating, some of them had done their homework, and some hadn’t – always good to prepare ahead of time – as in some people understood what maybe our goals were, whereas others didn’t.
The shocking thing was that only one person left us with any sales collateral.
Now, that’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Not a business card or even a link to a website.
One of them told us that they’d sold another house close to us. This particular individual didn’t realize that the people they were referring to were good friends of ours and we knew the exact price the house had sold for.
When someone’s selling a house, the two things you want are; the best price possible and to know your house will be well marketed.
Understanding Your Customers
Our house is unique because we have a big double garage that was converted into an office. This was before remote working was popular. It’s completely insulated and set up as an office. You can run a business from here, which is something that we did for some time and we have another outbuilding that used to be part of the house.
So, we have two offices that we can use for remote working, and it has fibre broadband; two huge plus points in today’s world. Our house may be sold to somebody out of the region because people are re-evaluating their lives and coming to live in the lake district.
I’m telling you this story, to give you some ideas on what some of the key things are that you might want to consider when you start to put your sales convincers together.
Now, here’s something else as well. In the process of signing contracts, we got amazing customer service, in the fact that the estate agent we’ve decided to go with does lots of different things. They have a professional photographer who uses a drone, and you get an amazing brochure from the pictures.
These things are designed to make the process better for the people coming to buy the house and for us. It helps to position ours as a house that somebody wants to buy.
I’m wondering if there are things here that maybe are resonating with you? As I deconstruct this, think about how the different elements of what I discuss, are working or not working, in your business currently.
Finding Your Recruitment Sales Triggers
I’ve used the metaphor of a house. It’s quite topical. It’s aligned because we had to get our house ready for sale, just as the estate agents that came to us needed to prepare as well.
Let’s start, first of all, with getting advice. If you do not know enough about marketing, or how you can position yourself, it’s good to get advice. Obviously, I had a family member that I could get some advice from.
If you are listening to this podcast, you obviously have an interest in marketing. You’re probably a regular subscriber, so, therefore, you’re getting yourself informed. If you want to go down to a deeper level, then obviously, you can get in contact with us, and we can have a conversation about joining one of our programs or buying one of our products to help you even further.
It’s so important to be informed as you are doing something relatively new to you because one thing that I’ve noticed with recruiters over the years is that they can be quite insular and they don’t always know or appreciate how valuable their service is.
Therefore, how can they connect with their audience?
The reality is, a buyer of a service usually has an issue or a problem for which they need a solution. In our case, we want to get the most we possibly can, and we don’t want to get into a bartering deal. We are very honest people, and we don’t want to play that game of offering back and forth.
The estate agents in question can demonstrate that over 97% of their properties sell for the full asking price. Obviously, you want to know that the house will get sold, so they also have data about the fact that they sell 30% more properties than any other estate agent in the area. All of these are great convincers, and all of these are data that you can communicate.
Get Your Messaging Right
Think about this; when you are crafting messages, when you’re going out to talk to somebody, do you prepare ahead of time?
Obviously, we prepared ahead of time; we got the house all in order and the estate agents that came here – one of them had done a lot of research. One had done some research but hadn’t done enough. Unfortunately, he lost out on that. He’d made assumptions.
Think about:
- How are you preparing ahead of time?
- How much do you know and understand your market and your clients?
- How do you demonstrate that you do know and understand them?
- What sales collateral do you use?
- What’s the data that you display on your website?
For somebody selling a house, they want to sell it at the best price possible, and they want to sell it fast. But what are the solutions that your particular clients and candidates want?
If you look at clients, they want to get the best candidate and do it swiftly, and that person stays and then is in their business and contributes.
I would suggest those are a couple of things you need to demonstrate – are you communicating that? Are you sharing that with your clients currently, as they’re deciding whether to work with you?
Messaging is so key in today’s market, and yet, it can be easy for it to get missed. Some people didn’t leave any information at all, and one person did, and you can see it doesn’t take an awful lot to be able to do that.
One brought an official letter, already typed out with a couple of spare brochures of other houses that they’d marketed and sold in the area. The classic testimonial or case study was there so that we could look at it after he’d left.
As a convincer, are you doing that as you are selling to your clients and candidates? Are you convincing them about how you can solve the problems that are going on for them currently?
Now, the other thing is that this particular estate agent is everywhere. They’ve got a great website, lots of information on it. It comes up on the first page of Google. It’s got everything you could possibly want to look at, past properties sold and they’re everywhere.
They’re on social media. They’ve got banners up. They’ve got local offices.
Now, remember, I’m talking about estate agents. It’s slightly different. I think recruitment is very much an online world now. It’s just thinking about where am I? Am I constantly communicating? Am I demonstrating my authority? Am I shouting out the positives about us and our service and what we can do for people everywhere?
Sales convincers, remember, and for people to be convinced that you are the person who can help them, they have to understand that you can provide a solution to their problems.
You have some data around it. You’ve done your research on what their issues are, and how you might be able to solve them.
You are demonstrating your authority in the market. You have a website that appears on Google. You have content on your website. You have a brand that looks like you know what you’re doing. All of these things, I highly suggest.
You probably need to go and have a review and say, “Okay, am I doing all this to the best of my ability? Am I deluding myself in how I’m coming across to the market?”
Next Steps?
Tales of the house sale. I’m sure there will be many more over the coming months. I thought this was an excellent example of how easy it is not to sell ourselves properly and not think about what I need to do to convince this client?
Do I understand my client enough to be able to convince them? Do I know what keeps them awake at night? Do I know what’s key for them?
Need more information and advice on how to win new clients and candidates? Head to our blog here where we cover all the latest recruitment topics.
If you would like additional help creating your marketing strategy, book a call with us today by clicking here. We can help you get started so that your marketing really makes an impact this year.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog; this is Denise saying, bye for now.
