Recruiter FITT: How to win the war for clients

Last year was a tough year for recruiters when it comes to bringing in new clients.

New business development is harder than it has been for a very long time. Recruiters who have come into the industry over the last few years, have really struggled this year as they have never had to do real business development. Jobs have been fruitful to come by and clients have been easier to win over.

This year, however, this has been completely flipped. Jobs are scarce and new clients are hard to pick up. This means that recruiters are struggling. Recruiters' BD muscle hasn't been trained, the skills have gone into atrophy, and they can't flex their skills as well as they should.

This year has been a steep learning curve for recruiters as they are cramming years' worth of experience and learning into a year! What I have seen over the years with recruiters that I have spoken to is that there is one common issue.

They have no plan, no plan for finding new leads, no plan for which companies to target and no plan for moving them through the BD funnel.

So this year, to have more success bringing on new clients you need to focus on becoming client FITT. The FITT principle is something that I used when I was in the fitness industry. It is about how you are going to train and build muscle.

So how can we use this in recruitment? We can use the FITT principle on every potential client that you have. So what is it?

Frequency

How often are you going to contact the potential client? Is it weekly, monthly, or quarterly? If it's every 6 - 12 months, then they aren't going to remember you and you won't be fresh in their mind when the need arises.

Intentionality

Why are you contacting this potential client? What do you want to get from them? What information or knowledge do you want to impart to them? If you don't have a reason for contacting them, why are you contacting them?

Time

When are you going to contact them? Do you know the best time to get in touch with them? Do you need to contact them before work, in the morning, at lunch, the afternoon or after work? If you are contacting them at 10 am every Tuesday, but they are in a meeting at 10 am every Tuesday, then you are never going to get them.

Type

What medium do you need to use to contact them? There are so many ways to contact people nowadays. This makes it easier to get in contact with people, yet harder at the same time. You can contact them via phone, text, WhatsApp, email, LinkedIn, video call, writing a letter or turning up on their doorstep. If you are using the wrong medium to get hold of them, then you are making your life more difficult than it needs to be.

So make this the year you finally get FITT!