The Commercial Strategy Map
Good business development is not about winning more work. It is about winning work your recruitment business can deliver profitably.
The Commercial Strategy Map shows where that commercial quality is created or lost: what you promise, the value you actually deliver, how you win the work and what clients can buy from you. Explore each region to see what is working, what is drifting and which part of the model may need attention first.
Read why the transactional recruitment model is becoming less profitable →Download as PDF
Can the market quickly identify your true value and points of greatest impact?
This usually isn't a marketing problem, it's a lack of clarity. Most founders know what makes them a great recruiter but the promise has become something else — something more transactional and commoditised. They are experts, with a big network, in a tight niche, like everyone else. Then clients compare you on the one thing that's easy to compare: fee. Firms that grow productivity and profit make their unique value easy to see.
From four regions to seven decisions
The Map gives you four places to look. The Seven Decisions show what you need to decide inside them: Value, Audience, Offer, Routes to Market, Sales Method, Delivery and Value Capture.
A weak region is rarely fixed by one isolated tactic. The underlying decisions need to connect.
Explore the Seven Commercial Strategy Decisions →Reading your map
In practice, most founders score well in one area, honestly shaky in a second, and haven't looked hard at the other two in years. The area with the widest gap between what you'd like to be true and what's actually true is usually the one capping growth. The area itself is rarely the whole issue. The real question is what it's blocking. A founder who avoids pricing conversations is often also the one still doing all the BD. A firm with generic positioning is often also the one whose delivery never gets the credit it deserves.
Ben Browning
Ben is the founder of Resonant. Eighteen-plus years in recruitment and £78M+ generated for recruitment businesses, working with owners on how they win work, and how they get paid properly for it.
See how we workBen has been instrumental in changing our thought process of how we generate revenue. I’d recommend him wholeheartedly to anyone looking to up their game.
Put the Map to work
Explore the Map independently, then bring what you notice to the next Commercial Strategy Workshop. We use the same model to identify the first commercial gap worth fixing and the decision sitting beneath it.
Explore the next WorkshopPrefer to discuss what you found? Book 20 minutes with Ben.Where to next