Struggling with Sub-Vendorship: How Can I Transition to Direct Client Engagement?

Started working on sub-vendorship, but it didn't work out—no closure and no response from the vendors after working for 40 days. Now, I have decided to approach direct clients. I am a good recruiter but have no idea about Business Development Management (BDM). Please help me with how to start and communicate with company HR professionals.

Well, there are several sites like Elance, Freelancer, and Upwork that can assist you in building your own client base. You can explore these platforms to find opportunities to grow your clientele.

Approaching HR for Business Development

What city are you in? Take out a directory of companies, find out phone numbers, and begin calling HR people. HR directories may help, but if you can't find one, simply dial the company switchboard and ask for HR. Cold calling may sound tough, but it is the sure-shot way to begin building a business.

"I am bad at BD" is a negative way to approach things. If you want to start your business, you have to be the first salesperson for it—no two ways about it. If you can't sell what you make/do, no one else will be able to do it. Just get down and get your hands dirty. Best wishes!

Our seniors are sharing valuable points with you. Before starting sourcing, kindly obtain vendors' appropriate job descriptions, preferred years of experience, preferred regions of candidates, primary skills, salary packages, and other skills. After clarifying these aspects, you can commence your sourcing. Additionally, before providing the profiles to vendors, please screen the candidates based on the vendors' requirements. Kindly compare both sets of requirements and then send the profiles. This approach will truly work for you.

Some consultancies simply send profiles without comparing these requirements.

All the best.

Regards,
Revathi

Glad to know that you are starting your own business. I suggest you follow certain things for your business development and marketing:

1. Make a strong profile of your company with complete details and value additions.

2. Circulate your profile in the market through your known contacts and references.

3. Make strong use of networking and build a strong network.

4. Create your business websites.

5. Use business information search engines like Justdial or Sulekha portals to get business references, etc.

6. More importantly, stay connected with people in the industry and never lose confidence.

7. Clients need vendors who are resourceful and ever ready to serve, so let this be the way of your business.

8. Clients will never come to you; you must make every possible effort to reach them anyhow.

9. Make your presence felt in the industry by using every possible opportunity and keep following up with your prospective clients.

10. Make it a point to meet at least two prospective clients per day as a target initially.

11. Business needs a lot of good planning before executing operations, so plan with vision, mission, and aim to achieve your goals.

And all the success will be yours.

My suggestions are:

Since the company is at an initial stage, focus on BPO, customer support, marketing, and construction jobs. Approach middle-level companies and build relationships. They require manpower at regular intervals. These sectors are best suited for consultancies to sustain at the initial stages.

After gathering a few clients from these sectors, you can expand your network to manufacturing, pharma, and biotech companies. Work on providing jobs to graduates. Then concentrate on software and build a network with 2 or 3 major software organizations. Focus on freshers rather than experienced individuals. Don't go for Naukri or Monster accounts at this stage. Tie up with major B.Tech and B.Sc colleges in your area.

Hope this is helpful to some extent. Correct me if I am wrong.

Thank you.

I would add one more suggestion: you may get in touch with people through social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Please follow this approach; it really works.

Thanks & Regards,

Abhay Kishore
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]