What is it that prevents the boutique recruiting firm - those small one to five person firms - from growing into larger entities? For a lot of small firms, they just do not want to grow. These small businesses are in a comfort zone and see no need to change. However there are many owners (and you may be one of them) who are scratching their heads thinking "why can't we grow beyond a few good recruiters who can consistently bring in placements and billings?" It can be done because there are big named recruiting and executive search firms out there that have grown from two or three recruiters to thousands. What is their secret? Why are there so few large recruiting firms?

One reason that small firms fail completely or fail to grow is that the cost of entry into the recruiting business is extremely low. In today's world you don't even need a phone. A computer with VoIP will do just fine. So you could actually start a recruiting business from a prison cell, have a room at the local YMCA or from a public library. It's no surprise that these types of recruiting firms fail because the people creating these companies do not have the expertise to run any kind of business in the first place.

So what about the firms with recruiters that do have some professional business skills? In recruiting, as in any other type of business, owners consistently make one key mistake - they try to clone their skills onto others for business expansion. But businesses simply do not grow by making copies of the president/founder. The successful recruiter must break down his/her process into a series of steps that can be taught or produced by third parties or tools. Then the recruiter/owner must morph from being a good recruiter into being a good leader and teacher. If the successful recruiter only looks and trains people to be like him/herself then the only success will be making a good recruiter that will start their own business.

In fact that is a business model used by a few of our customers and, if that is your intent as a business owner, it does seem to be successful. These firms hire people to be trained as complete recruiters to leave and go out on their own and hire and train other recruiters into being successful and go out on their own. To me, this approach is too individualistic and does nothing for the original business owner unless they get a portion of the profits from the cloned individual recruiting firms.

So how do you 'build' good recruiters to grow your business? A good recruiter is about as rare as a professional athlete. There are thousands upon thousands of good athletes at the high school and college level but so very few that can actually play at the pro level. The components of what makes a good recruiter need to be defined and separated. It is not possible to simply duplicate everything that goes into you as a successful recruiter and expect to come out with another successful recruiter.

In order to grow a small recruiting business, the challenge for the recruiter entrepreneur is leaving their role as a successful producer and then trying to figure out what their new role should be. He/she must "cross the bridge" from a biller to a non-biller. Breaking up components is no easy task. Components can be recruiter specific like research, applicant screening, and client prospecting or simple mundane tasks that make a component step more efficient. But quantifying these tasks into metrics is critical. Without the metrics the business simply cannot be managed.

Here are some things to consider when you look at growing your business:

1. Identify a niche. Recruiters or recruiting firms are rarely successful in explaining to a client that they are a "jack of all searches."

2. Avoid niches that are so narrow that you are dependent on just a few clients. Yes the concept seems to go against the niche concept but it is a balancing act.

3. Do not settle for assignments that have bare bones margins. You and your firm spend just as much resource capitol on a thin margin assignment as you do on a large margin assignment.

4. Assign different people to the components you have identified as explained above, i.e. "Do not put all your eggs in one basket."

5. When you consider your next hire, consider what your weaknesses are and hire for those. This helps to round out your business team instead of merely hiring people who are just like you.

6. Drive decisions down to your team. Allowing for failures is the only way you can strengthen your recruiting firm as a team rather than just a bunch of super stars.

7. Prepare a business plan. This is hard and requires time, thought and continuous review. If you think you can whip a business plan out in a day or two than you should get some help on effective business plan preparation.

If you are looking at how you can grow your business and you are at the beginning of your research, the key is simply focus. Day in and day out, focusing on your business has to be your number one priority. The above steps only help you to maintain your focus. If you are at the end of your research then you should have already come to the same conclusion.

How do you see your business growing? Share your thoughts on our blog at http://recruitersoftware.blogspot.com/.