Your business must evolve!
In the midst of a challenging economic climate, that has everyone guessing what will happen next. It’s the ideal time for us to invite Sarah Knight onto the show to talk to us about keeping your head, while all around you are making knee-jerk decisions that could affect the long-term future of their businesses.
As the MD of her own recruitment agency, Sarah has come out stronger from events such as the 2008 Financial Crisis. She is determined to do exactly the same in a post COVID-19 business landscape.
“There are similarities to 2008…I came in to work one day to most things being put on hold, withdrawn and the pipeline all but disappeared. There was that utter panic”.
Game Over then, surely? Actually, for Sarah and her team, it was quite the opposite. She tells us, “we reviewed the services we were providing” and they secured a “national contract and it ended up being a positive – the business evolved!”
We asked, does that apply to the current business climate? – the answer is a firm ‘yes!’.
“What we’re doing in terms of our energy is looking at our messaging, clients, and looking at what we do. We’re using this downtime in a really positive way so we come out stronger the other end!”
It’s about relationships and networks
At such a turbulent time, we ask Sarah about how she continued to engage with her clients, even though they were not hiring. Her reply, “our clients are looking to us to understand what’s going on in the market. They are looking to us to guide them.”
“They want to continue to engage with talent and candidates already in the interview process. Savvy recruiters know it’s all about relationships and having connections.”
We ask Sarah how she will approach her own well-being during the partial lockdown we’re experiencing. She responded in saying “I’ll be doing more sport to keep myself in a good place so I can make good decisions”. Focusing on her team, Sarah says she is “very open to them developing their skills.” Most importantly, she asked them “what do you need from me?”. She’s also proud to say that she has “a great team of brilliant minds!”
In closing, Sarah tells us,
“I don’t know what it looks like the other end, but it’s going to be okay!”.
We then asked, what would she hope comes out of this challenging time? Sarah responded, “more unity between agencies, higher standards and a better way of billing”. Her final thought,
“Do we even need an office anymore?”.
If that wasn’t enough, below you’ll hear Sarah talk about:
- Building long-term client relationships
- Connecting with peers and fellow business owners
- The labour market is still active
- Is this the end of the contingency model?
- Clients valuing your expertise and paying for it in advance
- Raising the bar in the recruitment industry
