Profiling-It’s a good thing in Recruiting!
I had only been recruiting for a couple of months when I was at Dallas MEPS with my seventh enlistment (obviously happy about that!). Everything was going good until the Guidance Counselor called me over to his desk and asked me to sit down…uh oh.
I complied because of two things; he was the “King of MEPS” and besides that, I respected him as a very wise and experienced Recruiter. SFC Chavez then began to tell me that he had noticed that every enlistment that I had been bringing to MEPS had to have a waiver to get into the Guard. He also told me something that I already knew, because of that, a lot of hard work went into getting these applicants qualified to enlist. Then he said something that helped me become a very successful Recruiter, “Sergeant Malone, recruiting will be a lot easier for you if you start hanging around a better class of people. There are applicants out there that do not need waivers.” Thinking about what he said caused me to decide that I had to change how I was doing business because I did want to make my job easier! The question was how to do that.
Prospecting is a function of three things; finding people interested in what I had to offer, finding people qualified and most important…finding people interested and qualified to join the Guard? Who are they? Where are they? How will I recognize them? What will cause them to want to talk to me about joining the Guard? A simple technique given to me by a sales professional (and mentor) helped me to answer those questions, enabling me to become a better Recruiter and making my job a lot easier. Please let me share this technique with you. Build a Prospect Profile!
What’s a Prospect Profile? Simply defined, a Prospect Profile (some call them a “Strawman”) is the “ideal” prospect having the best personal characteristics, qualifications and motivation for enlisting in the Guard. Using this definition, I then built a description of this “ideal” prospect enabling me to focus my prospecting efforts on those that were more qualified and open to being interested in enlisting. In fact, I eventually built a profile for each of my markets.
Telling you what you need to do is not good enough. Let me show you how to make a profile by showing you an example of one that I recently developed for a GED Prospect:
Target Market Profile: GED Prospect
Date of Profile: 10 September 2007
Age: 20-21
Physical: Medium Height/Medium Weight; No physical problems
Prior Service: None
Law Violations: None or only minor traffic with all tickets paid
Education Status: Ready to take GED Test or Just Got GED
Marital Status: Single (not divorced) with supportive fiancé
Dependents: None
Family Background: Middle Class, supportive with military influencers
Employment Status: Works at low paying job
Interests: Hunting, fishing, reading
Characteristics: Ambitious, goal oriented, nice person, has sense of humor, patriotic
Where To Prospect For: GED Training Center, Low paying job sites, employment office, POC/COIs at GED Training Center
Need Status (Known or Unknown): Unknown but looking
Goals: Education or Skill Training
Needs: Primary-Money; Secondary-Education Benefits, Other-Skill Training
Approach Lines: “Congratulations on getting your GED. That is quite an accomplishment. What do you want to do now?”
These Profiles are really easy to develop and are extremely helpful in enabling the Recruiter to focus on the best and specific prospecting techniques and tactics that will cause the prospect to be interested in an appointment. Additionally, the profile helps the Recruiter to identify and focus prospecting efforts on the most effective methods and likely places where these prospects will be found.
Will you always find the “perfect” prospect, qualified and interested in joining our Team using a profile? No, but you will sure find more of them and if they are “close” to the ideal…well…you only have to decide whether to take them to MEPS on Monday or Tuesday. Let me assure the skeptical Recruiter, and most of you are, this technique helps keep the Recruiter from wasting time on prospects that are not qualified or are hard to get qualified and enlisted. We all know that absolutely the worst waste of time, besides being depressing, is driving back from MEPS with a disqualified applicant in the GCar!
Not being interested in enlisting is another matter. We will talk about how to establish that interest using another simple but effective technique in a posting to this BLOG coming soon.
Concluding…no question about it, the Recruiter that builds a profile for each of the target markets will be more productive because profiling will also help the Recruiter develop specific prospecting plans for each market. Needless to say, I highly recommend that a profile be developed for each target market. It helped me and I know it will help you.
Now, Let’s all move out smartly and make some good things happen.
Bill Malone
