One of the key things that partners with face2faceHR benefit from is our marketing model. This is the way they get clients, and using our model means that partners avoid the months of feeling in the dark that often comes with self-employment in terms of working out how to get clients; all the hit-and-miss, the hours spent trying things to see if they work and the endless selling. None of this is particularly enjoyable for HR professionals who are frequently not natural sales people anyway.
Our marketing model evolved and was developed by me over years of working in this business, but it’s not just about the type of business we are and how to get clients for an HR consultancy, it’s about the type of person I am and the type of people who will be partners with face2faceHR.
One of my number one priorities was to get a marketing system that was as time-efficient as possible. I have a young family, I have school runs to do, I have a dog to walk and I have other commitments in my personal life as well as trying to run a business, so quite frankly I needed to know that so far as humanly possible, every second I spent on the business was spent as efficiently as possible, no waste.
Of course, as I was developing the model and going through all the working-out-what-to-do stage, I wasted hours and hours of time, because that’s what happens when you are growing a business on your own and don’t know what you’re doing! But once I’d got the model sorted, I was very clear that one of the crucial aspects of it was about acknowledging a lack of time.
Some businesses, including HR consultancies, play the numbers game. They talk about the more people you meet, the more work you get, so it’s all about getting in front of as many people as possible. I met a marketing expert who advised a similar philosophy, saying that it’s about x number of leads turns into x number of very warm leads, turns into x number of sales, so it’s about getting the first number as high as possible and the other numbers will follow.
I disagree with her and with the similar approach used by others. I just don’t have the time! Yes, statistically, if you meet loads and loads of business owners, a proportion will become your clients and you’ll make money out of it. But that’s incredibly inefficient in my view, and because I anticipate many of the partners working with us will be similar to me and will perhaps not want to work ridiculously long hours in order to make money, that approach was never going to suit me or them.
The percentage of leads that turn into clients in our marketing model is incredibly high, far higher than the marketing expert I spoke to anticipated as being “normal”. Our marketing system reduces the amount of time partners spend on people who are not going to buy down to an absolute minimum, cuts out any and all activities which are not going to be fruitful, and makes sure our consultants don’t have to spend hours convincing people they need HR services and then convincing those people that they should use face2faceHR. What we want is people who are already convinced they need HR to approach us. That’s what happens with this model. It’s incredibly time-efficient and also a lot less soul-destroying, as the people you talk to are already interested!
If you’re interested in finding out more about our marketing model or about becoming a partner with face2faceHR, do get in touch.