You should always work on finding new clients for your staffing agency. It isn’t something you do only when your well runs dry. You want to have constant feelers out there to pick up potential leads that could use your services.
Here are some of the things you can do to find clients:
- Develop a niche
- Refine your approach
- Market yourself online
- Make use of your network
- Utilize job boards
With those points in mind, you need to find various methods proven over time to work well in producing the leads that you will need to discover new clients. Having a solid recruiting plan can enable you to easily add to your client list whenever the need arises. Or if you’re just starting out with your own staffing firm, use these methods to build your initial client list.
Let’s dive into these methods a bit more.
Find Your Niche
Before you ever start looking for new clients, make sure to build you niche. You cannot be strong in every single area, so focus in on a specific field to put forth the most persuasive plea to potential clients. Show you are an expert in your chosen area because it makes you stand out and enables you to better focus on the type of client you need to recruit.
To do this, you want to first look at potential companies with which you might work. You should get a sense of their company cultures. Discover what traits and skills they most desire in employees. Learn as much as you can about the industry’s staffing needs.
Then, you need to look at your employees and what they have to offer. You want to highlight how they will fill the needs of a company perfectly based on what you learned about the company. Highlight specific skills and experience that make them better than employees the company may find elsewhere.
Taking time to prepare before you start embarking on finding new clients can give you a leg up on the competition. It allows you to focus your efforts so you aren’t wasting time chasing leads that will never work out in the long run. Plus, it gives you an approach to use when you start to market to potential leads.
Refine Your Approach
Make sure as part of the process of preparing to recruit companies that you also pay attention to refining your approach. You want to make sure you understand who your target market is and what individuals you need to contact at a company. Know who the decision-maker is with every company you see as a potential client. You don’t want to waste time with gatekeepers. You need to figure out how to get straight to the decision-maker.
When you know who this person is, you can then take the next steps to build a relationship with him or her. You need to customize talking points to show exactly how you can help them. Make yourself into a resource for this person. Share information and provide him or her with guidance. The goal is to become someone the decision-maker comes to when he or she has a need.
Create an Online Presence
Make sure to work on your website and online presence! It is hard to do any type of business these days without having an online presence. People go to the internet for almost every need, which includes business. Having a strong showing online means interacting through social media and creating a website that not only offers your services but also that serves as an authority in the areas of staffing.
You can publish a blog or regular articles on your website that cover topics relevant to the industry or your niche. You can target your preferred clients and draw them in because they will see you as an expert in your field. It helps to build trust and can lead to them thinking of you the next time they need staffing assistance.
Creating an online presence is also the ideal way to combat the competition of the internet. The internet allows people and companies to find each other more easily without a need for help from your staffing agency. You don’t want it to squeeze you out of the equation.
So, use the internet to your advantage by proving companies need you to help make staffing simple. Show them why you need to do it for them and how beneficial your services can be.
Prove to them that while they certainly can find employees themselves, there are excellent reasons why they should use your services instead. Essentially, you want to sell your services while also positioning yourself as an indispensable resource.
Make Use of Your Network
Referrals are always a good place to look for new clients because they are strong leads. Having the backing of the person making the referral enables you to get your foot in the door easily because you have an inside contact.
You can get them from previous clients or even those people you have talked to in the past who may not have signed on with you. Use your network to find options for referrals as well.
Another great thing about using referrals is that it puts to work the concept of word of mouth. When you can get people talking about your company, that is a good thing. It keeps you fresh in their minds. Once you start asking around and letting people know that you want more clients, they will then start talking to others and spread the word about you and what you have to offer.
It also allows others to come to you with a sense of trust because they heard about you from someone they trust. It puts your company in a good light and makes the best use of your network.
Look at Job Boards
Job Boards may seem like the enemy, but they are a useful tool that you can use to find companies in need of your services. These postings are all companies desperate to find employees.
You can learn a lot from the posting about what the company wants in an employee and its overall expectations for staffing. Having this information gives you a good starting point when you make contact and offer your services.
If you’ve defined your niche, it makes it simple to do a search on a job board and come up with a long list of potential clients. Make notes on the job postings so that you know what the company needs and match them up with the employees you have to offer. You can build your case to show the potential client exactly how you can help with its current need.
It’s difficult to say no when someone approaches you with the perfect solution to a need that you have. You want to put the potential client in this position, and job boards give you the best opportunity to do that.
A Solid List of Clients
Finding clients is a process. You can use every idea here to develop a substantial list of leads that you will have a high probability of converting to clients. Plus, once you complete some of the things, you will set yourself up for consistently being able to draw in new clients.
For example, once you define your niche, you can focus your efforts. Combine that with building your online presence, and you will create a strong reputation that will naturally start to grab the attention of potential clients.
Once you start using these techniques, it is easy to see how everything you do bolsters the other steps you take to position you to be able to get new clients whenever you want. It is a great way to not only start in this industry but also to keep your business at the top.
If you’re starting your own staffing agency, here are a few other helpful guides to get you started: