Use the information you have gathered during your Customer Fact Find stage to complete this self-assessment.
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Based upon your score here, there is a definite need to engage with your existing customers or focus on winning some new ones. Either way, it is important that you create a plan for the next three to four weeks to engage with your clients and find more to work with. There are still a number of assessments to complete My Action Coach – as you go through the next five sections, think about which areas will contribute most to you developing your customer base. In terms of timing, this is a good time to be looking to add more customers to your portfolio. 2021 is a fresh start for many in terms of mindset. Get out there and prospect. Chin up and find some good customers to work with. The Talent Builder mission I need more jobs could be exactly the right one for you to start with after you’ve completed this pack.
Recommendations
Complete the rest of My Action Coach
Draw up a lead generation strategy to help you find immediate business – [Talent Builder members can watch How to Grow Your Client Base from the live archive]
Set goals for client acquisition – what type of work do you want to win in which profile of client? Draw it up and create a sales plan around your definition of a target client – [Talent Builder members – check out the content on Digital Personas from digital sales month
Discuss with relevant colleagues about potential cross-selling opportunities
If your market is genuinely suffering from economic depression, take stock and consider transferable markets you could work to generate billings – work through The Independent Recruiters Sales Toolkit
Watch the Pillars – Cardio, Urgency and The Beast
Once you’ve completed My Action Coach, complete the mission I need more jobs if you want to get leverage in your market and are willing to put the Cardio in to make it happen
Not too bad. If you believe that you could benefit from more jobs to work on, the best place to start is with your existing customers. Customers are the easiest to sell to: You have trading history, terms in place and lines of communication are easier to open. How many of the organisations you work with work with other agencies? What would you consider your market share to be with those organisations? Perhaps the regular managers you talk to aren’t hiring imminently but there could be other managers you’ve yet to discover who will. Expanding the number of managers you engage with will increase your visibility of what is happening in your customers and help you become more proactive on their behalf. If on the other hand your customers don’t have hiring plans for 2021, stay close to them. Reactive hiring can catch managers by surprise. People leave, and sudden spikes in their own customer demands can create an immediate need. If they are choosing to hire directly, we are going to see a spike in dropouts this quarter. Track them fully.
Recommendations
Complete the rest of My Action Coach
Revisit your customers and increase the number of managers you are engaging with. A minimum of three points of contact per organization is recommended. Double the number of managers you engage with and you can double your sales opportunities. From the Linkedin live archive, check out Sales Ideas for December (this is accessible without a Talent Builder membership) – there are some great ideas in there that are just as suitable for January and beyond
Create a communication plan for each customer – set a frequency of communication across the managers you’ve identified so that you’re talking to someone in that firm a minimum of once per fortnight – [Talent Builder members watch the live archive session – Email marketing and sequences]
Develop a newsletter style mailshot to send to your decision-makers each week. Keep your customers up to date with what is going on in the market. Become valuable for sharing good content. Consider sharing different content with HR and functional managers – Check out Selling to HR in the live archive
For those customers who will be hiring in January and February, explore their supply chain to develop business with other organisations. Selling to your clients’ suppliers, customers and partners is a warm sell – 3 Foolproof Lead Generation Tactics will also give you some good ideas
Customers who plan to hire in 2021, who have growth plans are valuable so treat them as such. Lock them into high value service level agreements to work with you as their lead recruiter do the session on Building your value proposition or Securing Deposits and Commitment
Watch Pillars – Planning, Qualification and Cardio
Great result. You’ve clearly got a good handle on your customer base and relationships with the right profile of decision makers in the right businesses. As good as your score is, it is important that you avoid becoming complacent. For every client you are working with that has told you they will hire in 2021, they could be a lead or prospect for multiple competitors. For those that you work with in competition with other agencies, what is your plan to increase the commitment you get from your customers? How can you elevate your status to that of partner rather than supplier? For every customer you have who gives you good feedback and talks with high levels of commitment, put together a Service Level Agreement. This marketplace will still have some vulnerability to it. Committed customers will be critical. It’s exactly the same for your customer – a fully committed recruitment partner will be critical in this uncertain market to help secure the right talent. When you can see that you’ve got a healthy customer base it can be easy to relax the sales activity. Now is the time to up your sales work – your market is buoyant and there is going to be more (potentially better?!) business out there. As a proven player in your market, you can win more clients whilst in the privileged position of being able to choose who you want to work with.
Recommendations
Complete the rest of the My Action Coach
Review your customer base and put together case studies about the impact you’ve had on those clients. Build your case studies so that you can use them in your new business sales activity to demonstrate capability. Check out Selling Through Story as you’ve certainly got plenty of happy ending anecdotes.
Put together a demand forecast for each of the clients you believe will be hiring in January and February. Talent pool now so that you can move quickly to progress new jobs into placements. Get your client involved and let them know what you are doing proactively to help them – In the live archive watch the session Selling to HR
Create a template for a service level agreement to increase commitment from your customers to you and you to them. As other agencies start upping their sales activity you build a fortress around your clients – Watch the live session on Securing Deposits and Commitment
Build an avatar (a replica or model) of your busiest customers. Put together a list of other businesses who look like that to create a sales plan for the next four weeks. If your customers are busy then these avatars are likely to be as well – Check out the session on Business Development Mastery from a Linkedin live session.
Watch the Pillars on Planning and Cardio. The time to put pedal to the metal is when things are looking most positive.
Enroll on the mission – I need more client control. It will help you secure even more commitment and help you to build the fortress to keep your competitors out
I have a broad range of customers across my market
Strongly disagree Strongly Agree
I have had recent dialogue with multiple contacts across my customer base
Strongly disagree Strongly Agree
I have an in-depth knowledge of my customers hiring plans for the immediate future and the rest of 2021.
Strongly disagree Strongly Agree
I feel confident that my existing customer base will provide me with enough jobs to maintain my pipeline.
Strongly disagree Strongly Agree