Sales Soundbite: 3 Tips for Less Painful Strategic Planning

Tis the season for eating, drinking, being merry…and strategic planning (ugh!). While the budgeting piece of the process can be painful (you submit your number, the boss says “nope, I need something better,” you submit your revision, the boss says “we’re not there yet,” you submit what you hope is the final revision…and the boss finally says “okay”). Whew, glad that’s over!
But right after you breathe a sigh of relief, you start feeling sick. How in the world are you going to make that number next year??
What you don’t want to do is what we’re often tempted to do as sales leaders: rely on the additional sales or recruiter headcount you’re budgeted to add to hit your numbers. In today’s hyper-competitive staffing environment, it takes 4-6 months to ramp a new producer. That means by the time you hire, onboard, train, and ramp, it’s the middle of the year before you really start to see any traction from the additional headcount. And that doesn’t take in to consideration what could happen with your existing headcount…turnover, promotions, etc. The one constant is change, and in my estimation, managing change in the producer ranks are what owners and executives spend 75% of their time on. Net net, you can’t rely solely on adding seats to make your numbers. You have to have a growth strategy and even more important, a solid execution plan (who will do what by when to make the strategy a reality?).

Beyond the org chart, here are the three most critical drivers of growth to consider as you develop your 2016 growth plan:
1. Sales Strategy
a. New markets
b. New industries
c. New verticals
2. Marketing Strategy
a. Grass-roots/local referrals
b. Social networking
c. Advertising
3. Recruiting Strategy
a. Creative sourcing
b. Improve fill rates
c. Increase contractor retention
Your plan doesn’t have to be a 25-page document – but it does have to be written down and revisited regularly to make sure key initiatives are implemented. So make those key decisions, get your plan on paper, and assign resources to bring it to life. You’ll make that number next year, and the year after, and the year after that…and you get the picture!

Sales Soundbite: all they need is the referral

It seems so simple.  If we can just get our people to cross-sell between divisions, everyone wins!  After all, increasing our value by providing our clients more a broader variety of skills and solutions and creating double or triple our sales force sounds like the ideal growth strategy.

But staffing firms of all sizes and disciplines have struggled for years trying to get their sales teams to cross-sell services.  They create elaborate revenue-share plans.  They get creative with commission splits that become administratively complex to manage.  And still, these efforts rarely work as intended.   When “cross-selling” is successful, it’s typically at the enterprise level in a board room in the C-Suite where a more holistic solution involving all business lines is sold by senior sales leaders.

There are two big challenges we face when trying to cross-sell staffing services at the ground level:

Challenge #1:   Hiring Managers live in silos.

If sales are getting stuck because marketing efforts aren’t attracting the correct buyers or salespeople are pursuing the wrong buyers, those have little to do with cross-selling.

The person who buys IT staffing isn’t the same person who buys Finance & Accounting.  And it’s quite possible that neither knows – or cares – about the other’s condition enough to help you.  This is why you get a mostly blank stare and an oh-so-slight nod of the head when you enthusiastically mention “we also do (fill in the blank) staffing!”

Challenge #2:  Your sales team is terrified they’ll be asked about something they don’t understand.

Sales people will always avoid selling something they know very little about.  And they really dislike appearing incompetent in front of a customer.  So they won’t, no matter what the incentive.

How to overcome both of these challenges?  Keep the cross-selling objectives simple.  Teach your reps from division 1 to get the only information really needed for their sister division:  a name and a referral for an introduction.  When talking to their buying influence, they should only do two things:

• Validate who the buyer is for (sister division’s) staffing within the organization and,
• Ask to use the F&A buyer’s name as a referring source

That’s IT.  No more pumping hiring manager #1 for details about hiring manager #2’s staffing situation or asking for an introduction on the spot.  No more putting sales rep #1 in a situation where he may be asked about services and skills he isn’t familiar with.  Also, trying to train sales rep #1 on the services, solutions and skills from his sister division typically fails as well, so just keep it simple.

Finally, close the loop by making sure sales rep #2 makes contact with the prospective buyer using the hiring manager #1’s name (it doesn’t even matter if they know each other, just the referral helps).   If sales rep #2 makes a placement through sales rep #1’s efforts, pay a referral bonus.

Say goodbye to complex cross-selling programs that rarely work.  Manage the top two roadblocks effectively and keep the objectives simple.   All they need is the referral!

Sales Soundbite: HIIT Isn’t Just for the Gym

High Intensity Interval Training – or HIIT, is now a familiar term in the world of sport.

Touted as the ideal solution for wanna-be gym rats who just can’t stick with a fitness program because the way they’ve been approaching it hasn’t produced the desired results, taking the HIIT approach to a workout has many benefits. It eliminates the boredom of tedious marathon-length cardio sessions, revs your metabolism so your body burns fat at a faster rate, and helps you get stronger faster.  The punchline:  you achieve your desired results in a shorter amount of time.

The staffing industry is nothing if not repetitive. It’s easy to work long and hard without seeing the right results.  And restlessness and boredom are a lethal combination that can derail our performance if we let it.

Time to shake things up! What would happen if we apply the HIIT principles to our roles in the staffing industry?  What if we approach every day, not as a marathoner, but as a sprinter (figuratively), running hard on a high-payoff task for a period of time followed by a brief period of downtime before the next race?

If you’re a recruiter or sales rep, try this experiment:   bang out 15-20 calls in an hour, then get up and taking a walk down the hall for a break.  Repeat the cycle throughout the day.  Do this for a week, then measure your results.  If the concept applies to work as it does to sport, you’ll be more productive (defined as submitting more candidates & improving your fill rates if you’re a recruiter, and setting more meetings and bringing in more job orders if you’re a sales rep).

If you’ve tried the HIIT approach to your work, what were your results??

Sales Soundbite: 3 Possible Reasons Business is Off

Welcome to the fourth quarter – historically the biggest for the staffing industry!  Game on, right?

But maybe you’re not feeling like a winner right now.   Maybe you missed your Q3 forecast and your team’s morale is down, not to mention yours.  You need traction and you need it fast.

It’s easy to point the finger and blame your team. The sales reps aren’t setting enough meetings.  The recruiters aren’t screening and submitting fast enough.  This may be true but even if it is, look in the mirror and analyze how you might be inadvertently enabling mediocrity.

Here are three questions to ask yourself to determine if your leadership approach could be improved:

1. Are you always working to replace the bottom 20% of performers?

Just as we’re always prospecting for new business, so should we be prospecting for strong adds to our team.  High-performance staffing firms follow the best practices of top sports coaches and build their bench before a player is needed.  Internal recruiting is a continuous process, not an event. So set a goal to interview a certain number of candidates each month even if you don’t have a position available. That way, when you’re ready to release an underperformer you’re not held hostage to having to recruit a replacement first.  Better yet, create a seat as you find promising talent.

2. Are you leading with your emotional intelligence?

A key emotional intelligence skill in leading and influencing is empathy. Empathy is the ability to read people and understand what your direct report is thinking or feeling, and it’s a critical skill for leadership effectiveness.  Leaders with high EQ are always dialed in with their people and they are quick to note a change in tone, body language, or energy.

But cultivating empathy requires being present and paying attention. And in today’s hyper-connected world that’s tough.  It’s too easy to get distracted, and I see staffing leaders are spending less and less quality time with their teams.  Here’s a common scenario:  A well-intentioned leader schedules routine one-on-ones. The problem is during the meeting he is there physically but not mentally. He can’t resist glancing at email or texts.  The salesperson or recruiter feels dismissed and realizes he is losing the attention of his manager to technology. So the message he gets is that he’s unimportant, and he stops asking for help.   His skills – and his results – remain below average.  And the manager, who is going through the motions of sales management but not engaging his EQ, blames average performance on his team.

Want to improve results? Get present and get focused. Silence your phone, shut down email and chat, and enable yourself to be present.

3. Are you shying away from confrontation?

“I’ll just give him one more month…he has a lot in his pipeline.”  Sound familiar?  Then one month turns in to three, then four, and so on.  The number one regret sales leaders tell me they have is not letting someone go soon enough.  Confronting someone with bad news can be uncomfortable, but it’s essential to get out in front of a negative trend early.  Let’s say you catch one of your recruiter reporting more calls than he actually made. Call the behavior what it is: he isn’t fudging his numbers—he’s lying.  Confront him to understand why, and say it can’t happen again.  One of two things will happen:  your producer will course-correct or he’ll quit.

The leader sets the pace for the pack. The best in the staffing industry are always top grading their talent, leading with their emotional intelligence, and confronting with unvarnished honesty.  If business is off, look at your own behavior and make sure you are doing everything within your control to produce the desired results through your team.