Recruiting seems to attract people who thrive on competition. And this recession is your chance to see how much you can grow. This recession, at least in my own world, has a way of stretching me, giving me creative ideas, helping me to come up with creative solutions for my training and consulting clients, ideas that I never would have thought of before. It’s amazing how much more clear and focused you become when you clearly see the ominous and obvious threat right smack in front of you. If everything was rosy, I probably wouldn’t be paying as much attention to my own performance. If everything was great, I wouldn’t have any need to innovate my business. If things are great, then they’re great, and I usually don’t have much of an incentive to get better. But when I see that prospects are limited, that there are other people chasing after them, and they aren’t as inclined anymore to give me business, then I get busy. I get busy and I get creative.
Here are some exercises for you and your team to help develop innovative solutions for your search and staffing practice. Print this document out and go over these questions during your next sales meeting. If you don’t get through them all, keep working on it each time you meet until you get through them all.

1. What is unique about our firm?
2. How does that uniqueness benefit our prospects and clients?
3. What specifically is that benefit?
4. What is the benefit of that benefit?
5. What is the personal and emotional benefit that our clients derive from working with us?
6. What strengths do we have that can serve our prospects and clients the most?
7. What are three things we can do that we’ve never done in terms of business development that can get them to hear this story?
8. Who are our biggest competitors?
9. How do we differ from them?
10. What edge do they have over us?
11. What edge do we have over them?
12. How can we exploit our advantage?
13. How can we compensate for their advantage over us?
14. How can our sales skills give us an advantage?
15. What three action steps can we take to improve in our sales skills?

Over the next few weeks, you need to be keenly aware of the recession, but don’t focus on it. Instead, focus on the solutions that you don’t even know about yet. When you ask the right questions, in times of crisis, you creatively develop solutions that you never would have considered before. And that, innovation, combined with improved sales skills, is all you need to expand your margins and give you peace of mind right now.


Copyright © 2009 Scott Love
Scott Love improves recruiter performance by teaching a system of big billing success so that average people can achieve above average production. Nearly 2,500 search firms and staffing agencies from sixteen countries have invested in themselves through his training tools and online programs. Visit his online recruiter training center for free audio downloads, free videos, training tools, quizzes, instruments, and articles at www.GreatRecruiterTraining.com