A few weeks ago I had lunch with a former client. In fact, they are possibly my favorite client. Laura (as I have renamed her) was fiercely passionate in upholding the quality of the Contingent Staffing program at the investment bank for which she worked. She demanded a higher quality of staff for lower prices. We had more hoops to jump through to get placements and Laura was unabashed in making those demands. In fact, many people were downright afraid of her. I remember bringing her an argument to raise the markup at her firm. I had case studies, charts and graphs and what I thought was a well reasoned argument, at least for any other HR professional I knew. Laura, however, was no ordinary HR professional. She found and exploited every conceivable weakness in my position and a left me with my tail between my legs.
Now why would we agree to work so much harder for less money? In part, it was because of the way in which she interacted with her vendors.
Now, full disclosure – it is a prestigious investment bank so being able to mention that we work with them was itself an attractive prospect. And more importantly our temporary employees LOVE working there, but to be honest, those things alone are not enough to inspire our best and efforts. The fact is, almost all recruiters work on some sort of commission that is derived from Gross Profit Margins. When the client pays lower markups, the recruiter makes less money it is that simple.
So, why did we work so hard for this client? She respected us and she listened. Laura was fully aware of that she was both demanding and appreciative of those vendors who could keep up with her. She was expressive of that appreciation. More importantly she respected us. I remember I had an issue with the way this bank provided information about the cultural preferences of departments and wanted more access to hiring managers. It was a grueling 20 minute phone conversation where Laura grilled me on every aspect of my complaint. I was exhausted afterward, and a little relieved to have made it through with my tail intact, but she listened to the concern. Not even 24 hours later she called me to tell me that the solution I had suggested was in place. I was clear that I was a partner and that no matter what happened I had a client who would listen to me.
Partnership like that is very rare and is well worth the extra effort.