My own career has followed a very different (in fact almost opposite) route to Kevin’s. I worked at a senior level within the insurance industry for almost 30 years before having the opportunity to establish my own specialist insurance recruitment company, AMC Insurance Appointments, over four years ago.

I therefore spent many years on the receiving end of speculative contacts from recruitment agencies (and many other types of suppliers for that matter). As this was a few years ago now, most of the initial contact was indeed by telephone and I was one of the ’nicer guys’ that generally gave such people not only the time of day, but often an opportunity to show what they had to offer.

Mine is a small company and as such much of my own time is spent trying to acquire new business (also we do not employ any dedicated sales people or ’junior’ consultants).

If I had listened to every piece of advice that I have been given, both from existing clients of ours and so-called experts, I would probably never attempt to make contact with any potential new client at all be it by telephone, email, letter or even personal visit.

But there, of course, lies the problem that we face. Just how do we convince potential clients that they need to look outside their existing arrangements, when I am sure that in the majority of situations, they actually do not feel the need to.

At least when I say ’the usual statements’, such as expert knowledge, personal service and honesty for example, from my position as managing director I know that they are genuinely true and not just because I have been told to say them in an effort to generate new business.

Picking up specifically on Kevin’s point, many of our clients have advised us not to even try calling them during working hours as they refuse to answer the telephone, purely because of the volume of cold calls from recruitment agencies looking for business.

One thing that I can guarantee is that if I ever received a response to any form of communication that said ’CALL ME’, I would do immediately.

At the end of the day the truth of the matter is very obvious - everyone is different and while some potential clients might prefer a direct telephone call, others prefer an initial approach by email and some might even prefer it if contact was made via carrier pigeon.
Chris Croucher, managing director, AMC Insurance Appointments