Rule #1 = With temp staffing a Sales Rep sells to a local group of customers, and the Recruiters source candidates for job orders from that same territory where the applicants live close enough to the companies to commute to work.  This is why most temp staffing companies open branch offices that service a territory X miles around the office.  An example is in Miami a company might have 3 or 4 offices to cover the entire city.

With perm recruiting, often times the recruiter acts as both the sales rep and the recruiter. With temp staffing some companies blend sales and recruiting together, others separate sales from recruiting.  Those who separate sales from recruiting often coach their sales people to become more of an outside sales rep, then an inside sales person.

Let’s examine outside vs. inside sales.

In the old days there was no office building security, or internet where you can buy targeted company lists. Back then a Sales Rep had to drive their territory to learn the streets, business parks, office buildings and learn where companies are located. It was common for the Sales Rep to be out of the office most of the day, randomly walking into office buildings to make face to face calls.

But that was then, and this is now.  Today one can buy a list of every type of company they want by zip code, complete with number of employees and detailed info on the business.  There is no need to drive a territory to find companies like there was in the old days.  But it does help to drive a territory once in awhile to learn the lay of the land.

Sales is a formula:

X = Number of calls per day
Y = What is your message, what do you say when reaching someone?
Z = Your personality and whether or not the customer likes you enough to want to work with you.  How do you deliver your message?

That is the simple formula.

The problem with outside sales today is?

1. Suppose you are outside the office canvassing your territory and I am inside the office making calls.  You will get stuck in traffic to where you are lucky if you can see 10 to 20 companies per day. And odds are because you are stopping by without an appointment no Decision Makers will come out to see you. 95% of the time all you will get is the name of a Decision Maker from a secretary.  Plus, you get rained on, snowed on, or sweat from the heat.  I on the other hand can make 75 outbound calls by telephone, reaching 3 to 4 times as many companies per day as you can + that means I am getting 3 to 4 times as many names of Decision Makers by asking the receptionist questions + I can call in and ask to be transferred to a Decision Maker, while you are standing in the company lobby? No Decision Maker is likely to leave their desk to come out and see you being there was no appointment.

And here is the key:  I would be marketing resumes of people I wanted to place into jobs, and that would be my reason for calling these companies.  What is your reason for randomly stopping by their office?

The inside sales methodology beats the outside sales mentality hands down.  However, the inside sales methodology should include a requirement to set X face to face appointments each week or month.  This way you are seeing potential customers in person, but because there was a scheduled appointment not because you dropped by their office without an invitation.

There is more.  In the post 9/11 world office buildings have more security then they did years ago. So in many cases you are not allowed in to walk around and canvass companies in the first place.

If you are good on the phones, you can talk a receptionist into giving you names of a Decision Maker.  You can call that Decision Maker and if you are coming to the table with the right message,  they will talk to you.

 I am speaking from experience!  I talk to all the various staffing companies and know which are doing better then others.  If the model is pure outside sales, that does not produce as good of  a result as inside telemarketing. But if a company is too much into telemarketing, that is no good either. The best model is inside sales/telemarketing where going on face to face appointments is required to add the face to face chemistry.

It’s sort of like this.  An attractive girl goes to the fitness center, and she gets her share of attention. She might even put on head phones to send a signal to men, “leave me alone when I am working out”.  Some guys will try talking to her and she will ignore them. With other guys she will smile at them, and then roll her eyes behind their back. But a few guys will be able to get passed her defenses, and she will open up, smile, talk to them, even give out her phone number.

Why is it she ignores most of the guys, while being receptive to the few?  The answer is far more then just physical chemistry.  It is all in how the guy approaches her.  Some guys just look desperate. Other guys obviously lack confidence.  And some guys just do not have much personality.  But if a guy just smiles at her with a big friendly smile, and is fun, full of positive energy, and is not threatening, she will find herself being drawn to his positive approach because she is comparing him to all the other guys out there who’s approach is just not attractive. 

With sales it is the same.  Your potential customers are getting called on all the time.  Most of the time the sales people calling on them will not have anything important to say. An example is calling a company and saying:  “ What would it take for us to do business with you”   What value does that have to the Customer?  That sounds so cliché.  How about this?

Ring Ring:  This is Janice. 

Hi Janice, this is David Fogg with ABC Staffing.  The reason I am calling you is my recruiting staff have been aggressively sourcing people with office and administrative skills and we are trying to find companies to place these people with either in temp or permanent jobs. Do you happen to have any needs for people with office/admin skills?

That conversation could go in many directions.  But the key point is I came to the table with a legit reason to be calling Janice. And, one thing I cannot train or teach you is your own personality.  What often makes a Sales Person good is their personality.  Some people are just very likeable, and other people tend to not be so likeable.  The likeability factor is something that cannot be taught.

But a person can become more likeable with time and experience.  When I was 25 I did not have much life or work experience.  So when I made sales calls I sounded like I was reading from a script. And it was harder for me to relate to older and more experienced individuals. But as I grew older I developed both business and personal experience. I had a Daughter, I had varied job experience, I found as I matured as a person I stopped thinking about what another person’s title was.  If I were 25 and were to cold call a CEO I would be intimidated.  Today I know most CEOs put on their pants the same way I do, and they can be just as goofy as I am.  Once I sort of grew up, I lost my fear of talking to Decision Makers and when I lost my fear of them, my real personality came out.  I am not such a bad guy, and I come across both credible and likeable. I was able to slow down and just talk to people instead of sounding like a sales rep reading off a script.  Once I matured in these ways is when I started to do a much better job at selling. 

I wish I could have been at 25 the way I am today, I would be much farther ahead in life.  The lesson to you is if you are young, to succeed in business and in sales you must come across as being very adult and credible so that older and wiser Decision Makers do not you view you as being young. You want to mask your youth by being so intelligent and mature in your behavior that nobody notices that you are in fact, rather young.

Getting attention from a Decision Maker
As I mentioned previously, in the old days we Sales Reps randomly stopped by companies and office buildings hoping a Decision Maker would come out to talk to us.  These days the more aggressive staffing companies teach their Sales Reps to tele-market from inside the office, using the phone to set up face to face appointments. So the question is, how does one get a Decision Maker to respond to them?

You must give yourself a reason to call on a Decision Maker. Do not just call a person without knowing what to say, or having a valid reason.

One reason is you are calling to see if they have any job openings, being your recruiting staff has been actively recruiting good people and you are simply trying to find temp or perm jobs to place these people into. You always want to give the impression you have an inventory of qualified people at your fingertips.

Sending a brochure and then calling to find out of the Decision Maker has read it NEVER works.  Why?  Because most staffing companies design their brochures to contain too much information.  When sending something by mail, you have seconds from the time a person opens the envelop to get their attention.  A brochure will look like just another brochure.  Here is a gimmick I used that worked for me.  You can copy this idea, or come up with a similar idea using a different gift item.  I typed one page letters, introducing myself and offering a specific reason why I wanted to talk to a person.  I would then paper clip a scratch and play lotto ticket to the letter. I would select language that made me appear to be a regular person, not an English Professor or Attorney. I would jokingly mention the lotto ticket, letting them know it was my creative way of getting their attention.  80% of the time these people never called me when they received the letter. Only 20% of the time the recipients of the letter would call me.  But that beats 0% which is the response one gets by sending regular brochures.  Here is the key:  When I called to reach these Decision Makers, even then much of the time I never had luck reaching them by phone.  I would call the receptionist or someone else in the company and here is what I would say:  “  I tried sending an email to Mary Jones to see if she received a package I mailed to her at your office address. I typed in Mary.Jones@companyname.com and it bounced back as undeliverable.  Did I type in the wrong email address?  Yes, her correct address is Mjones@companyname.com    You see, by pretending like I had already sent something to Mary, the receptionist is more likely to give me the correct email spelling then if I simply asked for it. What I just did here was obtained info from a Gate Keeper who might otherwise not have given me the info.  I then send an email introducing myself as the guy who sent the letter with the lotto ticket attached. Most of the time the Decision Maker will respond to my email, from which we go back and forth and my personality comes through in my emails, which breaks the ice and I talk them into agreeing to chat with me by phone, if anything just so I can introduce myself.

Whatever works for you!  The thing is people like it when a Sales Rep uses a creative and fun way to get their attention.  The problem with many staffing companies is they pressure Reps to make calls, the document all sorts of numbers, but they do not teach Reps the basic psychology behind sales and that is you must first get a person’s attention before they will listen to you, then you must have a short and clear message that is important to THEM, not to you, and you must deliver that message in a friendly way where their defenses and guard are lowered to where the Likeability factor kicks in, and they enjoy their interaction with you.

What about negotiating price and terms?

I will keep this simple:  Most customers are going to try and negotiate the lowest billing rate.  Here is what I do, I explain to them the TRUTH.

“When I buy something, my instinct is to negotiate the lowest price.  I once did that with a kitchen remodel job that turned into a nightmare. I had to fire the first contractor and hire someone more expensive to come in and finish the job.  When it comes to temporary staffing there is the billing rate we charge to you.  The margin is where we make our money, and were the recruiting staff earn their commissions.  The wider the margin, the higher the commission % - We need to pay X dollars per hour in order to attract people whom you would be happy with.  When a company tries to negotiate too low of a billing rate with a staffing company the recruiters will realize the margin will be slim, there is no money in it for them, so they choose other companies as their top priority.  And, if the margin is too slim because of a low billing rate, the recruiters will by default, offer a lower pay rate as a way of increasing the margin so they can earn some money.  By forcing a staffing company into a low bill rate, the trickle down effect is the pay rate is also pushed down, limiting recruiting to the bottom of the barrel candidates.  And this is why staffing companies often submit poor quality candidates.  They reserve their better candidates for customers who pay a reasonable billing rate.  The old saying is true, you get what you pay for.  My way of doing business is to explain this to you rather then play games.  If you want good service from us, we need to charge you a billing rate that gives us the room to do the best job. The smart thing is to do is choose a staffing company who’s numbers are in the middle, rather then choose the lowest bidder. Choosing the lowest price usually leads to poor results.

Name Branding:
Suppose Jim Jones is a Sales Rep with XYZ Staffing in Atlanta, GA.  Suppose there are 1000 companies in his territory.  If I were to conduct a survey by calling on office & HR Managers in that region, how many do you think would even know Jim’s name?  The honest truth is very few will know his name.  And this is the way it usually is out there. Very few staffing companies understand the importance of name branding, and they do not coach their Sales People how to effectively brand their name.  If Jim were trained correctly, after one year all 1000 companies would know Jim’s name and who he is.

Selling in this business is not hard, or rocket science.

1. You need to know what niches you can support
2. Then research to build a list of companies in a define territory
3. Prospect and call to obtain names of Decision Makers, add to your database
4. Recruiting should be non stop recruiting good people even if there are no job orders.  You can then proactively market these resumes to the Decision Makers for either temp or perm jobs
5. Prepare yourself before making calls, always have a crisp message and come across as being very warm and friendly. Never pushy.
6. Drive your territory to get to know the lay of the land
7. Set a goal of making X calls per day + Y face to face appointments per week.
8. When you bring in job orders, slow down to ask questions so you fully understand what your customer wants
9. Meet your customers in person, talk to them over the phone, develop a friendly relationship with them to where they look forward to talk to you or seeing you.