Closing the recruiting deal requires the highest skill sets of the placement and search process. It’s the end of the game, and you have spent all this time and emotional energy cultivating the client, gaining their commitment, and putting everything in place.
The objections have been covered. Their decision has been tied down and nailed shut, and now it’s time to bring closure to everything.
What happens to you emotionally when you get to this state? What are the feelings that go through your mind at this point? And even more important, do you have a tendency to sabotage your deals on a subconscious level?
I believe that in the world of sales, there are many of us who, at the end of the deal, try to tank our situations. We would rather face the trauma of self-imposed failure than have a surprise come back to bite us. We would rather know what the conclusion is going to be than be faced with a surprising failure.
How can we change our attitudes towards this part of the process and approach it with more strength and less trepidation? Here are two tips that you can integrate into your closing process that will help you to close more recruiting deals with confidence:
Step One:
You must feel like you deserve to win. Simple concept. Seems almost too simple. But many of us live with limiting beliefs that money is evil or that it’s wrong for us to desire to make money. Use an assumptive close with the right candidates because you know that the fit would be good for them, good for the client, and ultimately good for you too.
Remember that money is a form of energy that is a representation of value and contribution. The more you contribute to others’ lives, the more money you should make and deserve to make. In other words, it’s perfectly acceptable to desire to generate a big income, one contribution at a time.
If you struggle with this, then read Rick Pitino’s book Success is a Choice.
Step Two:
You must put the other person’s best interests ahead of your own. With your candidates, early in the process, state something like this long before you present them to your clients:
“I’ll present you to my client, you can interview with them, and you can decide for yourself if this is something you would like to do, Joe. Whatever you want to do, I’m okay with it. My goal is to expose you to this opportunity because I believe that it’s a great chance for you to get to the next step of your career, but only you can decide. All I ask for is total honesty with me. Sound okay with you?”
That key phrase will put deposits in their emotional bank account with you and increase their trust level with you significantly. You are now a partner with them in their minds in helping them to explore potentially better opportunities . . . you are no longer a hungry recruiter who sees this candidate as a walking invoice.
Be a pressure valve, not a pressure builder.
By integrating the concept of deserving to win and pre-framing the relationship with the candidates, you will close more sales that stay closed because now you are expecting to win all the time and building an authentic relationship and trust level with your candidates.
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Scott Love, guest writer for the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Blog and owner of The Attorney Search Group, trains, motivates, and inspires recruiters to achieve greatness in the profession. Visit his online recruiter training center for tips, downloads, videos, and articles that can help you increase your recruiter billings.