Some of our clients have expressed dismay and irritation at the amount of calls from our competitors they get bugging them for their business. If you are involved in new business development and you have an excellent work ethic, please understand that your nagging and constant follow-ups are working against you. Advanced Hires hopes to see fellow business professionals in Milwaukee cultivate a level of trust and understanding that involves doing what’s right for the community and carving out real value, not the shotgun numbers sales approach – which is 100% dead in a relationship business.
The placement industry is all about matchmaking very specific top-talent roles with companies who are hiring. Given everything going on, hiring managers do NOT have the time or patience to deal with sales calls where people incessantly call and email to “discuss how our businesses can work together”. Most of these very busy hiring managers are under enormous pressure and not looking to add your services. Therefore, unless you already have an amazing relationship with the person you are seeking new business from, there is a zero percent chance your call will be returned. Additionally, there is a GREAT chance that you will be blocked.
Persistence and follow-through are great qualities that can turn negative very quickly, especially now. It’s important to know when to reach out and know when to give space. Unfortunately, our competitors do not seem to grasp this concept. Here’s some reasons why being TOO persistent can work against you:
- It crosses ethical boundaries. Recruiting is a business about RELATIONSHIPS. If you are constantly nagging potential clients and bothering them for their business, you can pretty much guarantee that they will NEVER want to do business with you.
- Pressure from corporate might make some recruiters desperate to get new businesses and clients, which leads them to being ridiculously persistent. Those involved with New Business Development might feel like their jobs are in jeopardy. But pestering people is never a good idea. You might think the “wear them down” tactic will work, but it’s actually far more likely to get your number and email blocked instead.
- These calls that border on spam are simply attempts to justify their value, but they don’t actually add any. This causes mistrust and confusion within the industry. It’s easy to justify to yourself and say you are being persistent, which is often seen as a positive trait for sales calls. Unfortunately, it’s not.
- The numbers of yesterday are not reflective of today, meaning that things change often and quickly within the recruiting and talent-placement industries. The “performance-based” industry is getting desperate and the standard corporate tactics are simply not working anymore.
- People will talk. Industries are small and tightly-knit, especially in mid-sized cities like Milwaukee, and if you are disliked in a network of clients, that information will spread. Soon you will have a very difficult time finding new OR repeat business if you insist on hounding people day in and day out.
So what can you do instead? Well, you can focus on aligning yourself with your clients, perspective clients, common causes, community interests, how you can carve out value, how you can continue to build upon a relationship that has already started or currently exists, and what you can do to make a real difference. In addition, do NOT ever give away, trade, share, or introduce anyone unless you have the OTHER person’s permission.
More and more mid-to-large sized companies have been signing with Advanced Hires lately because they love our approach, and especially our 95% 15 month success rate, which to our knowledge is unheard of in this industry. What Advanced Hires is doing to address this is having comfortable and trustworthy conversations with long-term partners and clients. Advanced Hires is very interested in community, longevity, and having frank discussions of 10 year plans with our business relationships. We have taken measures a very long time ago to make us recession-proof. We have added new tools and bandwidth, new clients, and bigger plans. We are here to stay.