Could your customer be your best hire yet?

Finding talent in a tight employment market is one of the biggest challenges for any SME right now. Companies are exploring multiple avenues in their search for talent — recruiters, networking, social media, online services and even tapping into their current staff’s networks, but the best candidates might be right under your nose.

Think about the people you sell to. Your clients, or customers. If your brand is doing a great job, you’ve got an army of advocates who’d happily march into any water cooler conversation or backyard barbecue and praise the virtues of your product or service to anyone who’ll listen. Imagine the value of harnessing that sort of passion and adding it to your team. A client or customer could very well be your best hire yet.

For us, we’re lucky that candidates are attracted to the real estate industry. It’s viewed as vibrant and attractive, and we’ve found that high-quality external applicants have flocked to apply for positions we’ve advertised. But just because applicants come easily, it doesn’t mean they’re your best option. Instead, we chose to fill four recent positions with our own clients.

It may seem like a rather unorthodox employment policy, but in all four cases, these clients were so impressed by their experience of our service that they approached us.

The people you’re hiring may not even be from your industry. Of the four clients we hired in real estate, one came from finance, the other from tele-fundraising and two were, interestingly, nurses.

They purchased properties with us and got the full experience of how our service works.

Combine that with the passion and initiative they’ve shown in seeking us out, and strong transferable skills, and that’s a great starting point for a career that’s all about people, connections and relationships.

If you hire a former client, you’ll find they are ideally placed to speak sincerely about their own experience with your existing and new clientele.

It’s like a restaurant recommendation from a friend — you’re much more likely to pay a visit to a venue if someone you trust is giving you a positive review, and you’ll probably take it more seriously than a star rating online.

Our recruits didn’t want to join our company because they wanted to purely make a salary, hit a bonus or get a promotion. They came to us because our product made a difference in their lives, and they want to share that with others. And sure, if they do that well, career and financial progress will no doubt follow.

Of course it’s not simply a case of someone saying “I love what you do, can I work for you?”, and off you go. There may be the need for certification as there is in real estate, so whatever qualifications you need for those clients to get a start in the industry, that needs to be sorted out first. It’s also a good test of their motivation and commitment and it will show whether or not they’re going to follow through with the role.

The other benefit to hiring a client is that they can provide insight into how you can better connect with your customers. During training, you can ask them to reflect on their own customer journey, and draw out how they found their interactions with you to see if there are areas for improvement in your services. It’s human nature to feel an affinity with people who’ve had a similar experience, so it’s a big strategy to create personal connections and see what can flow from them.

As a founder or CEO, you want to create a successful product, but also one that could genuinely help people achieve their goals whatever they may be, in our case it’s helping people make smart property investments. For me, that meant creating a business underpinned by a culture of transparency and genuineness. By bringing on clients who’ve seen the upside of what you do means they genuinely believe they’re not just selling something; they truly feel like they’re helping others. That can be quite powerful in growing your business.

There are a few things to know about turning a customer into an employee:

1. You need to be extremely honest throughout the process. When you have a pre-existing close relationship with them as your client, it might be tempting to over-promise the working arrangement, setting it up to fail from the outset. Be clear about what the role entails, and what it doesn’t.
2. Make sure you allow them to utilise their own experience and brand advocacy, rather than appointing them to a back-end role that might squander that vital connection.
3. Treat them like anyone else in your team. Make sure there’s a culture of fairness where everyone’s talents are equally celebrated and respected.

This approach might not work for everyone. But if your business makes a difference in people’s lives or gives them a product or service they’ve never had, you probably already have some seriously passionate clients.

Our experience suggests that tapping into that sort of advocacy can be more than just a needs-driven employment strategy. It could prove a real turning point for your business.