Article
One: Why you need Up Front Contracts by Marcus Cauchi
What do you tell your prospects when you don't do up front contracts? I recruited for 10 years delivering contingency, advertising and selection and executive search, from graduate to technical and sales positions through to CEO roles. I made almost every mistake possible. I was a fool but what’s worse is I didn’t know it. And I kept making the same mistake time and time again.
Here's an example of a tacit, unspoken, contract that many recruiters have with their customers (are they customers or at best prospects?). Let's see how it goes.
"Hello, I'm your friendly and helpful recruiter. I am going to call you diligently, follow through resolutely, when I finally get you to meet with me you're going to pick my brain for all my expertise. You won't give me direct answers, but will provide me with many platitudes such as "we'll see", "all things being equal", "it looks really good", “sounds good”. You won't tell me your budget. You won't share who the decision makers might be or the decision making process. Essentially, you'll ask me to tell you everything I know and place all my cards on the table while you keep yours close to your chest.
You'll be as rude to me as you like while I smile and take it. You'll beat me up on price. You'll make me feel small while you fire questions at me. I'll act like I'm not hurt and I might even put that pressure right back on you by trying to strong arm you with heavy handed closes. When we're done even if I got the sale, you might leave a message on my voicemail telling me you changed your mind, the spec had changed, you had a hiring freeze, the decision was now out of your hands or just forget the whole thing as we’ve hired internally."
Sounds painful, so it's a good thing this never happens to you, isn't it?
Is this part of the job or can recruiters turn the tables and make the sales process honest and up front. The Sandler system of selling teaches the use of strong, clear and specific up front contract as a powerful remedy.
Sandler Rule: The prospect is never afraid of you if you tell him what you're going to do to him
Sandler Rule: No mutual mystification, no wishy-washy up front contracts
Some people think that contracts and legal matters get in the way of relationships. The opposite may be true. Contracts make expectations clear. Contracts outline requirements and contracts protect all parties involved.
In the sales process an up front contract provides safety, controls, and actually protects both seller and buyer. It lays the groundwork for smooth relationships. It establishes expectations about what will or won't happen. It takes assumptions and blows them up. It takes your most common objections and your greatest fears, it brings them out into the open and you can defuse them in the first few minutes or end the sale there and then if there is a “no-deal” situation as a result of bringing them up. Wouldn’t you want to know that the deal will never happen today rather than after you’ve started to do some work, written a proposal and invested research time on a non-prospect?
This unique type of agreement is called an up-front contract because it's created at the beginning of the relationship. In many cases, the first up-front contract is made when making a cold call. After conflicts and disagreements have occurred, it's much more difficult to create a lawful agreement between two parties. It's also difficult to enforce fair and clear behaviours if you haven't stipulated up front that this is what you will do and in return this is what your prospect will do. And perhaps more importantly, this is what I won't do and in return you won't do the something like sit on the fence forever.
You probably don't need the up-front contract. Your prospects and clients are honest, direct, they feel comfortable telling you no and they never hide or mislead you with "think it overs" or other platitudes. However, every game has ground rules. Sales is a game. The winner goes to the bank. Upfront contracts allow you to agree the rules.
Don’t call Marcus Cauchi on 0845 458 1237 if you want to learn how to sell more
effectively! Also, Marcus is looking to recruit 150 top salespeople (Basics of £80-150k, OTE £300-400k) and he’s looking for 10 sales trainers to work as Associates with him. So if you’re frustrated with recruitment and fancy a difficult, overpaid selling role (London based) with career prospects drop him your CV on
AssociateCV@SALTeurope.com.
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