Mike Schultz, a world-renowned consultant and expert in services marketing and rainmaking, outlines the strategies that executive search firms can adopt to make themselves more recognizable to clients and therefore generate more leads.

In this extract from the seminar, Mike showcases a recent survey of professional services buyers conducted by the Wellesly Hills Group. The survey asked 231 buyers of professional services (with a total buying power of approximately $1.7 billion) what made them choose one provider over another. A significant number of these buyers were in the recruiting field.

One question asked of respondents by the survey was how they liked to find their service providers. The most popular criteria for deciding upon a provider were referrals from colleagues and other service providers. Naturally, as Mike points out, people will ask other people they respect about their opinions on good and bad providers. Nevertheless, while it is still important to have positive referrals of your business circulating, in today’s current economic climate this is no longer sufficient to generate revenue growth. Businesses can not just sit on their laurels and expect the calls to come flooding in.

The second most popular criteria among respondents for selecting a provider were personal recognition and awareness of the provider. Here Mike is talking about BRAND and the importance that this can have for the success of executive search firms. And even though executive search targets a niche market, there is still a core group of people that search firms “need to get slightly famous with”.

So by combining the power of referrals with that of a strong, recognized brand, it is possible to attract those all important clients.

Click Here to listen to the audio extract

Full agenda of the seminar:

• How to decide between all of the lead generation options such as cold calling, conference speaking, thought leadership, writing and publishing, seminars, direct mail, PR, referral programs, Internet marketing, and the rest
• How to avoid common mistakes firms make with lead generation
• How to generate conversations with tough-to-reach decision makers
• What other companies have done that worked
• How to avoid spending time, energy, and dollars on tactics that are least likely to produce results for you

Speaker:

Mike Schultz, author of Professional Services Marketing, is world-renowned as a consultant and expert in services marketing and rainmaking.

He is president of Wellesley Hills Group, a consulting firm whose practice focuses on strategy for service businesses in the areas of branding, marketing, lead generation, and sales performance. Mike is also the publisher of Raingroup.com. With over 62,000 subscribers, RainGroup.com is the premier online source and membership site for insight, advice, and tools for growing your service business.