Clients, candidates, closing deals. We hear it all the time. It's the background chorus to life in a recruitment company. While sales bring in vital revenue, running a successful business requires more. So we're taking a break from usual broadcasting, to focus on a specific position: the finance director.
Welcome to Paul Glynn, founder of Aristar Financial Consulting & Aspiring FDs. Aristar provides an outsourced finance function to a portfolio of SME recruiters with a cumulative turnover of c£120m. He also runs Aspiring FDs, a 6-month development programme for heads of finance in recruitment businesses. Having worked in high-growth recruitment businesses gives Paul unique insights into the role. Here we go:
OneUp Sales: What would you say are the most common challenges for finance directors in recruitment companies?
Paul Glynn: Finance directors need to bridge the gap between sales and finance. It's an age-old issue: sales teams concentrate on closing deals and building relationships. Finance teams ensure a proactive & timely flow of intuitive reporting to the business whilst ensuring everything behind the scenes runs smoothly.
Incomplete or inadequate data from sales teams can make this a constant challenge. And it doesn't make managing cashflow any easier.
OneUp: The data problem is something we hear about all the time. And the truth is, there is so much CRM systems can do to help - if they're used well.
PG: One of my biggest challenges as an FD was trying to embed KPIs. "Those KPIs are wrong as I don't use the CRM!" was something I heard often. Incentivising sales teams to submit accurate data is a good first step.
OneUp: No CRM equals no data, right? How would you deal with this now?
PG: The most successful sales teams I have worked with are the ones enjoying work. For me, OneUp enhances the sales culture by creating competition and fun on the sales floor. From an FD perspective, it drives consultants to use the CRM through gamification. The beautiful by-product is that we suddenly have great data to work from.
OneUp: That's right. We're on a mission to bring fun to the workplace. OneUp links KPIs to sales competitions, head-to-head games and collaborative team missions. Actions only count as completed once the CRM is up-to-date. In the heat of the battle, submitting your data becomes second nature.
More data should mean more visibility for Finance Directors. What do you think?
PG: Absolutely, the platform highlights trends in activity to show areas of downtime. You can pinpoint inefficiencies in the sales process and target them with training. Early stage activity can be used to forecast revenue more effectively. If there are early indications of poor billings, they can be addressed in real-time. It also allows us to help consultants who are underperforming in the short-term by highlighting to them where their activity has changed from when they were performing well – to me that is invaluable!
OneUp: That's great to hear. We've recently redesigned our dashboard to give even greater clarity. The system also features an analytics toolkit. Configure your own beautiful reports with a few clicks. Easily export your data to share it at any time.
Thank you to Paul for sharing his insights with us.
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OneUp Sales are all about building successful sales floors through data. Their recruitment analysis and gamification platform helps you to finally get rid of those creaky old whiteboards (not that you needed much nudging!) and spreadsheets, replacing them with a vibrant, real-time dashboard and management suite, drawing data from your CRM/VOIP systems; all projecting to sales TVs around the office.