Savage Brothers Entertain, Inform and Inspire Across the UK with New #SavageSell Masterclass

Savage Sell kicked off in Glasgow on a sunny day to an enthusiastic audience, many of whom had come from afar including Newcastle, Belfast and Yorkshire.

We loved the enthusiasm and concentration of the attendees, with plenty of banter and interaction.

Greg Savage set the scene by asking “what is the future of recruitment? How will our jobs change? Will they exist at all?"

He suggested it all hinges on the biggest shift he has seen in our industry in 40 years. AI will change your job totally. If you don’t adapt accordingly, you will not survive as a recruiter. 

The recruiter role is NOT over, nor will it soon be. But you have to consider where you actually remain of value. “What do you need to be good at to beat the machine?” he asked. 

He provided the audience with a positive outlook, suggesting AI and technology generally, frees you up to do much better that which only you can do.

We need to be very, very good at that part of recruitment that machines cannot do.. because that is the sweet spot.

Ironically this means that the value of a recruiter will now be in his or her selling skills.

The part of recruitment that is left for recruiters to do is the human part. But Greg encouraged the audience to understand the word ‘sell’ in a different way. Not cold calling, handing out business cards at an event, or spamming candidates around town.

But ‘Selling’ to mean influencing, persuading, advising, consulting, and building reputation and brand.

Chris Savage said today’s selling reality is that clients want results, and that recruiters need to be visible – but differentiated. He went on to outline what recruiters can do to differentiate, and how to make those differentiators meaningful to the client.

A three-hour train trip and Savage Sell was in Manchester where 120 recruiters were ready and waiting. Greg Savage shocked the crowd by telling them they need to be paid more often for the work they do.

This is what is hurting so many of you, he said. Untargeted work, low or zero commitment from clients, no control over the process, little ability to affect the outcomes of the recruiting key moments.

And you must win those key moments, by how you sell! “The key is selling the customer on commitment.”

This is at the heart of modern selling. Not slick, and tricky and flashy. Not a pure numbers game. Smile and dial. But authentic and credible and believable.

And that will reward you in many ways, but mostly with exclusive clients, exclusive job orders and exclusive candidates.

Greg then dug deep into key control skills like selling the target salary, selling the temp pay rate, making an offer that won’t get refused, diffusing counteroffers and securing candidate exclusivity.

London, the last stop on the tour, was huge. Almost 200 recruiters packed the venue and loved Greg’s ideas on social selling, conducting a great sales visit and negotiating fees, while Chris Savage wowed them with new ideas including story-telling in recruitment, resilience in selling, believability branding and the hard-hitting “brutal trust about selling”, something very recruiter should hear.

The London audience was totally jumping by the end, and the “group selfie” was a fitting reminder of an enthralling and inspirational masterclass, perfectly suited to the new recruiting world.

Greg Savage ended up by thanking sponsor JobAdder and telling the crowd that he would be back in the UK in April 2020, launching his new book “The Savage Truth” via a series of presentations across the UK, once again hosted by REC.

Follow Greg Savage and Chris Savage on Twitter to stay on top of the latest from them. 

If you missed the Savage Sell UK tour but want to polish your sales and marketing skills, we have a range of recruitment specific short courses running across the country. Click on the banner below to find out more.