The role of a BDM is to bring in business for the company in the form of job orders. This can be accomplished by bringing in new clients, growing our business with existing clients, but into new verticals, or reviving old clients that we may have done business with in the past but currently are not now. Typically, this applies to clients who we have not received job orders within the past year.

1. Building and Identifying Targets:

One important thing to know about building sales targets is that companies to target can come from ANYWHERE. Your Instructor with provide you with guidance as to if you should consider things like geographical location, vertical, industry, size of company, etc., but the targets themselves can come from anywhere.

Examples of places to find Companies to target:

Candidate leads: Candidates can be one of the best sources for sales targets. This is because once you gain the candidates confidence, they can be an endless wealth of information. Leads from candidates can come in many forms, here are just a few examples:
- Companies that Candidates used to work for: Candidates often, at some point in their career, have worked for what they would consider to be an amazing company. A candidate that can be an advocate for a company even after they no longer work for them, is probably a company that has values and ethics that align with ours. These are definitely companies that we would want to get to know more about from our candidates.
- Companies candidates have interviewed with in the past: This is as easy as asking a candidate where they have interviewed, what was the position, and who did they interview with. Even if the position has been filled since, we can still learn a company’s interview process, interview questions they will ask, and who is involved in the hiring process.
- Sales leads from candidates: Honesty can very much be the best policy. In many cases it can be highly beneficial to explain to a candidate whom you have built rapport with how the recruiting cycle works and how, because of that recruiting cycle you are able to offer opportunities to them. When a candidate understands how the process works they may be willing to assist in introductions within their current company, or introduce you to contacts they have outside their company that may lead to new job orders.
References
- Companies the reference check works at – You can do research to identify if they are hiring any positions prior to the call so you can mention our services.
- Network of the reference check – Who does the reference check know that may be hiring.

2. Qualifying the Company (The Sales Funnel)

2. Qualifying the Company

The Sales funnel

Basic Qualifying Questions:

In recruiting we simplify our qualifying questions to their most basic form. This allows us to effectively evaluate out targets and determine; 1. Is this company a legitimate target? And 2. How often should I contact this company. Now this is not to say that these three questions will be the only questions used to qualify a company, this is just where we are going to start.

Question 1: Do you use?

This question is the most basic of the three initial qualifying questions, and the answer should be simple, yes or no. Now if you get a “yes” Fantastic! You can continue on to your next question, but what if you get a “No”? In today’s day and age there are very few companies that do not use recruiting firms at some point or another. The first thing we need to consider is, just like candidates, CLIENTS LIE. Now if we believe the client is being honest and they in fact do not use recruiting firms we now have to make a decision. Do we spend our time convincing a company as to why they should use recruiters OR do we move on and find a company that already understands the value that recruiting companies can bring to the table. This answer depends on where a sales person is in their career and how many companies they have on their target list.

Question 2: For what?

So you find out that your target company uses recruiting firm, but what do they use them for. The only thing in recruiting we can control is our time and it would be a shame to take any amount of it convincing a company to use our services just to find out that they only use recruiters for positions or locations that we do not service.

Question 3: How Often?

How many times in a month, a quarter, or a year does your client use recruiting companies to fill open positions. Knowing the answer to this allows us to determine how often we are going to reach out and check in with our target company. The idea is to always be ahead of the job order.

For instance, if my target company tells me that they use recruiters to fill open roles maybe once or twice a month and I decide to call them once every three weeks, I stand a greater chance of calling them a week or two after the job has been open. This leaves us at a disadvantage by giving our competition a head start. In this situation, I would want to put them on my call list every week to make sure I was the first to know about open roles coming down the pipeline.

Target Ratings

Based on the answer to question 3 we can add a “Target Rating” to our target companies. This can help us stay organized and focused by determining how often we will make contact with this company.

A Target: Companies that offer 1 or more job orders a month.
Contact: Once per week

B Target: Companies that offer 1-2 job orders per quarter.
Contact: Once every 2 weeks

C Targets: Companies that offer 1-3 job orders per year
Contact: Once every 3-4 weeks

3. Plan your Sales Call

It is extremely important to have a plan going into every sales call. Know what questions you have to be answered and what you want your contact to take away from your call, so have a game plan.

Questions to Consider

Who are you calling?

Ever one is different, and we have to take into consideration who we are speaking to when determining how we are going to sell based on the person ant their position.

Why are you calling?

Have a reason for your call. Come up with something better than “just wanted to check in” or “Just wanted to introduce myself”. Find a purpose, maybe you saw an open position, read an interesting article or recently worked on a role within the targets area of focus.

What do you intend on getting out of the call?

Setting a goal of getting a job order out of your first or second call is, in most cases, setting yourself up for disappointment. Set small obtainable goals, try not to overwhelm your contact with question after question after question and know when it’s time to let your contact off the phone and call back later.

What value will you add?

If we are not adding value to our contact, we are not valuable to our contacts. Think of ways you can add value to your contact.

The value we offer

Example interview questions
Personality assessments
Skill testing
Reference checks
Market salary reports
National candidate database
Company ins / company outs
Confidential Searches
Assistance with offer letters
Background checks
Drug screening
Credit Checks
Outplacement Services
Market Intel

Types of Sales Calls

Ad Call
MPC Call
Reference Call

Sales Questions

Basic Sales questions can be broken up into four groups. Each group of questions is meant to move through the process of getting buy in from your contact.

In order the four basic groups are:

Situation Questions: Meant to identify what the situation currently is within a company or team. These questions can shed light on how a contact or company utilizes outside recruitment firms, what their hiring process is like, identify projects and deadlines, etc.

Examples:

How do you currently utilize “X” consulting firms?
What do you like/dislike about the recruiting firms you work with?
What does your environment consist of from a technology perspective?
What projects do you have planned for this year?
When is your project deadline?
How long have you been with the company?
How much has your team grown in the last year?
What are your roles and responsibilities in the organization?
How many resumes do you have to review before you find a good candidate?
What is your hiring process and ATS?
Who else is involved in your hiring process?
Who else could benefit from our services?
Is there a specific skill set or attitude that is important for your department?
What do you like about your company? What keeps you there?
How many people do you manage?

Problem Questions: These questions are designed to lead your contact into identifying problems or issues related to hiring, projects, deadlines.

Examples:

What is the effect of this project on your staff? On you?
How are you and your team affected by not having this role filled?
How much did this issue effect your department? The project?
Could this open position lead to project delays?
What is the cost of not having the position filled?
How are you affected by the lack of proper resources on your team? In your department? On this project?
What is the effect of a bad hiring decision?
What would be the impact if you lost your star employee?
How do these projects impact other departments? Other business units?

Benefit Questions: Now that your contact is concerned about all the problems that may occur, or at least recognizes them, it’s time to talk about how we can help fix them. Your benefit questions are there to develop solutions and how we can help facilitate that.

Examples:

How would it benefit the company if project deadlines were met?
Would you find benefit in knowing a candidate’s technical abilities prior to receiving their resume?
Would it help if I could show you a way to bring in cost effective resources to solve that problem?
How valuable would it be to have a superstar come in to solve the issue and also transfer knowledge to your development team?
What other work could you accomplish if you didn’t have to spend so much time backfilling your team?
How much benefit would come from a better understanding of the requirements and responsibilities of the role on the initial interview?

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