Can you believe we’re almost in Q4 🫣? The market has been wild and unpredictable so it’s been difficult to maintain a strategy for growth. But worry not. Our Enterprise Sales Director, Alana, has pulled together some great ideas for building and securing business that you can use to round off the year, or add to your strategy for 2024 because it’s coming around faster than expected 😶

What we know about the market right now 🤔

Engineering, Manufacturing and FMCG are up there with the top-performing industries. Sectors doing well include Accountancy & Finance, Sales, Industrial and Engineering. 

Something you probably don’t need us to tell you is that talent shortages are still a big hold-back, which is mostly down to a lack of confidence which has resulted in a candidate-driven market. There are fewer permanent positions and more recruiters making it a tense market, but with newbies come less experience. 

Getting the basics nailed 🔨

To generate the best business, you need to go back to basics. Look at your offering. What do you do differently from the thousands of recruiters at the fingertips of clients and candidates?

• Customer strategy: What are you doing to win business? Do you have a solid BD plan in place? Are your team proactive and using all channels available?
• Ratios and conversions: AKA the only KPIs that matter. Do your team know their targets? You need a clear path of what success looks like. If your team know their targets and take accountability, you’re off to a great start!
• Create a culture of curiosity: You need to be inquisitive and never stop asking questions. And not small-talk questions like what they got up to at the weekend. What are their pain points? Find out the why!

Splitting your time ⏰

It’s all about balance when it comes to new and existing business. You might have targets for new business to bring in, but you can’t forget about your current clients. It’s not all over once they sign that contract!

Alana says a great way to split your time is with the 60/40 rule:

• Spend 60% of your time protecting
• Spend 40% of your time prospecting

Protect your future revenue 🤺

Think customer, not client! To protect your revenue you need to dig into your processes and see what works and what doesn’t.

• Your service: Look at your processes and what your competitors are doing. To stay on top you need to constantly look at what others are doing and ensure you’re doing the same, but better. Look at your tools, are you using everything you have? What is your value add? 
• Your buying processes: Are you easy to buy from? Are there any blockers in the way? Your clients want an easy win and don’t want a 20-step buying process, so K.I.S.S! (Keep it simple, stupid).

Use what you already have! 🙌

Make sure you’re making the most out of the customers your agency already has! 

• Ask for introductions
• Look at cross-sell opportunities 
• Utilise previous placements across the business
• Attend networking events and sponsorship opportunities
• Ask for reviews and use customer satisfaction surveys

Clients need you need to be the solution and get the job done, fast. If you do everything detailed here and save time for your client, it’s a higher % for you! Alana has 10 years of agency experience and knows her stuff, so if you have any questions or want more advice, connect with her on LinkedIn!