Back To ‘School’ Strategies: How To Smash Your Billings This Year

It’s been a long, glorious summer in the UK, and keen recruiters are returning to work refreshed and excited about smashing their billing numbers for the rest of the year. So, how can you maintain this ‘back to school’ enthusiasm right through to Christmas? 

Here are some great strategies to set in place now so you can follow through on your goals for 2018 and finish the year strong. 

1. Check in with past clients. 

It’s the time of year that many businesses increase their recruitment drives, which means it’s the perfect time for you to search through your lapsed client campaigns and check in with past clients. There are opportunities waiting for you in those half-formed relationships and lapsed campaigns; you’ve already done some of the work, so they also deliver good returns, fast, while requiring less effort than finding brand new leads.  

2. Check in with current clients! 

You’re feeling great after the summer break; chances are your clients are too. This is, therefore, an ideal time to reach out and find out if they are happy with your service, and if there’s anything else you can do for them. Even if they don’t have any additional recruitment needs, just checking in with them reminds them that you consider them a valued client. This is also the moment to refer to any successes you’ve achieved for them and ask if they have any business problems or queries you can help solve. If you get good feedback from them, this is the perfect time to ask them for a referral. You should also be leveraging the LinkedIn referral program.  

3. Know when your clients spend money.  

When have your long-term clients traditionally increased their recruitment spend? Do they have any plans to expand the business in the coming year? How might current economic/political uncertainty over Brexit affect their business and their plans to hire? A clever recruiter looks at a client’s historical spend as well as the wider economic landscape when deciding which businesses are likely to have the most money to spend and the most positive outlook for growth. These are the clients you prioritise.  

4. Come up with a plan of attack to build your talent pipeline. 

It doesn’t matter how well you get along with your clients or how well you pitch: if you don’t have the candidate talent to back up your claims, your billing numbers will languish in the doldrums forever. Be strategic though: look back on your career as a recruiter and remember which of your candidate-sourcing efforts offered the best return. Where did you find your truly outstanding candidates in the past? Consider replicating what has worked before, rather than reinventing the wheel. Oh, and one other thing – those outstanding candidates of the past: have you asked them for a referral yet? If they’re outstanding, chances are there are people in their circle with talent too.  

5. Consider offering a ‘monkey’s paw’ to a dream client.  

What are you doing to get your foot in the door at the big-shot company you’ve always wanted to recruit for? Is there a small service you could offer them for a good price that will get your name known? Consider making an offer of service that the client won’t refuse, simply because they see no risk (and only potential gain) in accepting it. 

This is what’s known as a monkey’s paw. It lets you get your foot in the door now, only to get your whole body through later and become part of their recruitment team.  

6. Know which leads aren’t worth your time. 

ou are chasing down your yearly billing goals, hard, so you simply don’t have time to pursue every clearly reluctant lead who doesn’t want to take your calls or that small-fry client who pays poorly or late. Assuming you’ve got a healthy number of contacts in your CRM, you need to learn to prioritise the ones who are likely to close this year, and who provides a good ROI on your time and energy. You know the ones you’re likely to get over the line, so attack these first. A word of warning though: don’t be so focused on your end of year target that you empty the pipeline for next year, and never shut the door completely on a potential client. The funnel must remain full – particularly as January is a huge month in recruitment.  

With the right strategy in place, you will blitz your targets in the final third of 2018. 

Until next time, 

Cheryl