Did you know…
Recently I attended a presentation by Alex Goldfayn, author of “The Revenue Growth Habit.” The presentation, which was excellent by the way, and the book, also good, focuses on simple and small habits that you can build into your business, across all departments, to drive growth. I was there to focus on the sales portion but I naturally can’t help but see things through the lens of Recruiting. Truth be told, it’s not a big leap to see how a recruiter could take the core element from one of his sales suggestions, turn it on its head and use it within the recruiting lifecycle. Today I just want to focus on one of the simplest, what Goldfayn calls, The Million-Dollar Question, “Did you know X?”
The theory behind the power of the question comes from what Goldfayn calls the awareness percentage, or the delta between all the services and products your company sells and the amount your customer is actually aware you provide. Goldfayn says that the average awareness percentage for his clients is twenty-five percent. At first you might think this is pretty low, I know I did, but when reflecting on conversations I’ve had with existing and prospective clients, I think it’s a fair assessment. The call to action for the sales person is, it is on you to make them aware, to close this awareness gap. Your clients like you but they are unlikely to find out about all your offerings on their own. You will not get to one-hundred percent but you don’t need to. In reviewing his clients’ activities, an awareness percentage increase of just ten percent can actually increase sales by fifteen to twenty-three percent.
Goldfayn suggested that the simplest habit to affect the awareness gap is asking The Million-Dollar Question, Did you know X? Did you know we also place Recruiting Coordinators? Did you know we provide virtual sourcing support? Did you know we provide proposal support? Sit down and make your own list and I think you’ll be surprised just how many of these you can come up with. Now imagine including just one in each client interaction you have. Slowly but surely closing that awareness gap.
But this post is for Recruiters. I want to think about how if we twist this idea just a little bit we might be able to affect our jobs. What is the awareness percentage of candidates towards our company? Without putting a number on it, I would guess it’s even lower than a client’s awareness percentage. You might say, well I’m at a huge company and this Software Engineer in Chantilly, VA doesn’t really care about facility security we provide in San Diego, CA. True but there are things that Engineer might be interested in that effect the entire company. Did you know that this business unit has X percent capture rate? Did you know that this team has grown by X percent over the last three years? Did you know we currently have X amount of teams that need people like you? Did you know that of the last four promotions, two have held this position? The list is almost endless. You know your candidates and you know their reasons for leaving their current jobs and the hot buttons in their search. There is a way to craft a “Did you know X” that can address almost any scenario. Even something as simple as, “I heard a dog in the background, did you know that we also provide pet insurance?”
Capturing the data and attributing success to this practice might be harder in recruiting than during the sales process but anecdotally I believe you’d see a positive effect. Brainstorm by yourself or with your team for 5 minutes and come up with a list. Reach out to the departments or managers you recruit for and have them do the same thing or at least ask them to gather the data you might need. Pick your top five “Did you knows,” write them on a sticky note, attach it to your computer and commit to working one in during each interaction with a candidate. The success it has in the sales cycle will translate.
John Rice is the Director of Business Development at NSS RPO, a consulting firm that provides on-site and virtual recruiting professionals. Contact NSS RPO to learn about how we can help your organization meet and exceed it’s hiring goals.