9 Effective Shortcuts for Top Recruiters: Part 1
You’re good at your job and love your successes. Yet you feel that you’re not reaching your full potential: perhaps you struggle with motivation, are uncomfortable asking for customer referrals, or are great at creating rapport but often fail to ‘close the deal’.
Here are 9 shortcuts to put you at the top of the pack.
1. Motivation. You get to work and look at the phone a bit nervously, knowing you need to deliver results. Motivation is all in the mind, and you need a plan of attack.
a. Notice what has worked in the past, and what strategies have failed.
b. Make clear, achievable goals for each day- and keep a long-term goal in mind.
c. Acknowledge that you are the one in control of how you feel.Give yourself credit and think of past successes.
d. Where you can, avoid negative people and situations.
e. When things go wrong, have strategies in place to control your stress.
2. Your ‘Elevator Pitch’. As a recruitment consultant who spends a huge amount of time networking on the phone, you need to ensure that this personal ‘brand statement’ is catchy and confidence-inspiring. Here are a few tips:
a. Make it snappy! 60 seconds is ideal- particularly if this is a cold call.
b. Make it relevant to them. They don’t care about you (yet), they only care what you can do for them. Make the benefit clear.
c. Explain why you’re the person to deliver this benefit.
d. Ask if you can make an appointment to discuss it further.
e. Don’t talk like a robot. No-one believes someone who sounds scripted- rehearse it enough times that it sounds natural. (Recording yourself is a great tactic.)
3. Asking for a customer referral. For some of us, this one is particularly painful. What if they say no? There are a few ways to make this process a success.
a. Give yourself some credit. If someone else had done the job you did, would you be happy to give them a referral? We often fail to give ourselves the credit we deserve- clients will often be delighted to help you out in return for a job well done.
b. Don’t ask your client for a referral until the ‘deal’ has been deemed a success.
c. Where possible, get referrals in person rather than writing.
d. Thank the referee and let them know if the referral leads to further success.
4. Writing a killer email. With a torrent of emails pouring into our inboxes day and night, your email pitch needs to stand out. Here are a few tips to writing emails to generate business.
a. Make the subject line punchy.
b. Hit them immediately with the benefit to them.
c. Say why you are the best person to deliver this benefit.
d. Ask for a yes or no response to avoid wasting either person’s time further.
e. Put white space in your emails- no-one wants to read a dense page of text.
f. Keep it short.
g. Turn your spellchecker on. Delete multiple exclamation points and don’t use block capital letters.
5. Leave it for a few minutes and then read it again- does it sound like a heavy sales pitch? Very uncool (and very unsuccessful). Get rid of the overly ‘sales-y’ bits. Showing them how much they need you. You know you can help them, but people are often wary about committing themselves. Your job is to make it an easy decision.
a. Be aware of their business position so you can position yourself as indispensable.
b. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.
c. Point out what’s at stake: perhaps use an example where you’ve placed someone brilliant with the competition, or how much money/time was saved.
d. Ask them what you could do better than the people they use now. This gives you information to position your product better to them- if not now, later.
e. Discuss the alternatives, then encourage them to commit- but don’t be overly pushy.
f. Once you land the client, celebrate with them to show that it mattered- and then get busy delivering what you promised.
If you aspire to reach your potential and recognise that a change in role may help you to achieve
this, GSR2R can help, call now on 020 3696 1215.
Until next time,
Cheryl