Where in the business development process is your consultant underperforming?

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The failure of our industry to enhance its reputation will continue for
as long as we have a high rate of staff turnover.

How seriously can we be taken if (as RCSA data suggests) we struggle
with annual staff turnover that is consistently between thirty and fifty per
cent?

This is a topic I have often written about.

One of the areas within this topic, that is often overlooked, is the
importance of a manager ensuring that their team members clearly understand and
are consistently following the company’s business development process.
Inefficiencies in this area can be a massive productivity (and morale) killer.
If a consultant is struggling to build results (and confidence) then you’re
entering a danger zone where the risk of a consultant resigning, disheartened
or demoralised, rises significantly.

The role of the manager is to maximise the chance of the consultant
succeeding through ensuring that the business development process is followed.
Industry news service, ShortList , interviewed me on the topic of productivity, generally, a couple of weeks ago.

Since that time I have thought more about the productivity issues within
the business development process, specifically.

Here are 16 questions recruitment agency owners and managers might find
valuable to ask themselves about their consultants’ productivity in the area of
the business development process:

Do they have a clear target market (ie they know who to ignore and who
to pursue)?
Do they know how, and where, to gather leads?
Do they allocate time (every day) to find leads?
Do they allocate sufficient time each week to make calls to these leads
to qualify whether this lead is a genuine prospect?
Do they stick to this schedule?
Do they know exactly what to say when prospecting by telephone?
Are they skilled to confidently handle the predictable objections from
prospects (eg have a PSA, not recruiting right now etc)?
Do they know how to conduct a prospect meeting face-to-face and use any
sales support material in that meeting?
Are there clear, and consistently used, labels for each stage of the
sales process pipeline (eg prospect, client, key client etc)?
Do they understand how to work a prospect through the sales pipeline?
Does each prospect or client have a ‘next action’ with a specified date?
Do they know when a prospect is no longer worth pursuing?
Do they know, without reference to a document, the key components of
your terms of business (ie fees, guarantee, payment terms etc)?
Do they know the parameters within which they can negotiate these terms
(if at all)?
Do they know how to powerfully present the arguments for exclusivity to
a client?
Do they know when, and how, they should walk away from a vacancy in
negotiation stage?