Pro Sales Tools For Eliminating Competition in Recruitment
- Recruiters fail to differentiate. This method directly addresses key buying criteria.
- It eliminates competition by showing how your process solves hiring bottlenecks
- Use it to gain higher fees, more placements, and trusted‑adviser status.
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Why BD Feels So Hard
I don’t like untested hand‑me‑down observations and usually I try to prove them wrong – the contrarian bugger I am. But this stubborn truth needs addressing properly and my take is one I urge you to consider.
“Recruiters often fail to differentiate from their competitors.”
When a client asks “Why should I work with you?” the responses fail to impress.
They lack in confidence, clarity and consistency.
Defensive. Vague. Needy.
And they all sound the bloody same.
But being unable to explain precisely why you are your clients’ ONLY logical choice is costing recruitment businesses millions of pounds.
Tackling this problem can give any recruiter a competitive advantage and a strong boost in the goal to dominate your niche.
If you can’t convey your unique value then you’ll forever be stuck matching your competitors’ rates, filling a small handful of the roles you work and struggling to be seen as an expert.
Million Dollar Billers do it differently.
Their secret?
The Consulting Framework.
This one simple approach will help you increase your fees, make more placements and get seen as a trusted adviser, before you even start work on the role.
- The Consulting Framework helps you articulate clear, confident, consistent differentiation mapped to what clients actually value.
- It turns discovery into a tailored response and gives you a method to win the client before you even start sourcing.
- It’s simple to implement and compounds with case studies and proof.
Download the PDF guide to building your own Consulting Framework here
How it works
The Consulting Framework is a tool for explaining in clear, confident and consistent terms how you solve your clients’ biggest problems.
It can be used to show how you fill the most difficult vacancies or how you turn hiring into a competitive advantage.
And it is brutally effective, helping recruiters achieve a 90% win rate landing clients from nearly all their customer meetings.
STEP 1.
The first thing you’ll need to do is consider all of the outcomes your clients might want from a recruiting process. Of course they want the job filled. They want the right hire, in time, on budget. But they might also want to spend less time in the process, they may want to boost employee retention, they might be focused on candidate diversity, or they may just want to keep the CEO out of it.
I recommend asking all of your new and existing clients a question; either a) “If you look back on your next hire as the best piece of recruitment you’ve ever done, what will need to have happened to make it so good?” or b) “Say in 18 months’ time, you feel that the way you hire is truly as good as you could imagine, working seamlessly, your competitors even try to copy it… how will you measure its success?”
They might say;
- Candidate Experience is great
- We never have to go over budget
- Our Employer Brand is well received
- We always get our first choice candidate
- Internal stakeholders are on the same page
- Our HR team and Hiring Managers are aligned
- Hiring Managers spend less time on interviews
Every employer’s definition of great hiring will be unique. And so must your solution be.
With a list of hiring success factors in hand, we have a much better definition of the problem our clients are looking to solve.
STEP 2.
Next we need to think about how you solve them. The most effective way to do this is to consider the stages in the hiring lifecycle. Pre‑Sourcing, Sourcing, Assessment, Offer. You might also consider the Post‑Hire period, along with the period between hires. I like to add an extra step ‘Pre‑Sourcing’, which reflects the steps you take with a client once the vacancy arises but before you start going to market. This is an area in which the best consultants add tremendous value.
STEP 3.
To complete the process we next look to fill in the grid with all the steps we take in our process. We log these by the stage at which they occur and the impact they have.
For example, one way recruiters help ensure their clients hire the right people is with a thorough Qualification process during the Sourcing phase. Recruiters might look to reduce friction by mapping out all of the stages in the hiring project before starting Sourcing. Candidate Experience might be managed with steps taken at the Sourcing phase, during the Assessment phase and at Offer phase.
As you go through your process and log all the steps you take and the impact these have you may notice strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps you do not have enough clarity on how you increase Diversity, or how you reduce Time to Hire. Or maybe your value is mostly found at the Sourcing and Assessment stages but you offer little when it comes to the Post‑Hire period.
Whilst I wouldn’t expect every box in this grid to be completed, it’s good to have a thorough range of steps documented. Your ability to clearly state the ways in which you solve your clients’ biggest problems will lead to bigger fees, more placements and better relationships so it’s worth the time and effort to get this right.
Common Results
- Higher fees by tying steps to outcomes the client actually values
- More placements by reducing friction and increasing first‑choice acceptance
- Trusted‑adviser positioning before you even start the role
Winning With Value
So now you have your Solution Table. How do you use it?
As you go through a discovery call you’ll learn about the exact pain points and challenges your clients face. You’ll build up a picture of how they measure success and you’ll start thinking about steps in your Solution Table that can help them.
When the time comes to reveal your solution — when they ask why should we work with you — you can then respond to each one of their problems or measures for success in turn, sharing your specific solution steps to each.
In time you’ll build up case studies which showcase the impact these steps have had for previous clients.
Key Principles
- Research the factors that determine your clients’ satisfaction with hiring
- Map the steps in your methodology against the lifecycle of a hire
- Run discovery meetings that identify each client’s priorities
- Share back the specific and relevant steps in your process
- Add case studies that help bring your methodology to life
Common questions
- “How much time will this take?” 2–3 working sessions to build the first Solution Table, then light upkeep as you gather proof.
- “Will this clash with our current process?” No — it overlays your existing stages and clarifies where each step drives outcomes.
- “What if hiring pauses?” The Pre‑Sourcing and Post‑Hire steps still generate pipeline, retention benefits and brand assets.
- “What can you expect?” Results vary but across over 100 clients we’ve seen the overall impact of applying this and other measures in the Resonant Sales methodology average out at 12% increase in NFI.
Getting Started
The beauty of this process is that it is simple and easy to get started. For help levelling your approach up and making the most of this tool why not work with us to build a bespoke Consulting Framework for you.
You get:
- A complete bespoke Solution Table
- A Consulting Framework Microsite (to share with all your clients)
- A video guide on how to run discovery meetings and build proposals using these tools
- Over 5 hours of 121 consulting
- Ongoing support for 90 days
- If you want to dominate your niche, let’s build your Consulting Framework.
“We stopped leading with generic claims and started showing exactly how our steps map to outcomes. Within 12 months we had our first million dollar biller and a team who love BD.” Matt, Director, Life Sciences
Book a 15‑minute enquiry call →
Download the PDF guide to building your own Consulting Framework here
