The meaning behind my opening paragraph will, hopefully, become clear. I have just returned from a holiday with my wife and two-year-old son. I went to the buffet at the hotel one evening with my son. Trying to encourage him to taste new things, I showed him a tray of small meatballs, at which point he looked at me as if I had offered him a plate of mud.

Behind us was another father who was doing exactly the same thing as me with his daughter, of a similar age to my son. He arrived at the meatballs and said: “Look, would you like some IKEAs?”. His daughter nodded and carried on down the buffet. It made me realise just how powerful the IKEA brand has become.

I find that a lot of recruitment business don’t have a brand or an identity and there is nothing that makes them stand out from the crowd. Most clients will never go to an agent’s office and the impression they have will come from telephone calls, letters and emails. I spoke about this to a friend of mine who has been in recruitment for many years and I asked him why he didn’t ever invite his clients to the office to see him. His answer spoke volumes. “Why would they come here? What have we got to show them?”

Over the next few months, clients are going to start looking for help with their recruitment and may be bold enough to say “Can you come here for a meeting?”. That client is going to realise that yes, you have got through the bad times because there is something about you and you stand out from the rest.

Paul Dewick, sales manager, Work2live