BEWARE! Why growth could destroy your recruitment business

Our industry is seeing real upturn in growth. It is seeing opportunities and openings but recruitment businesses and agencies up and down the UK are blind sighted by the light at the end of the tunnel – they aim for growth but give no thought into how they will get there or what they will find. This is what could destroy your business.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for growth. After all, we have an extensive track record of aiding recruitment business growth, but with experience comes knowledge, and too many times have we seen businesses get excited by growth and ultimately, run themselves into the ground. You need to be aware of not only the path to growth but also the obstacles and repercussions.

So, you’ve already thought about these factors and are hurtling towards imminent business growth. Your business has transformed, your profits are up and you’re making permanent placement after placement, filling all of the temporary and contract opportunities thrown at you… you’ve reached the next level, right? Wrong.

Although essential for growth, the most successful recruitment businesses we know, do not juggle their own cash flow, raise and send their own invoices and do their own credit control – they are clever with their time. In a candidate driven era – the size of the talent pool is getting smaller and more competitive.  Your time, energy and expenditure should be focused on sourcing the best talent for your clients, whatever the type of vacancy, not on areas of your business that don’t return a profit. As a recruiter, there’s got to be nothing more frustrating than wasted time and not getting paid for your efforts.

However, if you want fast growth for your business, there is nothing more frustrating than poor cash flow. Take into consideration client credit limits. It’s clear you want to grow, but can your current recruitment financier facilitate that? Can it sustain the level of growth you want and have? It’s frustrating to see your credit limit capped, when your client wants you to supply more and more workers , so surely having access to as many different credit options from global insurers as possible could play a major part in taking your business closer to your goal.

Unfortunately, growth doesn’t secure success, and success doesn’t secure a steady cash flow. Which brings us straight to traditional, non – specialist financiers that insist on employing traditional restrictions such as Concentration Limits on your clients – effectively you are being penalised for being successful and your cash flow suffers. We’ve seen it happen – businesses on the verge of sustaining growth only hit by constraints that don’t need to be there, losing the business to their competition.

Not quite the way you envisaged growth huh?

Now we’ve gone over credit, time, cash flow and constraints – growth isn’t as glamourous as you thought is it? While we agree, we also know the excitement and thrill it can bring, you just have to be smart about how you go around it. If you don’t plan for growth, make considered and measured decisions about clients, spend time wisely and have the backing of an experienced and flexible financier, that light at the end of the tunnel will quickly become a very distant dot…

We want you to grow. We want you to be successful. But we also want you to be safe doing it.

Why not get in touch and see how we differ from your current recruitment finance partner?