Sense-3 Ways to Leverage Your Tech Stack for Better Sales Performance

I’m increasingly speaking with IT and Engineering staffing leaders who, while continuing to prioritize recruiter efficiency and candidate engagement, are also looking for any and all ways to attract new clients.

This has also been a hot topic internally at Sense, as we’re helping our customers fully leverage their Sense technology across recruiting and sales and marketing functions.

We’ve also just launched our “2023 State of Staffing Report,” which includes insights from the nearly 500 staffing leaders we surveyed. So the timing is ideal to analyze takeaways from the report on sales performance, as well as highlight three of the primary best practices and tips we share with Sense customers looking to grow their staffing businesses.

Close more business, faster

The ultimate goal of every staffing firm is to close more business. But it’s worth talking about speed since long sales cycles were cited as the top sales challenge facing staffing firms in our survey results.

Can we really expedite the sales process? Not necessarily. Most often, your prospects are either open to new staffing vendors or not. However, by continuously sharing valuable content, you’ll stay top of mind until they are ready to vet new vendors. If your sales team is creating unique, memorable experiences and adding value before someone is even a client, you’ll likely rise to the top of the pack when decision time comes.

Leading staffing firms are leveraging automation to continuously engage prospects throughout their sales journey. Many are even taking an “Account Based Marketing” approach, combining automation with marketing and sales insights to deliver custom content that is relevant to the unique wants and needs of individual prospects.

Use data to craft better RFPs

Our survey respondents cited difficulty differentiating their firm as their second biggest sales challenge.

RFPs are critical to differentiation but simply stating that you’re “better” isn’t resonating with increasingly-discerning prospects. The good news is some of our most successful Sense customers are taking advantage of the data provided by our technology to include proof points in their RFPs. They’re setting themselves apart from the competition by highlighting metrics like:

• First day no-show rate
• Assignment completion rate
• NPS
• Contractor satisfaction survey scores
• Time-to-fill

With the right staffing tech stack or platform in place, it’s easy to gather data to include in your RFPs to quantifiably demonstrate to prospects where your staffing firm excels.

Collect leads through your website

Whether it’s through inbound marketing, online ads, cold outreach, or any other way, prospects are visiting your website. But are you capturing their interest?

Although chatbots are commonly recognized as a candidate communication channel, they can also serve as a valuable asset for staffing sales teams. AI chatbots instantly engage anyone visiting your site — and can answer their questions, understand their needs, and automatically schedule calls with your sales team.

Even more, AI chatbots can gather data about your prospects that your sales team can leverage in future conversations, such as contact information, company size, and expected hiring needs.

Maximize ROI on sales and marketing initiatives with automation

Our “2023 State of Staffing Report” found that 98% of staffing firms have changed their sales process due to the economy. This isn’t unexpected, as tough economic times always force organizations to look for ways to increase efficiencies and maximize team output.

Automation is going to help sales teams refine their process, no matter how lean their team is or how high their goals are. For instance, our survey found that Google and Facebook ads are top sources of new leads. But what happens after a prospect clicks an ad and provides their contact information?

It’s critical to properly nurture these leads using automation. You can follow up with automated messages that are relevant to the ad that brought the lead into your sales funnel. For example, if the ad featured a lead magnet like an ebook, you can then share additional resources related to the ebook topic, such as a webinar, blog post, or client case study. Taking this approach will warm the lead and prepare your sales team to have a more meaningful conversation with them, which will substantially increase conversion rates and maximize the ROI of your marketing efforts.

Get more sales + recruiting insights from our “2023 State of Staffing Report”

I’ve really just skimmed the surface of the insights, advice, and resources we’ve prepared in our “2023 State of Staffing Report.” I invite you to download the report and reach out to me with any questions about the data we’ve compiled or how Sense can help drive better sales performance.