How To Build A Market From Scratch with Amy Holder

Why is building new markets from scratch an invaluable skill for recruiters, in your opinion? How has mastering this skill impacted your career trajectory?

To be a successful long-term recruiter, you must know how to find and attract new clients, whether working a warm desk or starting a desk from scratch. 

There will come a time when your existing clients don’t have roles for you, so learning and developing the skill of winning clients will allow you to keep consistent billings throughout your career and make a great income.

When you first started to build out your new market, what was the most common challenge you faced, and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge is something that we will all experience: standing out. 

There is a sea of recruiters out there who will all be mass-outreaching the same people you will also be trying to contact, all after the same thing—jobs!

You can stand out from the noise by what you put in those outreach messages. 

The majority will be very bland, but if you can communicate that you understand their actual pain points, you will be able to stand out and give yourself a better chance of getting that phone call.

What are the most effective methods you've discovered for building a market from scratch? What are the core foundational elements necessary for long-term success in recruitment?

I would say there are four key things that I have done that have had a great impact on building my market from the ground up. 

These are…

1. Having a structured approach - Tracking your actions, knowing who you’re going after, and keeping an eye on what is and isn't working.
   

2. Build Trust - Giving away things for free before asking for something in return.
   

3. Being Yourself - Being authentically you to attract the right clients.
   

4. Personal Brand - Use social platforms like LinkedIn to find your voice.

Could you detail the specific strategies, systems, and processes you've adopted when building a market? How have these contributed to your success, and how might they benefit others?

I cannot live without my Lead Management System Excel Tracker for market building. 

It helps me to know who I’ve spoken with when that conversation was, the topics we covered, and when it will be best to schedule a follow-up.

The other big tip that I always use is utilising candidates. 

A great candidate experience makes for future clients even if you don’t place them. 

Stay close to them and keep up with regular check-ins so that should they start somewhere new, you already have a warm contact, and you can win business that way.

You can download my lead management system here to use for yourself: Lead Management System

I have even worked with Hector to build a Bitesize Course on how to use this system, which you can check out here: Lead Management System Course

A well-structured plan is crucial. In your experience, what are the absolute minimum elements that a recruiter's initial plan should include to set them up for success?

A list of twenty clients to go after within a niche - having a niche makes it easier to sell and rinse and repeat to be more specific to clients.

The names of all the decision-makers.

Six weekly contact reminders.

A strong candidate that stands out to sell in.

Where do you see recruiters commonly falter when trying to build a new market? What pitfalls should they avoid?

The main one is giving up too soon; it takes time, and sometimes ten approaches before a buy.

Selling too soon is another area where people go wrong. It sounds counterproductive, but you need to be seen as trustworthy. 

Trust can be built by offering things to help rather than just trying to sell straight away—salary guides are a great example of this.

Lastly, I would say go after everything they see. 

You have to have a plan and stick to it, even if that means being ruthless in cutting companies and replacing them with others you have mapped out.

How long should a recruiter realistically expect to invest before determining whether their efforts in a new market are paying off? What are the key indicators that they're on the right track?

There’s no set timescale for this. 

It took me two years of learning my craft before I saw consistent success. 

As I improved slowly, some people might see success within six months, but it's all about being consistent with your efforts and constantly reviewing your processes.

You can learn more about how hard I found it on the episode I did for the Recruitment Mentors Podcast.

What are the go-to metrics you track to gauge your traction and progress in a new market?

Client meetings booked!

This is all I care about, and you should too.

If you’re consistently meeting clients and getting face time, you’ll get wins.

It's important to know when to adapt. If a recruiter finds that their initial target niche isn't as active as anticipated, when should they adjust their plan? How do they decide when to accept or decline work outside their initial focus area while still building the market?

Really, look at your metrics. 

Why aren’t you having luck? What’s your outreach? How personalised is it? How many decision-makers are you going after? How many jobs are there in that field?

Be brutally honest with yourself. 

If there are no jobs, then it’s not a good place to be, but if there are lots of jobs and no response, it’s likely that your outreach needs changing and that you need to consider a different approach.

If you could recommend just one thing for recruiters to implement after reading this newsletter to boost their market-building success, what would it be?

Use the spreadsheet to be persistent in your approach.

You can download it again here:  Lead Management System

If you’re strategic and persistent with your BD approach, I’m confident you will achieve all your goals for your recruitment desk.

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1: Do you listen to my podcast? I release a weekly episode with either a top-performing recruiter or recruitment entrepreneur to find out how they achieved their success so you can learn directly from their journey Check out my latest episode and subscribe to the show.

#2: Promote your brand to over 4,277 recruitment professionals by sponsoring this newsletter (bookings available from May 2024).

#3: Want to learn how you can leverage our all-in-one training platform to take on the heavy lifting of upskilling your team whilst you spend more time working on the business? >>>> Book A Meeting With Me Here