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Hi there, this is Denise. I hope you and yours are well. This week’s post and podcast are about systems—specifically, why marketing systems are essential for recruitment businesses and how they can transform your day-to-day operations.

Many recruiters excel at having specific systems for working with candidates and managing placements. However, they’re not as strong in sales and marketing, particularly marketing. This is a significant gap that’s costing recruitment business owners dearly.

Based on our conversation last week about what’s happening in the market, we know that over 20% of people plan to quit their jobs in 2025. That’s nearly 1 in 4 people actively planning to leave. If you’re thinking, “That’s great, more candidates for me to place,” hold on a second. The challenge is that while all these people are planning to quit, approaching 90% of companies are still experiencing skills gaps in specific areas.

We have more people moving, but they’re not necessarily the right people for the roles that need filling. If you’re like most recruitment business owners I speak to, you’re caught in the middle of this chaos, fighting for both clients and candidates in this increasingly competitive market.

Let me paint a picture for you. Names are changed, of course, but these are real scenarios from clients and people in the market. Let me tell you about Sarah, who’s been running her recruitment company for eight years. She’s a great saleswoman with no problem getting on the tools. She has a good reputation and solid relationships.

Yet every month feels like Groundhog Day. She’s starting from scratch. One month, she has more clients than she can handle. The next, she’s scrambling to find work for her team. Then suddenly everything goes quiet, and there she is with no pipeline.

Does this sound familiar? Talking to Sarah always breaks my heart because I know people like her who are excellent recruiters. But she feels like she’s running on a hamster wheel, working 70-hour weeks and constantly stressed about where the next placement is coming from. She can’t get ahead of the curve because she’s sporadic in everything she does and has no system in place to leverage how good she is.

The first major problem is getting stuck in reactive mode. Business owners in the recruitment sector are very much like firefighters. Someone calls with an urgent role, and you drop everything. You get the terms signed and start searching. Or a candidate walks through the door, and you start scrambling to find them something.

You always respond to what’s happening instead of creating what should happen next. Again, Let me say that you’re responding to what’s happening right now rather than creating what you want.

It’s Sunday night, and you’re lying in bed thinking about the week ahead. Where will Monday morning’s placement come from? You need to follow up with various people, wondering which clients have new roles this week. You’re hoping the candidates you’ve been chasing will finally return your calls and stop ghosting you.

Your stomach’s in knots because your business success depends on things outside your control. This happens because you have no systems in place.

The second problem is not having a systematic approach to building relationships. In recruitment, relationships are everything. Yet it’s sad to see some companies in our space treat relationship building as something to do sometimes – more of a hobby or tick-box exercise rather than a honed business process.

Your network is your net worth, particularly as a recruiter. You can’t just call candidates randomly when you have a job. You can’t expect to ring them up and have a good relationship with them when you only call when you need them. They smell it a mile off.

Similarly, you can’t only reach out to clients when you want to sell them something. Clients know that too. But what do successful companies do? They have systems that nurture relationships constantly. Candidates hear from them regularly with valuable insights, not just job opportunities. Their clients receive market intelligence and industry trends, not just CVs when roles arise.

Let me share an example. We have a great client – let’s call him Simon. Last year, before he started working with us and put a marketing system in place, their average fee was around 15%. After 18 months of consistently doing content marketing and client nurturing, the average fee is 22% in a difficult market. They rarely get pushback on pricing because they’ve become the obvious choice, not just another option.

Last year, we worked with a company with about £500K in annual revenue—a really good business. But the numbers were alarming. They lost nearly half that in potential revenue yearly because they had no predictable pipeline.

They’d go a few weeks without a placement, panic, drop their fees, and try to close something quickly. Then they’d spend the next month working for margins so thin they barely covered costs. Meanwhile, the best candidates were being snapped up by competitors.

The financial cost was excessive because they had no systems in place. They had a couple of key clients, but when those clients pulled back on recruitment, huge gaps appeared. Because they’d relied on these individuals, they hadn’t built a pipeline with others. We all know pipelines take time to build, particularly in the current market.

The real cost isn’t just to the business—it’s to you personally. You’re working 70-hour weeks, missing family events and dinners, and cancelling holidays because you’re trapped in a reactive cycle. It’s like starting from scratch each time rather than having a system in place and giving it time to build.

A system is simply a repeatable process that produces predictable results. It’s straightforward. In theory, anyone in the business can implement a system. You create a system, and people follow that process.

Next week, I’m going to discuss creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), which will make things much easier. Today, I worked with one of our team members, Logan, who helps with podcasting. I record the podcasts, and he edits them, creates images, and ensures they go out on social media and the blog. We have a whole systematic process around that, which I was teaching Logan this morning.

Logan is a great administrator but not a marketer. However, he’s following the system. Systems are about consistently doing the right thing at the right time. When marketing your recruitment company, systems will solve many problems we’ve discussed.

Content marketing helps you stand out. Only this week, one of our newer clients shared content we’d provided him. It was going out in front of his clients, and suddenly he noticed one of them had posted a job. Even though he was on holiday, he sent a note saying, “Hey, I noticed you posted this job. I wonder if I could have a crack at it?” The client said yes.

You can see the difference this client got – he was on somebody’s radar because he was using content. Content systems position you as the expert in your sector or niche. When you consistently share insights about what’s happening in the market – salary benchmarks, hiring challenges, talent strategies – something powerful happens.

Clients start seeing you as a strategic partner, not just a supplier. And I know that’s so important for many of you. Again, clients start seeing you as a strategic partner, not just a supplier.

Email nurture systems work brilliantly here. They keep you top of mind with prospects who aren’t ready to hire yet. Most clients only need recruitment help occasionally. When they do need it, who do you think they call? The recruiter who’s been sending them valuable insights every month, or the one they haven’t heard from since their last placement?

We have a client, Karen, who sent me something a few weeks ago. She shared that one of her clients had said, “I like this content you’re sharing, Karen. I find it useful. Can we jump on a call? I want to talk to you about a couple of upcoming roles.” That’s the difference it makes.

LinkedIn will have nearly a billion users by the end of this year. Less than 3-4% of people post regularly. Sharing content through your social media system will be an easy way to get in front of your market.

It amplifies your expertise across the platform where your clients spend time. LinkedIn isn’t just about candidate sourcing – it’s the most powerful client acquisition tool in recruiting, but only if you use it systematically.

Many recruiters do things wrong on LinkedIn: They only post when they remember to, share lots of other people’s content rather than creating their own, and reach out to people only when they want something.

Systematic LinkedIn use looks different. You post valuable content on a schedule (LinkedIn even has its scheduling tool). You engage meaningfully with people and start engaging with your clients’ posts. You share original insights that show your market knowledge. You build relationships before you need them.

Let’s talk about candidate pipeline systems. Many people tell us, “If I had five Amandas, I could place them ten times over. It’s just getting them.” The best companies have candidates calling them, not the other way around. They’ve built what I like to call the candidate magnet system – a system that attracts talent continuously.

You talk to your companies about needing a good employer brand. You need to have a good employer brand as well. You can showcase why candidates should work with you. This isn’t just about having a nice website. It’s about consistently demonstrating that you understand what’s happening for candidates.

You understand the highs and lows. You understand their career goals. You have access to great opportunities and genuinely care about their success rather than just ringing them up when they tick a couple of boxes for a particular role you’re trying to fill.

One of our clients started doing “day in the life” posts—short videos featuring candidates they’d successfully placed. These were quick iPhone videos showing new people settling into their roles. This created more candidate applications. You can even do it with an image in Canva.

It’s important to have candidate nurturing systems as well. Most recruitment CRM platforms now enable you to send automated email campaigns to candidates, which is gold if you do it. When we talk with people about working with us, many already have a candidate database with so much untapped potential they don’t appreciate.

However, they’re not keeping that passive talent pool engaged until the right opportunity comes. That’s where they’re missing out. Most good candidates aren’t actively looking for jobs, but they will move for the right opportunity presented at the right time by someone they trust.

You build that trust because emails land in their inbox. Only the other day, I was looking for a company we used to work with. I asked Shannon where they were, and she said she still gets emails from them. I looked in the email system, and there was an email from a couple of weeks ago. Bang—we got the phone number, and there was business for that individual.

A systematic candidate nurturing approach means regular touchpoints that add value – market updates, career advice, top tips. You’re not constantly trying to place them. You’re helping them succeed wherever they are, which builds trust for when they’re ready to move.

Here’s what I love about systems: they reduce stress. As small business owners, it’s easy to get stressed when things happen or you realise you’ve dropped another ball because you haven’t got something in place.

Systems change all this. When you have a documented process for content creation, client nurturing, and candidate management, you don’t have to implement everything yourself. We have whole spreadsheets, flow charts, and diagrams that people use.

We have a great client in the legal sector who’s just got a couple of new employees. One is helping her with marketing, and it’s been great because the systems are in place. I’ve seen the stress leave her body because she’s got somebody, she’s given the system to. This person is doing the paint-by-numbers approach, following the system.

You become the conductor of the orchestra, not the person having to play every instrument. There’s nothing wrong with playing an instrument, but you should do high-value activities – conducting what’s happening.

Let me tell you about David, a client from a few years ago. He was exactly where Sarah is now – inconsistent pipeline, working all hours, never quite sure where the next client would come from or how he’d fill roles.

Today, his business has grown by nearly 180%. He’s managed to shrink his working week to four days. He can predict revenue in advance. We encouraged him to create a spreadsheet and do a cash flow forecast, which made a difference, too. Because he has systems in place, things are very different for him.

Thanks

Denise

If you’re tired of the hamster wheel and ready to build systems that work for your recruitment business, we can help. Through our Superfast Circle Program, we provide complete marketing systems for recruitment companies. This includes content marketing systems, email nurturing campaigns, social media strategies, and candidate pipeline systems—all designed specifically for recruitment businesses.

The post From Chaos To Control: Recruitment Marketing Systems appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Welcome to Episode 427 of the Recruitment Marketing and Sales podcast. I’m recording this as we approach the end of June, which, for those of us in the UK, US, Canada, Europe, and Europe, is the end of Q2 in our calendar year. For multiple listeners in Australia, it’s the end of your business year.

When Sharon spoke to many Australian NPA members at their event in Marbella, they were talking about the end of the year and how things had gone as they reviewed their results, ready to plan for next year.

[This is a direct podcast transcription, so please excuse rogue typos!]

The end of a quarter and the end of a year is always a good time to sit down and review where you are. One of the challenges for smaller businesses is that we don’t automatically do that as a process.

Particularly if we think things haven’t gone as well as we wanted!

Rather than sitting down, looking at the data, and asking.

We often avoid it, and this is where the problems start.

It doesn’t matter the size of your business. Whether turning over six or seven figures, you have to sit down and look at what’s working and what isn’t working. That’s the premise of today’s podcast.

Let’s discuss your plans, what’s happened this year, throughout the year, or the first six months, and what you want to do next.

What I’ve got is seven questions for you, seven areas that I want to cover that are useful.

Take half a day, or even go wild and take a full day. Bring in people from your team who will be involved, sit down, and go through these questions together.

I’m a great universe girl; the universe responds to people who pay attention. If you pay attention to what’s happening in your business, you can move forward.

Number one is, let’s look at your goals for this year. We are discussing marketing here, but marketing and sales are your business’s drivers and growth engines.

From a marketing point of view, consider what goals you had this year.

These are all the outputs you wanted, but I recommend looking at some of the inputs that will create the outputs around your goals.

Maybe it was, “Okay, we want to bring on board X new clients,” depending on the size of your business. I know that some of you only need half a dozen clients to give you multiple roles, and that will provide you £/$200,000, £/$300,000 a year, and that’s what you want. For others, it’s going to be more than that.

Just make sure you’ve got a list of the actual goals you set this year. Some of you may be new to setting goals; for some, your goals may have been completely off or either too low or too high to achieve.

We often get very excited about our goals and think, “Right, I want to get this goal done,” it’s just not possible from where you are starting and with your current resources.

This leads to point two: wants versus expectations.

Now, number two, that aligns with this is, what did you want, and I like this word as well, /expect to achieve? Because there’s always this thing in our life.

We get what we expect, but it is not always what we want. If you went into the situation expecting it not to work, then surprise, surprise, it doesn’t work. It’s interesting. Sharon had a call with somebody a few days ago who’s considering working with us.

This individual asked, “Well, what if it doesn’t work?” We always tell people to go in with the expectation that this will work; it does, provided you do.

The system we support our clients to use has been tested for over 17 years with all our various clients, and it will work as long as people put the work in. What did you expect versus what did you want to achieve?

That then links us to number three, where we start to look at the data and review things because let’s focus on the positive first. As business owners, we are always looking at that gap; we’re always looking at things that we haven’t done, but instead, look at what worked well and why. If that worked well, why don’t we do more of it?

I was listening to a Frank Kern video. For those of you who don’t know Frank Kern, he’s a bit of a godfather in the internet marketing world; he has been around for 25 years. He’s a lovely guy.

One of Frank’s favourite topics is the fundamentals. I can’t do a Southern Georgia accent, but he always talks about the fundamentals and doing more of them because that’s what works.

Many people forget the fundamentals.

Here is something a client said to me the other day; “When I do more reach-outs on LinkedIn, that works. If I stick to my KPIs, well, that works too ”

Inputs don’t work overnight, but they do build over time. Think about the things you did that worked well.

We have had several clients set up cold outreach campaigns. We did a whole session on this at our Superfast Circle event at the end of last year. Several people jumped on the process and did multiple things.

Did they get massive results during the first couple of months? No, but these are starting to kick in now because there’s a clue in the title. If you are doing cold outreach, these people don’t know you and need much more contact with you.

Now, they are starting to get results. People are returning to them, but they put that process in place, and things are working well. Consider, “What am I doing that’s starting to work?”

Next, I want to share where we are off-plan and what didn’t work. Combine those. Now, they are similar.

It could be, “I’m off plan because we landed a client, and I’ve got engrossed with filling several roles.” That happens. Hopefully, that does happen.

That could be one reason you’re off-plan. Why haven’t things worked? Maybe it’s because you haven’t implemented them correctly, done enough of them, or given them time.

Marketing can take time.

In nearly every webinar and workshop we deliver, we share the points of contact theory that sometimes people need 20 or 30 points of contact in today’s marketplace. In a B2B setting, before they make a purchase, they need to know you, like you, and trust you before money changes hands. It just might be that you haven’t given that process long enough.

You might only use one channel to communicate your brand when you need to post more in the current market.

If you’re only using one channel, you will have problems. For instance, if you’re only sending the odd random email, you’re not posting on social media, you’re not reaching out and finding new contacts, you’re not mining your current database, if you’re not doing multiple strategies, then that will be a gap for you.

Sometimes, this one is a bit uncomfortable, and it’s a question that must be asked: “Am I putting in enough effort?”

This is a question we have to ask ourselves, and occasionally, we might come up with an answer that we don’t like to hear, like, “Well, I probably could be doing more.”

I’m not saying you have to work seven days a week. However, sometimes, in a particular situation, you need to focus your time, get focused, and put in the effort on the right things, which are your key business drivers to make a difference.

If you are completely stretched, then maybe it’s time to review how you are allocating your time, hire somebody, or come and work with people like us who can provide many things that help with your time and implementation.

Ask yourself the uncomfortable question, “Am I doing enough?” This is a reflective question: “Could I be doing more?” Are you allowing yourself to get distracted by different things?

Is your focus on the areas of the business that shift the needle? Or are you getting involved with the type of font you use on your images or whether you’ve got exactly the right colour match? It’s focusing on the things that matter and putting in the effort to start building things. That’s just the uncomfortable question we all have to ask ourselves.

We were chatting with one of our clients this week about how she’s got a busy business and a busy personal life. She’s coming up to the summer when her daughters are at home and have lots of things to do, such as socializing and business. One of the things we were chatting about with her is that she’s solo; what is the one thing she can do next quarter?

It’s less than that for her, but what can she do in the next six weeks to improve her key business driver?

I have a question for you:  “What are three things you can do in the next 90 days that will impact your key business driver?”

If you’re unclear about key business drivers, we’ve recorded two or three podcasts about this; just put that into the search bar on the Superfast blog, and you will find them.

A key business driver is what makes a difference. Now, it might be that your key business driver is to have a face-to-face, Zoom, or Teams meeting with a client because lots of recruiters are very good at selling. Once they talk to somebody, that makes a difference.

The key business driver might be, “I need to make sure that we have systems and processes in place so that I am having at least X number of new client meetings a week.”

It depends on the size of your business and your conversion rate; you will know your numbers. For most people, it will be, “I need to have X number of client meetings. Out of those client meetings, I will convert at least 70%, 80% of them,” which is not unusual for recruiters that we speak to.

It might be from a candidate’s perspective that one of the things that you do is register new candidates. You or your resource consultant will reach out, and you agree on how many candidates they need to speak to, which is a key business driver.

We are heading into July in a few days; what will be your key business driver for this quarter?

Number seven, I’ve got some ideas for you to consider. The first thing to do is stop complaining about the market.

It’s frustrating, AND people are fed up hearing about it.

You are in a volatile market at the moment. Sharon listened to Hung Lee speak about this at the team conference recently.

Don’t assume this market is going to go away. It’s challenging at the moment, and it’s going to be like that for a while. The economy is all over the place. The birth rate is lower. The amount of money put into education and the growth and development of people hasn’t been as high as it should have been, so there aren’t as many skilled candidates.

How are you going to tackle all of that? Just be aware that complaining doesn’t help.

Identify the issues that are going on and then consider, “What are the solutions to these problems? What solutions do I need to implement?”

The other end of the spectrum is, stop beating yourself up. We all make mistakes in business, we all have rough times, and we all know that we probably have not worked as hard as possible.

Maybe we’ve had a few too many holidays. We’ve spent some money on software that hasn’t been implemented how we want, but we just let all that go. You’re a human being having a human experience. Stop beating yourself up, and instead, channel your energy to say, “That was then, this is now. What’s next? What actions am I going to take?”

The human being is such an amazing thing. We, as individuals, can achieve so much. We are success-seeking creatures. When you think about the ideas, the innovations we’ve come up with, and how we have managed to survive some of the things that have gone on in the world, it is just phenomenal.

If you’re having a rough time in business, it is just a drop in the ocean compared to what you can achieve and what you can do.

If you get focused and start doing the boring work that delivers results over the next few quarters, you will see an amazing shift in your results.

Thanks

Denise

We support our Superfast Circle clients in designing their plans with effective strategies that work. If you want a conversation about how we can help, book a quick call here.

The post Recruitment Marketing: Getting Ready For Your Next Quarter appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

I hope you had an amazing Christmas and a happy New Year. We decided to take a week off from the podcast and had an amazing time in Scotland.

Some people like to know what we get up to, so we had a Christmas alone. The family was ticked off, not in that context, but ticked off before Christmas, and then we went up to Scotland.

Ironic that we’re talking about cold outreach and campaigns; I saw an ad on Facebook a few months ago. We’d discussed going away for a break between Christmas and New Year.

For various reasons, it hasn’t happened over the last few years, and then in August, this ad shot past me on Facebook, and I thought; this is exactly what I want- the power of targeting.”

Do you know that Facebook has fifty thousand pieces of data on you and me and what we like? They’d obviously found that Denise liked expensive hotels with at least a four-star rating in rural settings!

My behaviour highlighted what I wanted, and a company got their ‘cold’ offer in front of me, which is part of our topic today.

Let’s talk about client and candidate leads for your recruitment and search business this year.

The truth is you need both inbound and outbound strategies as a recruitment or search company; Any company that wants to grow must have multiple marketing strategies.

The world is a competitive and uncertain place for many business owners and you will have to do more than you have in the past to keep pace, especially if you want to grow as we move into a brand-new year.

Let’s clarify inbound versus outbound recruitment marketing. You’ll hear people talk about demand generation marketing inbound leads, and you’ll hear about cold outreach.

If you have not accessed our lead generation triad webinar, there is a link below. It’s an on-demand masterclass, and it explains why inbound and cold are two areas you need to consider.

[Important: Here is the link to our Lead Generation Masterclass. Access it Here.]

At the end of last year, we answered key questions that people ask us all the time about marketing their company.

Cold outreach comes up all the time. Everyone wants an easy way because most people don’t want to do it.

Why do they have to do it? Is there a magic pill or strategy they can use?

Unfortunately, there isn’t. However, getting your different recruitment marketing strategies working together will make a big difference for you.

Step one when it comes to lead generation is, what are you doing with the people that you have? Now, I think the last recording that I did, the previous podcast, talked about email marketing and re-engaging the people you already have on your database.

Now, you may be sitting on a database of leads that need a bit more nurture, so if you haven’t listened to that podcast, go and listen to it here.

Re-engaging contacts already on your database because, to be quite frank, it is a gold mine that many of you don’t tap into.

Now, when it comes to inbound leads, these people will have heard about you from a referral or seen your content online or in person.

[Key Fact: This is why content works.]

They will have had an experience with you before they start to work with you. They will often have an experience because you might have answered one of their questions, maybe online on social media. They’ll have seen some of the content that you are posting online. They might have seen a video, blog post, image, or case study.

The general theme here is they have had an experience with you, so their understanding and knowledge about who you are and what you can do for them has created an interest.

That interest means they will come to you, so they are inbound, not outbound.

This is one of the marketing premises that most people forget and don’t utilise as they can.

Particularly, recruiters who have a lot of experience don’t demonstrate or tell people about how good they are, and because they don’t tell people about how good they are, they don’t get a lot of inbound leads, or they don’t get people coming to them, and that is one of the many benefits of using content marketing as a lead gen strategy.

Now, the other recruitment marketing strategy to use this year is cold outreach.

Fact: Cold outreach works.

At some point in your business life, in your business growth, you have to reach out to people who don’t know you.

They will be your next clients and candidates because you cannot keep fishing in the same pond. With the best will in the world, we cannot keep our clients forever. You know, there are seasons. There are seasons in our life; there are seasons in our business.

Clients will come and go. Sometimes, a client might leave you; they might come back; however, you have to factor that in. That’s why you have to go out and get more business.

The great thing about cold outreach that is available to us now, that wasn’t always available for smaller organisations like us, e.g., micro-businesses and small SMEs, is that we can access data.

We can get access to lists of people that we can contact, and we can reach out to them in multiple ways.

Go to your LinkedIn account. Depending on your country and sector, you will have thousands of potential connections you can make.

If you don’t use Sales Navigator, a brilliant BD tool, or if you’re not using Boolean search from the amazing team at Tooled-Up Raccoons, then consider that next year because then you can be targeted, and of course, you can use paid advertising, too.

I shared the story about our hotel booking earlier, putting cold outreach into perspective.

The hotel in question got my attention as a cold prospect from an advert.

I then clicked through to their website. I read their content and offer and then read their reviews before picking up the phone.

I’m sharing this story for you to think about the company out there that is a real target client for you. You know that you can help them, so it’s your duty to get through all that uncomfortableness and reach out to them because you could be that person who can make a huge difference to their hiring process this year.

This year, add cold outreach that happens consistently to your marketing plan.

Come at it from the premise that I am here and am good at what I do. I need to be out there helping and serving people, so it’s down to me to make that connection request or that uncomfortable phone call.

Cold outreach, let it be your focus for 2024. You will be the boy or girl that nails cold this year, and what a difference that will make for you.

Thanks

Denise

There are multiple cold strategies and messages you could send; there are multiple pieces of software.

We share everything you need to know in our membership program, Superfast Circle. In fact, in November, we did an event about lead generation.

When you join us, we will give you access to all the recordings and the resources we provided.

To find out what you need to do next, book a quick call with us here.

The post Cold Versus Inbound Recruitment Marketing This Year appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Last week we discussed the benefits of having marketing systems; you can access the post here.

As you set up your marketing system, it does not take a genius to work out that there will be multiple moving parts, often delivered by several team members.

The tasks aren’t hard, though; they do need to be carried out in a certain order to deliver the result you want in the way you want by literally anyone in your company.

Enter a standard operating procedure or SOP.

Originally developed in the manufacturing sector as a way to ensure everything happened in the right way, they soon became adopted by many industries as a way to leverage both time and process.

Let’s look at some of the upsides of an SOP and several marketing SOPs you can add to your business.

Many recruitment business owners want a marketing system that provides clarity and direction. In other words, specifically, what do I need to do and when.

Let’s be frank; I’m a marketer, and Marketing is my big passion. I love marketing. However, I know other people can get confused because of the many moving parts.

The upside of an SOP is that everything happens consistently how you want it to.

For instance, this podcast production is driven by an SOP; it’s the reason it happens so regularly every month.

The topics are mapped out ahead of time and then the week before the podcast goes live. I record three different parts.

Part two is sent off to be transcribed and then goes through a basic edit. The other audio files are then sent to Andy, our podcast guy who creates the podcast with an SOP I created.

The podcast and transcription are added to our blog, which automates distribution across various podcast channels.

An image is created, and I also send a social post by email.

….. and it happens consistently because I follow the right procedure.

The great thing about an SOP is anyone can use them to deliver a task, which brings me to training.

Fact: it’s easy to train people when you have an SOP.

In today’s digital landscape, you can use multiple training options, including flow diagrams, word documents, and screen capture videos you could make on loom.

We use Monday.Com for managing our work, and here we can add an SOP with links to a video to watch; so straightforward.

What can often happen, as I mentioned earlier, is that things do get missed. Things will get missed if you don’t have a list to follow.

Marketing done well has many moving parts.

A detailed SOP stands a better chance of delivering your desired results.

Because if you have an SOP list written out and there are only 4 or 5 things on it, the chances are it’s probably not going to be as successful as you want.

Let’s say you’re creating and adding your social media to different channels, or you’re making a sales funnel, and, you know, certain elements have been missed.

Well, it’s a great reminder that your SOP needs a level of detail; if you want something to happen consistently, you might need to add more steps or check your SOP and say, “Did we put that in?

And you might find, as often people do, that some steps in the process were missed because the SOP hadn’t been put together with a level of detail.

Unless you are in a programme like Superfast Circle, where we provide training and SOP templates, it starts with you.

Which is a good thing.

You drive the business and decide what you want to happen and how. I suspect you have created other systems in your business around sales and resourcing, which is the same for marketing.

You can always work with a marketer to help flesh out the detail.

Want a particular font or colour, put it in the SOP.

Want varied social media going out three times a day, put it in the SOP.

So what SOPs are good to use in marketing? Let me share the ones we have.

If you create your content and social media or use Canva as a design tool, you might want to include some of the following steps.

Follow the content plan and write and edit the blog ahead of time. Add relevant keywords subheadings and source copy approved images. Add a call to action and internal links.

Add SEO to the blog page and check everything is formatted correctly using the correct font and size.

Then schedule the post to go out at the same time every week.

Creating a step-by-step SOP and recording a video of the process means anyone on the team could do this.

Here is a list of SOPs to create that will make your life easier.

S.O.P.s have been a God send to our business and will be for yours.

Thanks,

Denise

In our Superfast Circle training platform, we have specific training on SOP creation, and we have templates to get you started. If you want to find out more, book a quick demonstration here.

The post The Many Benefits of Marketing SOPs: Standing Operating Procedures appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

As a recruitment business owner, it can be challenging to manage and direct all aspects of your business, especially when it comes to marketing, a skill set that many leaders in the recruitment and staffing space haven’t developed yet.

Yet the truth is marketing is critical to the growth and success of your business, especially in the uncertain and strange times we are now experiencing.

• What strategy could work best for you in your sector and where you are currently?

All logical questions and one a marketing director is best placed to help with.

What are your options? Enter your outsourced virtual marketing director. So let’s talk about their many benefits, where and how they can help, and how you can find someone ideal for you.

One of the primary benefits of using an outsourced virtual marketing director is that they bring expertise and experience to the table.

Marketing is complex.

Made more so in the last few years as digital marketing, tech stacks in recruitment, and A.I. have made marketing more powerful yet even more challenging to get your head around.

Even the best marketing exec, manager, or director can occasionally struggle to get their head around creating demand with two separate groups: clients and candidates.

Hiring a full-time or even part-time marketing director can be costly. For micro and small SME recruiters, this type of headcount is expensive. Factor in a salary of around £/$ 50-80k plus benefits depending on where you are in your particular country, where you are in the world, and their experience level.

Common sense says it’s not viable.

It’s a huge salary drain for a company that might only be currently turning over less than £/$500k, and yet the inputs from someone like this will be pivotal in taking you to your first million.

First, they are not another employee that needs to be managed by you, yet you can have their input on a call or Zoom/Teams meeting at a fraction of the cost exactly when you need them.

This is one of the reasons we set up Superfast Circle in the first place. We knew our clients wanted more clarity and direction on their next steps, and this was where we could help them when they needed some quick input.

Recruitment businesses are dynamic, and marketing strategies need to be flexible to keep up with changes in the industry and the market in general. Your outsourced marketing director will keep themselves ahead of the game, always!

They have to that is how they make their living. They know you need their support and advice, so they make sure they take part in additional training and conferences, so you don’t have to factor in the resource to make this happen; that is both time and money. Because they are ahead of the game, you will be too.

More recruitment and staffing companies are recruiting marketing executives, marketing apprentices and administrative assistants to support their marketing efforts.

Marketing Executives are often individuals in the early stages of their careers with less knowledge of the complexities of the recruitment industry and what strategies do and don’t translate from mainstream marketing.

Apprenticeships are a great thing. The challenge is they are theory-based rather than practical and simply are not recruitment marketing-focused, making it difficult for junior marketers to learn their craft.

Having worked with many marketers over the past few years, we have seen them struggle with a lack of direction, not understanding the client and candidate marketing dynamic, and not knowing where to prioritise their time to get the best results for their manager, you.

Did you know your outsourced marketing director can help here too?

They can give direction on what strategies to use, usually how to do them, and they act as a mentor to your junior marketer, giving them support, training, and direction.

Effective marketing that creates demand with candidates and clients can help you get a higher return on investment (ROI) for your recruitment business.

Fact: An outsourced virtual marketing director can help you design, plan, and create strategies that work in your sector.

Some might even have template campaigns you can use; they have tested that work. That way, you stand out from the competition; You can read about our tested campaigns and how to access them here.

Marketing is a busy discipline that creates results, and it also takes time, especially for you as a recruitment leader when you aren’t sure you are heading in the right direction.

What if you could have access to the two of us as your virtual marketing directors like other members of Superfast Circle? We have 15 years of experience delivering marketing services and strategy in the recruitment sector, plus over twenty years before that in our corporate director roles.

Have a look at our case studies and testimonials and then book a quick call here and let’s have a chat about how we can help.

The post The 5 (Key) Benefits of Using An Outsourced Marketing Director For Small SME Recruiters appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Hi, this is Sharon from Superfast Recruitment, and today we have a completely different topic. And more than that, I suspect a topic that many of you will relate to.

Like many business owners, Denise and I have a lot of friends in business, and we’ve had some interesting conversations in the last few weeks that relate to client conversations, and some of the social media groups that we’re in.

Now, the topic is feeling flat, feeling a bit low, feeling out of sorts.

People have used different words in conversations and on online chats that we’ve been having, to describe how it is for them right now.

And it’s not surprising, is it? We have had the weirdest, toughest, most challenging year that any business owner probably has ever faced and hopefully will ever face.

When you think about it, we have been looking out for our businesses and keeping them afloat – if we can, trying to keep it up on a growth trajectory. Of course, that’s sector dependent, isn’t it?

We’ve been showing up and propping up and supporting team members. We’ve been there for our family, for friends.

At some point, when you’re carrying the weight of all that on your shoulders, it’s going to have an impact, and it’s going to take a toll.

Over the weekend, I was chatting to a friend who described their Sunday morning as being in floods of tears. It took them back to their childhood, having a good, good old sob into a pillow.

And she wasn’t the only person on Sunday who had a few tears either, because I saw various people chatting about it in some of the different groups that we’re in.

So what I want to do in this blog is share a few ways of handling this emotion and this flat feeling that many of you have been describing.

I have a coaching practice, as well as everything that I do in Superfast Recruitment and I’ve been having this conversation with clients there, too.

So let’s look where you can start.

I think the first thing that I want to say to you is, please cut yourself some slack, guys, because it’s a huge responsibility being a business owner.

You’re not superhuman. I know we like to think that we’re superheroes: superman or superwoman, and we are incredibly resilient, but it’s okay to be a human being.

Okay, so stop beating yourself up about the fact that you should always be able to turn on the inspirational side of you, that motivational side, and just recognise that it’s okay to feel the way that you’re feeling.

And even when you are feeling a bit flat, what do you do? Now, we all have different strategies, don’t we?

We all have different inspirational, motivational mentors that we might go and watch a video of; we all have hobbies that we might go and do.

So for me, if I’m not feeling myself, I always find it helps to just take a time out and go and have a walk, go out into nature.

I know for many of our clients listening to this as well – it will be exercise and taking time out to go and have a run or go and do a workout.

Whether it’s at the gym, socially distanced with a group of people, or whether it’s in front of a video at home, it’s about showing up.

Even if you don’t do your regular workout, putting your gym kit on, showing up in front of that video camera, or heading out for a run and doing five minutes and not your 30-minute run around the village that you might normally do; it’s the fact that you put your kit on, you show up, and you put one foot in front of the other.

And we can apply that principle to the business.

There are some days when I haven’t felt like getting in front of this video camera because I felt flat. And yet the best thing for me to do is get in front of the camera.

So we pick a subject that I really love talking about because that’s easy. I put on a different outfit because that helps me change my mood a little bit, as well.

And I get in front of that camera. And we don’t always publish what I might have recorded because maybe I’m not happy about it. But the fact that I’ve got in front of the camera and I’ve talked to people, and I’ve shown up, and I’ve done my bit, I feel better because I’ve just put one foot in front of the other.

So when you think about you and your business and all the different things that you need to do, just remember that you don’t have to do all those things today. Choose one thing that you’re going to show up for today, and just take one small action and move forward.

And another thing that you can do, is that if you are going to show up and do that one thing – put everything into it.

Whether it’s for five minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, just put everything into it and see what comes out at the end.

And I can guarantee that you will feel different as a result of it.

So whatever strategies you have that work for you, make it important to give yourself the time and the permission to take a break and do something that will help shift your energy and your mood, because then you’ll be able to move forward.

And remember, be kind to yourself, guys. Stop beating yourself up, and look at the gains rather than the gap.

I’ve started a success journal, and I was sharing it with some colleagues in an exercise group that I’m in. It’s where you look at what are all the good things that I’ve achieved and that I’ve done that day, and that’s what I write about.

Even if it’s just a bullet point list, even if it’s five things or three things, or if it’s one thing, it goes down. And each day, it’s building up what are the successes. So that when I am feeling a bit out of sorts with myself, I can go back, and I can read all those successes.

Because, boy, sometimes we just need that pep up, don’t we?

So I hope some of those strategies have been helpful. If you liked this post and would like to explore more of our insights on leadership, coaching and owning a successful recruitment marketing company, head to our blog where you will find hundreds more blogs and podcasts.

We’ve also got several more free recruitment marketing resources available to download on our website. Click here to browse and download the recruitment marketing guides which will help you get a clearer picture of your recruitment marketing and where you can take it.

That’s Sharon Newey from Superfast Recruitment.

The post Feeling Flat? Here’s How to Turn it Around appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Social Media Marketing for recruiters is the next series of posts we will be creating. If you want to access last week’s post, you can do so here.

We gave you a ton of reasons last week why you need to double down on posting now.

The question is, where do you start?

Fundamentally why they should choose you as their recruiter; I know! Though there are a few stages before that, and this is about answering the many questions going on in their head.

We gave you a whole host of ideas in this post here about evergreen versus COVID content. So no excuse to get going.

When it comes to posting content on various social media channels, you need to consider a few key things. It’s always important to add value, to engage your readers, to entertain and most importantly include a call to action too; all while maintaining your brand voice.

Your brand voice is about what you are recognised for –

The thing is people will look out for you, and what you say, so you need to ensure consistency. So if you are sharing content that demonstrates you are Mr or Mrs Professional Recruiter and then you post a rogue image or meme, you aren’t doing yourself any favours at all.

Yes, you need to be authentic and make sure that your authenticity aligns with your overall brand.

When it comes to the style of content, use a combination of text, video and images and if you’ve got the voice for it – go with podcasting too!

The thing about human beings is we have many different preferences when it comes to consuming content; some of us are visually preferenced, others audio, and others just like to read.

That is why you need to make sure that you mix things up, again this always boils down to testing and measuring what content performs well, what images do people view and what times are the best to post content your market will see.

Remember if you are an international recruiter, you will need to mix up your timings across the board. For instance, we have clients on the other side of the globe in Australia and Dubai, as well as here in the UK.

Therefore, we mix all our content around, and it’s posted at different times. Whatever you do, make sure you have a posting schedule that ensures consistency about you and your posting. 

Today on our Superfast Circle call, we discussed this exact topic. Over the past few years, social media automation has got a bad rap, and yet the reality is it still works incredibly well.

Believe it or not, some of our automated social media posts get exceptional views.

Our recommendation is to combine the two.

Have a base level of automated posts so that you know your brand is always in front of your candidate and client market no matter what is hitting the fan in the office!

Then as part of your daily process create a status update in the moment; there is no excuse not to do this as it takes less than 10 minutes, all done. The status update character count is currently less than 1300 characters too, so it isn’t exactly a War and Peace post!

When it comes to using social media automation software, there is a huge choice – from Buffer to Hootsuite to MeetEdgar and Paiger App.

Your preferred option will come down to budget.

Though don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; look at the functionality that you want, whether you are a prolific content creator and how many individuals you have in your team. All of this information will help you make an informed choice.

Yes, there are free versions of many tools; however, if you’re a serious business owner, free versions just don’t have the functionality that you need.

When it comes to planning out your content, it’s a good idea to have a content plan related to your market and what is important for them throughout the year.

For many recruitment companies, this has gone out of the window, and if that’s the case for you, it’s time to press reset. With lockdown now being lifted, there is light on the horizon, and you can start to plan out your content as a minimum for the next few months ahead.

Think about having content that speaks to both your candidates and clients problems. Interrelate this with Evergreen content, some engaging think pieces and of course that all-important call to action for you and your recruiting brand. Do this, and you won’t go far wrong.

Earlier we mentioned posting at different times of the day that includes weekends; yes people may know that your posts are automated, but it’s still good to have that content out in front of your market… hold your hand up if you’ve ever been on LinkedIn at the weekend – yes I thought so!

Next time we will share several ideas on content you can share, most of which you might already have.

Thanks

Denise

P.S. Would you like clarity on your next marketing steps as you plan your bounce back? Then book a call with one of us here.

The post Social Media Marketing for Recruiters: Guidelines Before You Start appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Where will marketing add most value to my recruitment business ? It was a question I was asked on a recent spotlight interview for Rec Expo this year.

The honest answer is everywhere. I explain more in this weeks podcast.

Rec Expo 2019:  Book Your Rec Expo Ticket Here

A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of being joined by Katy Green from Centred of Excellence, and being interviewed by Claire Bush as part of the Rec Expo Spotlight series.

One of the audience members asked a great question, which was, “If I’m investing in marketing, where across the business can marketing add most value?”

Before I answer that question, let’s just take a step back and think about what’s the definition of marketing.

The simplest definition is that marketing is about creating demand, and sales is about converting that demand. If you’re not investing in marketing to create the demand for your products and services, then worst-case scenario is that you’re not going to have a business that can thrive and grow.

Now, let’s come back then to where in the business can marketing add most value.

Let’s think about prospecting – whether that’s attracting more candidates, or new clients, nurturing those relationships through to a company placing jobs with you and the candidates filling those jobs. And, of course, you want to retain long term relationships. You want people to come back and work with you time and time again. You want to account manage, and grow accounts with clients.

Marketing adds value along the whole of that journey.

Let me give you just a quick example. About six months ago, we had a client join Superfast Circle. Their goal was to increase the brand awareness in their market with prospects so that they could attract more clients and more candidates. Over recent months, through a variety of activities, building awareness of the business on social media and doing a small amount of content creation and marketing that content out, they are already creating new clients, winning new business and placing candidates.

So that’s right at the beginning of the process.

Now let’s go to the other end of the process. We’ve have content marketing clients who work with us in terms of generating and distributing content, and several clients recently have wanted to do email campaigns targeting existing clients. The purpose of them is to retain business and to build accounts.

So, we have been busy creating email funnels specifically for an active and lapsed client audience. The content in the campaigns is about nurturing relationships and building accounts.

There are other activities that we can do in between, and I wanted to give you an example of the extremes of where marketing can add value.

Finally, think about when you’re expanding and growing your business and you’re wanting to attract employees into your business. Marketing adds value to that as well.

If you’re wondering “If I invest in marketing, am I going to get an ROI?” Yes, you will get an ROI, provided that you are marketing to a specific niche, and that you’re doing a variety of activities to the right audience with the right frequency, the right message, and you engage those people at the right time, you will get an ROI.

The post What Value Can Marketing Add Across Your Recruitment Business appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

It’s far too easy to fall into spray and pray marketing. Yet even the smallest piece of planning can produce great results.

We explain more in this week’s post.

Marketing training and coaching for recruitment companies: Superfast Circle

Today, I want to talk about the spray and pray verse of the sequencing approach to marketing. Now, you might be thinking, what do I mean spray and pray?

Well, you know, often business owners will say to me, “Sharon, we are doing several different marketing strategies. We’re doing email marketing, we’re doing some paid, we’re doing some content and social media, we’re doing a little bit of PR, and it will go on.

It might even include events and things. It’s not quite delivering what we expected and certainly not what we wanted from an ROI point of view.”

There can be several reasons behind that, and one of them is the random individual strategies are not connected, and they’re not sequenced.

The messaging isn’t taking a prospective new client or new candidate right from the beginning of their journey with you, all the way through to the point where they’re ready to engage and work with you.

A new client who joined Superfast Circle, I met their MD at an APSCo event recently, and they wanted to up-level their website. Start from scratch, completely new design and everything. However, they also wanted to look at their marketing as a whole process so they could make everything work better.

They were aware that some things they did worked and others didn’t, so their goal was to ensure it all came together.

They wanted a strategy to pull everything together first because then, everything would be driven by a plan; smart idea!

When I heard that, it made my heart sing because it was like, “Fantastic.” So often, people will go ahead with lots of gusto and enthusiasm and get a new website put together and then realise there are some elements missing because they’ve not thought through some of the additional marketing strategies that they want to implement.

So the insight to consider today is, take a step back, you know, review your current marketing and how you can connect the dots.

This way you marketing, time and resources will have far more impact.

That’s Sharon Newey from Superfast Recruitment. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye for now.

The post Why Sequencing Your Marketing Will Deliver Results appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

We aren’t machines. Even the most productive of us needs time to regroup, reflect and recharge if we want to do great work.

Today, we share how that might work for you too in this week’s podcast.

Marketing Training: Superfast Circle

Hi everyone, this is Sharon Newey from Superfast Recruitment, and a couple of weeks ago, Denise recorded a podcast about 90 day planning.

Interestingly, we were having a conversation on exactly this same topic with our Superfast circle members yesterday. So I wanted to jump on this short video/podcast to share a couple of key insights and learnings about the process.

We were on holiday in Scotland last week, and it was a great time to do some rejuvenation and recharge those batteries. And after we’d had a few chilled days, it was a great opportunity to step back and reflect on what a great first quarter we’d had, and then start thinking about the next 90 days.

Now, in the conversations we were having yesterday, and linked to our own experience last week, I think one of the insights we had was, while we work on 90 day cycles within the business, we don’t take that same principle and apply it to ourselves as individuals when we’re thinking about 90 days of looking after Sharon Newey, or 90 days of looking after Denise Oyston.

One of the real take aways was that:

“You can’t do your best work if you are not in your best state.”

And I don’t about you, but by the backend of 2018 we were both shattered, we’d been incredibly busy, not just in that last quarter, but over the year, and we were just so ready for a break – rejuvenation.

And of course, we get a good period of rest over Christmas, don’t we? But something that we did from a planning point of view, reflecting on 2018 thinking about 2019 was, we decided that at the end of each quarter or towards the end of each quarter we need to have some rejuvenation time.

Therefore, we blocked off and booked a week’s holiday at the end of each quarter and having had that week we now feel so different, it gave us a great opportunity to reflect on quarter one, what we’d achieved versus the plan.

Having that time away from the business was great to just take some time to reflect and think about quarter two and what those achievements in Q1 meant for what we could achieve in Q2 and how we could refocus.

Now I think something that came out of our reflections and what we talked about with the Super Fast team yesterday was, it’s great to create 90 day plans, isn’t it? But sometimes as we start moving into implementation, something happens.

We get involved in working in the business, some of it might be on the business, but we’re in that flow of implementation. And what can happen if we’re not careful, is that we don’t take that time on a monthly basis to just step back and keep reflecting, look at that 90 day plan, keep course correcting if we need to, but keep being focused.

Because there is a danger, as we are enthusiastic business owners, opportunities come into our path during that quarter, it can be really easy to say, “Yes, yes, yes,” and not think, “Is this opportunity moving me closer to one of our goals, or is it taking me towards those goals but it’s going to go down a different path and it could take me longer, and it could be a diversion?”

So a good thing to do is, build into those 90 day plans, planning time, reflection time, and also on a personal level, time over each month as you’re moving through that quarter to do a little bit of rejuvenation, to make sure that your batteries are charged, that you are in the right state to do your best work.

So just a few thoughts and reflections there on 90-day plans. And if you haven’t had time yet to think about your planning for Q2, it’s only the start of April, this week is a great time to take stock, take a little bit of time out away from the business, so you’ve got a nice clear head and just think about what are some of the key priorities for this quarter that will help you achieve those goals that you’re striving for towards the end of the year.

The post The Power of Rejuvenation Reflection and Refocus appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.