What you must measure after every call Did you research the prospect prior to the call? Did you learn something about the person and their business before the meeting? Did you send an outline of the agenda to the prospect before the meeting? Have three value-added points been prepared? Answer the three important pre-call questions: A. What is the goal of the call? B. What do I need to find out during the call? C. What’s the next step after the call? Qualifying Find out who the decision makers are by asking, “Who else, besides yourself, might be involved in the decision-making process?” Ask what process they normally go through when considering a new recruitment/search firm? Find out what their time frame is. Find out their specific needs. Ask: “If you could change something about your current recruitment/search firm, what would it be?” Surveying Ask open-ended questions (who, what, where, when, why, how, how much, tell me about it, describe for me). Ask about the corporate structure. Ask about the prospect’s role within the company. Other examples: What’s important to them in terms of recruitment/search firms? What’s interesting to them? (Then focus on that.) What risks do they perceive? How can we help to solve their problems? What do they think about our company? What do they like and dislike about their current provider? How are industry trends are affecting them? Ask what if questions. What would they like to see from a recruitment/search firm? What are their short-term and long-term goals? How can I become their most valued recruitment/search provider? What is our next step? Establish a specific follow-up schedule. Handling Objections Did you: Listen to the entire objection? Pause for three seconds before responding? Remain calm and not defensive? Meet the objection with a question in order to find out more? Restate the objection to make sure we agreed (communication)? Answer the objection? Did you complete the six-step process? 1. Listen 2. Define 3. Rephrase 4. Isolate 5. Present solution 6. Close (or next step) Closing Did you? Get the prospect to identify all possible problems that might be solved by your service? Get the prospect to identify the value of solving the identified problems? Get an agreement that the proposed solution provides the values identified? Ask for the business (“Why don’t we go ahead with this?”)? The 8 step recruitment sales process This is a process that has been developed over many, many years of selling, as well as watching and listening to top performing recruiters from around the world. I have taught these methods and ideas to recruiters across thousands of markets. Here are the eight stages: 1. Beginning: This is where we focus the hiring manager’s mind on the conversation that is about to take place. 2. Feedback on what you know: You should already know a lot about the company from your research and you should have an overview of the industry. Remember, you have to instill confidence. 3. What is the situation?: Understand their role, responsibilities and their challenges when recruiting. 4. Implications: What are the implications of these challenges for the hiring manager and the company? Ideally, you should have at least two ‘implications’, one for the business and one for the ‘hiring manager’. Example questions: “What are the implications for the business if this problem continues?” To establish personal implications, ask, “What are the implications for you on a personal level if this problem continues?” 5. Needs and Wants: This is essential before presentation. So many recruiters launch into their ‘pitch’ about their services before they have obtained enough information from the hiring manager in order to understand the prospect’s wants, needs and motivation. In the gathering stage you will begin to understand the pain the prospect is experiencing. To confirm their ‘needs and wants’, ask, “So, if I could show you a way to overcome your hiring problems and the implications you mentioned, I guess you would be open to that, wouldn’t you?” “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” ~ Stephen Covey 6: Presenting: This is where we focus on the reasons why the prospect will make a buying decision. 7. Concluding: This is actually taking the order, getting the sale. 8. Relentless follow-up: This is where we check that the delivery of the service has lived up to the promises we’ve made, or in the case where we didn’t win the business, it’s to keep in touch so that we do win the business when the client is ready to buy.