Should you hire someone with a book of business?
It is very tempting to hire someone who either has an established list of clients or a database of qualified candidates. However, the client and candidates belong to the owner who is employing them. Most owners have members of their sales team sign non-compete agreements to protect them. These agreements are usually for a one year period of time and prevent any contact.
If you hire someone who does bring clients and candidates, they have basically stolen the information from their current employer and more than likely will do the same thing to you in the future. Beware of individuals who boast about their record production and ask for equity up front. It is tempting to want to hire someone on your team, who can jump start sales, but one person can’t make your business but one person can break it.
If you hire an experienced recruiter, encourage them to develop new relationships. If you want to offer equity, offer nothing until they have proven their ability to produce for you. Offer a small percentage over a period of years based on achieved production and profit goals.
If you hire someone with sales experience, you can teach them our profession. If you enroll them in the Top Producer Tutor classes, we will train them for you. It’s more important to hire someone who wants to sell vs. someone who has experience in our profession.
If you’re considering starting a recruiting or staffing business, you need to fill out the form in the upper right of this page and download your whitepapers immediately. After this you’ll be invited to a webinar where we will teach you how to start your own recruiting firm in today’s economy.