Transcription
The idea is that we will give them the blueprints and we give them all the CRM, the systems, the automations, AI products, all of that stuff, the job boards, everything that they need. And then they go into a specialized sector. We pay them 70% of the fee. We take 30 as a business and then we'll help them with all of the backend admin, invoicing, and that kind of stuff. So essentially what we're trying to do is take away all of the thought process, the horrible stuff that recruiters don't like doing and give them the freedom to pick their clients, you know, pick and choose when they work. They really get to run it themselves.
What happens when you apply ultramarathon discipline to recruitment? My guest today, James Row, has a story unlike any other we've covered on the podcast. After getting fired from more jobs than he could remember, he stumbled into recruitment, discovered his entrepreneurial streak and went on to create a platform that empowers recruiters to build successful independent businesses.
There are some other smaller things that we look for. Um, you know, how do they know that a niche? You know, we're not here to babysit. I'm not here to teach people how to close deals. I'm not here to teach them, you know, the basics of recruitment. We can help them specialize and uh sharpen their skills especially in business because that's the side that they traditionally be lacking.
James' journey is about turning chaos into clarity combining ultramarathon grit with smart systems, authentic outreach, and a relentless focus on niche markets. Data is obviously king at the moment. I have a belief that job boards will be gone. at least majority of them will be gone at some point because their their value is declining fairly rapidly. AI will take its place. So I think whoever can adopt AI and has a strong database will be the businesses that survive the um the great recruitment culling I suppose.
Welcome to the Resilient Recruiter podcast. I'm your host Mark Whitby and this interview was recorded in person in London which makes a fun change from our usual remote format. In this episode, you'll hear the mindset shift that separates freelance recruiters from true business owners. Plus, simple, repeatable tactics and strategies such as lead magnets that actually get a response, business processes that actually stick, and the habits that sustain performance when things get tough.
So, I didn't realize when we connected that you're actually Scottish.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, you're from Perth?
Yeah. Born in Perth.
Okay. Fantastic. And then uh when did you move down to the to England?
So I moved when I was five. So I was quite young but I I played semi-professional rugby for many many years and so I used to travel to Glasgow like once a week.
Okay.
Um up until probably the age of about 21.
So I spent a lot of time in Scotland.
So you mentioned you ran the Edinburgh Marathon. When when was this?
May. Ran Edinburgh Marathon.
Oh. So just this year.
Yeah. Yeah. And then uh two weeks ago I ran an ultramarathon. So I ran
65 miles.
65 miles.
Yes.
I can't even fathom that. So I was really proud. I did the Edinburgh half marathon in 2022.
Uh that's the furthest that I've that I've run. What inspired you to run the ultra?
It's been on my bucket list for a long long time. It's one of these things that I like to push myself physically because but I have to be able to work towards something.
Okay. And so once I've got a target in mind, I'll set it down. So next year I'm doing an Iron Man. Um, and basically just going I've always been a physical challenge kind of person. And it's it's there's something very therapeutic about being a recruiter and then just going in silence and running on your own for a couple of hours. That silence just like breaks breaks the monotony.
I totally get that. I f like when I'm I'm not running on your level by any means, but I I run two three times a week and it's like just to clear your mind and um you know for your mental health, well-being and just that's like that's me time basically. Yeah.
No other like you physically you're you're that's what you're doing. You can't really do anything else. All the other stressors you you know you kind of just leave behind. I found you go to a really really interesting place as well when you once you go past a couple of hours you've kind of thought about all of the things you normally think what am I having for dinner how long is it going to be till I get back and and so your mind goes to some can be horrible places can be lovely places but you you go through like a a roll of emotions so sometimes I was like super happy and almost in tears thinking about my family and then other times I wanted to throw them out the window and it was just a back and forth, but you have some really weird moments of clarity where I've had some of my best ideas. So, yeah. So, to do this, I was training and running about four or five hours over the weekend back to backs. So, I was running 5 hours then on Saturday and then Sunday do the same again
uh to prepare for it. And
you know what I was finding is I was coming back on I was I've had these great ideas and my my partner works in the business with me and she was like, "Oh, for God's sake."
Yeah. No more not another idea,
right? Yeah, I get that.
Well, so let's talk about recruitment. Um, so your story is interesting because I read that this must be an exaggeration, but you got fired from 20 different jobs before you landed in recruitment. Is that a true story?
Yeah, pro probably it's around then. Um,
what what kind of things were you doing before you discovered recruitment?
So, I've it's like an ongoing joke in our business. So, I've done a little bit of everything. So, I was a spray painter for Formula 1 Red Bull all the way through to hospitality, but I spent the later part of my career in sales. So, I've done finance. I've done car sales, estate agency, um, and just done loads and loads of different things and couldn't quite get anything to fit. Like, it I was good at them. I was one of the top performers in every sales job I'd done, but I couldn't quite find something that occupied my brain enough that I would want to do it forever. And so once I got these jobs, I got good at them, I become the top saleserson and then I got a bit bored and then I started messing around and and doing things I shouldn't and going out and you know and all of these things that you do in your probably your 20s and yeah um probably being fired from about 15 20 jobs. Yeah. I I wear it as a badge of honor now though.
But what do you have to do to get like fired like you
Oh um my my estate agency job was probably the worst fire. I'll tell you that one. Um, and that was uh I I used to live with one of my friends who was also an estate agent and we were fairly high up in the hierarchy. So, we were referred to as valuers. We go out and basically tell people what their properties were worth.
Yeah.
And uh and then is the goal to get them to list their property with you?
Yeah. And so we'll bring them the property onto the market. We stick on right move and zupler and that kind of stuff. And so um we had a full day worth of uh bookings. It was the next day was Saturday. So, I was going to be flat out.
Um, and me and my friend had decided that it was going to be a really good idea to go out. Um, and we basically slept through all of our alarms. We probably come back in about 4:00 a.m.
Um, just cuz I I think ultimately I look back at it now, I'm like, I just didn't really care. I just didn't there was no buy in from me. And so, I sat there and just went, nah. And I looked at my phone and realized I'd like had loads of missed calls and stuff. And long story short, my the owner of the business, the boss, ended up walking into our house because neither of us had turned up saying like, "Are you guys okay?" Um, we found us and we're in a right state still. And uh, yeah, he let me go on the spot. Uh,
fair to probably if you were the boss, you would do the same.
Like I look back at it now and I like I couldn't blame them. Like it was just me being irresponsible. Um, but at the same time, you know, it's almost so fortunate it worked out that way. I I look at all of the string of events that happened to lead me to this spot sat in this chair and I think, wow, like you couldn't have predicted this at all.
Um, even as a kid, I was super shy and so like to think that I now have a job where my whole thing is to speak to people uh would seem absolutely madness.
Wow. Okay. So then how did you find recruitment? So after I lost my job in an estate agency, uh I went to go find another job in an estate agency. And so I started searching around and I remembered that a gent called me about a job. And so I said, "I'm going to find this guy." So I found him in my LinkedIn messages, gave him a call, said, "Yeah, I'm ready now." He said, "What happened?" I said, "I'm going to tell you the real story, but please don't tell the new person this." So we we had that conversation and he said, "Look, it's fine." And so he sent me off a bunch of interviews and went to the first one and it was for a direct competitor in estate agency in my local town of Northampton and um went for that got the job. Uh they gave me a really nice salary you know first in was doing really well for one of the top offices uh doing the same thing was really excited.
Okay. Let me just pause you right here for a sec because um I like I'm really interested in mindset and psychology and like understanding your journey, but the last job you really didn't care about it. So why would you want to do do another estate agency job?
Do you know what? I was good at it. I was very very good at it. And I think it was I knew that I can make money fast. And so for me it was a I in my mind I don't think I'd necessarily let go of the idea that cuz estate agency was maybe a halfway house because there's a lot of similarities in estate agency.
Two parties.
Yeah. Two parties you have to negotiate on stuff. And so I look at my time in estate agency and I actually relay that back to recruitment a lot. Um, you know, if you were to switch out your buyers with your clients and it's all very comparable. Yeah. Um, but to be honest with you, I think the main thing was that I thought I still cared about it. I was kind of delusional, I suppose, to a certain degree. So, I found this next job and, you know, I thought everything was going to go great. And then, um, I remember uh, we used to work in this like little center with loads of shops and stuff and there was a lot of footall and people and it was a great place. And, uh, we looked in the shops and, uh, one of the guys is a bit of a clean freak. They run the branch and uh, he said, "I can't find any hand sanitizer in any of the shops. Have you heard about CO?
And within two weeks lost lost first in first out.
Wow. So this was fairly recently then like we're not talking this is not ancient history. This is five five years ago.
Yeah. Five years ago. Yeah. So uh lost my job during CO and um
uh the guy said to me I went back to the crew said I've just lost my job because of co he said look we can set up this interview and this and this. He said, "But like things are getting bad now because it's really starting to clamp down." The first lockdown was just about to happen, but we didn't know that at the time.
He said, "Do you look I really like you. Do you want a job in recruitment?" And I went, "Yeah, sure." Um, so we went down, we had a chat and um we we sat in this hotel and it it was, you know, and he slid a piece of paper in front of me and it was the biggest deal he'd ever done and it was like 23 grand and he run a self-employed model. Now, from a mindset perspective, uh I just lost my job. Co was about to kick in. I knew that it was going to be rough, but if I could ride this out because a lot of people were going to be in the same scenario, I could finally launch myself into my own business by all accounts. And so
he said, "Look, you would have made 50% of this." And at that time, I was making 30 35 grand. When someone slides a piece of paper in you saying you could have earned 11, 12, 13 grand like from one placement. from one placement the cost of opportunity is just so high that I just couldn't say no because I'd never had even seen that money.
Um, and that's so yeah just started working there. um started doing a little bit of tinkering over the co period. Eventually we started coming back in the face masks on and but we made it work and yeah I was I think I was their first hire actually. So it was a really young business as well. So
it was a it was an interesting time but it was I had a great fun really good fun.
Okay. So um I've never I by the way I ask every single person how they got into recruitment. I've never heard any story quite like that one before. It's a unique trajectory.
I I do you know what? It's interesting cuz I tell that story now. I used to be a little bit of embarrassed of it because you have a lot of jobs. As a recruiter, you'd see that as a massive negative course and you think a job hopper, but I realize that it it's why people connect with me and people join our business now because they they see a lot of that story in themselves. They couldn't quite find that right fit. Something wasn't right. Uh there's a whole other side of that story where the business went really well uh when I got into recruitment went really really well and then went really really badly and you know turnover went super high and all this kind of stuff. And I think because people relate to that I've actually learned to tell that story because not that I'm necessarily still proud of it but I I know that it's my story and people resonate with it and other people feel a place of like I can relax a bit.
Okay. So do you feel like ultimately you were destined to be your own boss and there's like the people who gravitate to you are kind of in that same mold?
Yeah, they you know they probably not found something that is fitting for them quite right. And I one of the first things I say when I talk to a recruiter is I am a terrible employee but I just didn't know I was an entrepreneur.
Like because a lot of people don't know that that's what you know they don't like to be told what to do. you know, a lot of recruiters we're seeing at the moment and they're super experienced and they know what they're doing. They're like, "Leave me alone. Just let me do what I'm good at." And I think that's the kind of people that gravitate towards us, which is exactly what we want to be honest with you.
Okay. Wow. All right. Awesome. So, um, tell me about how your business works now then.
So, we in the cleanest sense is we help recruiters become self-employed. So, we help them start up their own independent businesses. Uh and they do it under a tree. So they do it under TR ironically. Um, the recruitment experts the recruitment experts. And so the idea is that we will give them the blueprints and we give them all the CRM, the systems, the automations, AI products, all of that stuff, the job boards, everything that they need.
Um and then they go into a specialized sector. We pay them 70% of the fee. We take 30 as a business and then we'll help them with all of the backend admin, invoicing, and that kind of stuff. So essentially what we're trying to do is take away all of the thought process, the horrible stuff that recruiters don't like doing and give them the freedom to pick their clients, you know, pick and choose when they work. We don't set KPIs or targets or anything like that. So they really get to run it themselves. So the idea is that people that have wanted to make like you must speak to a ton of people and they go I really want to but I don't know the first thing about business or you know I just don't have enough money to do the startup or you know oh I'm running a business at the moment which is what we're seeing a lot of and the costs are through the roof and everything is you know really really difficult and it's taking a loan of my time and I'm not actually doing recruitment and we've had a few people recently just fold their business into ours. is still their business, but it just means that they can do the recruitment rather than the horrible stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, it's true. What we see is that a lot of people who start a recruitment business were are great recruiters. They're great salespeople, but they don't necessarily know how to run an actual business. And um so that's kind of what we teach them is how do you actually turn this into a business and not just um you know get a job, fill a job. Um and uh but but also with that as you say when you run a business there you're doing a lot of other things apart from talking to clients, talking to cans, doing deals. there's a whole host of other things you have to now do like your taxes, your website, your yeah, you know, marketing and and so on.
Um, so I can see that appealing to to to people for for sure.
Um, so give me examples of like what are the is it any niche, any part of the like is it the UK? What how does that actually work? Yeah. So, we one of the guys keeps pest and ready to go, TR international. Uh UK based at the moment, but that might change soon. We'll see. Um, but you can work anywhere. So, we've got a lady who lives in Spain. We've got two people from South Africa.
Uh and they, you know, they work remotely but in the UK market.
So, wait, wait, wait, so clear. So, it's UK market, but you can actually live anywhere. So, that's part of the Yeah. appeal is if you got a laptop and a phone, do it from anywhere. I mean, I think the big thing for us is just time zones. If your time zone's equivalent, you know, um, well, South Africa is one, two hours, same in Spain. So, as long as you don't live in Australia, then I think it'll be all right.
Okay.
And then, you know, in terms of, you know, what we actually do to help these guys. So, we help them.
Before we get to that, so the the market niche, so like your background is is estate agency.
Yeah. But um is it basically any niche that whatever their background is then you help them to set up business?
So we'll help them identify their niche. Um, and what we'll do is we'll say so our bread and butter at the moment is a state agency and financial services because they are directly in correlation to what we have experience in but we're now we've just taken on someone that's doing prop tech and SAS products. Uh we're also doing temp agency stuff now that's about to come to fruition.
Okay.
Um, so basically any niche, any industry.
Okay.
Anywhere. I guess that's great title.
All right. Okay. So, first of all, let's just talk about this because, um, people who listen to my podcast will know that I'm a big believer in focusing on a niche rather than doing a bit of everything. Um, and one of the first things that whenever we work with a new client, that is what we need to figure out is let's define or redefine your market niche because everything else we do from then on, whether it's business development or marketing related or what have you, branding really is predicated on having that really clearly defined niche. Yeah.
Um, but what's your take on it? What why do you think that that's important? Do you know what drives me crazy? Paying five different vendors for five different tools that don't talk to each other. Your ATS over here, your sequencing tool over there, your notetaker somewhere else, and now you've got data silos everywhere, and your team has to learn five different systems. That's why I'm excited about Recruiter Flow, an AI first ATS and CRM. That's a true all-in-one platform. You get ATS, CRM, email sequencing, AI note-taking, business intelligence, and data enrichment all integrated in one place. One vendor, one login, one system your team actually uses, and no surprise add-ons, jacking up your price every quarter. I'm very selective about who I partner with on this show, and I only work with products I genuinely believe in. Recruiter Flow checks all the boxes. to see how it works. Book a demo at recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow.
Yeah, I mean I think I think that general recruiters will be gone soon. Uh I think with things like AI now pushing them kind of boundaries a little bit further and they'll keep nipping at hills. I think that the specialist is where they need to be.
And I think you're completely right. I think that everything that you should do should be based off of your market niche. And so for example, your marketing needs to be relevant for your clients. If you don't have a set avatar for your client, how is it going to be useful? How is it going to be, you know, how are you going to provide value to your client if they do loads of different things?
100%.
You use the word that we use actually too, which is ideal client avatar. And there's so much noise in the marketplace that in order for you to cut through and actually get someone's attention, whether it's a client or a candidate, it really has to resonate for them. It has to speak their language. You have to understand their pain points and their, you know, unique challenges and the trends that are happening in their industry. Otherwise, they're just going to delete or ignore, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I think that one of the first things that we do is once we've got our niche, we also write what does the ideal person look like? like you say, I mean, it's it's cutting through the noise and it it's you almost I think it's what most people struggle with when they first start because they struggle to put themselves in their client's shoes and that that process needs to continue. You know, I think like we hear like, oh, the clients aren't coming back to you. Well, have you given them a reason to come back to you? And it's because they didn't start with that avatar and understand what that person looks and feels like and and how they will map their business out and all of these things. And actually I think a lot of people would benefit from doing their industry actually you know if they're doing financial services be a mortgage advisor or whatever it might be for a little while to understand that um you know I'm sure if you asked a client and said look can I just shadow one of your people for a week um you know I'll give you you know a free placement or whatever you know that the value that you would get from that is insane. Um, and actually we're finding that the more the more niche you are, we've got recruiters, uh, we've got a gentleman called Alex who works for us and he's a great recruiter, but if you think about this, he works in estate agency, but he only covers the West Midlands. And within that, he probably tackles around four to five job titles. That is niche. But guess what? Anybody who needs that, they already know. They just pick up the phone. Yeah. I've got something for you. And because of that, that also affects his candidate uh kind of journey because he only connects with the relevant people, but it means he's got a lockdown on everything he needs to do. And so therefore, he has coverage for every single little area and every single nook and cranny.
Yeah. which means that he can I mean I'm sure if he ever turned evil he could probably collapse a load of these businesses because he has such an understanding of what these jobs are needed and who does what and and all of these businesses that it that's where it all stems from. That's where a good recruiter stems from and that's where I think that technology will always struggle. So I think general recruiters are are probably going to be in for a rough time.
Yeah, that's definitely that's definitely a trend and and there's exceptions to everything, right? But uh that's definitely one of our uh core core philosophies as well. So identifying the niche and then what what are some of the other keys to success and you know based on the businesses that are successful within your network.
Yeah. I think um we've got the the normal recruitment traits and I think a bit like anything we have to recruit on two sides of the thing which is what makes a good recruiter and what makes a good business owner because you can't have one with you can have a great business owner but if they're not doing recruitment but funny enough you can have a great recruiter but if they don't know how to scale the business they're always going to be in a box.
Yeah.
Um, and so we we're trying to show recruiters how they can build and scale their businesses. So the first one is they have to be willing to take on information and you know I know that everyone says oh I love to learn and stuff but when you've been doing for something for 10 15 years and then I come to you and say right we need to strip all of this back and this is how you need to do something.
Yeah.
It's it's a hard pill to swallow but I think that there's a lot of recruiters at the moment that are going through changes because the industry is changing quite a lot.
Definitely.
So they have to be willing to learn have to be have to look at every aspect. They also need to know.
Sorry, let me just pause you there because I, by the way, there's a lot of what you're saying that I I resonate with in terms of one of the things we look for in a client is how coachable is someone, right? If they're fixed in their ways and they're not open to changing or trying new things or getting outside their comfort zone, uh, or embracing new technology or or tactics or what have you, I'm not going to be able to help them, right? because you know and and if what they're doing is working then great but I feel like especially in this market and with AI and everything else you absolutely have to be adaptable because what worked for you in the past may not continue necessarily to work for you in the future and you know I think the best recruiters are always like always learning always upskilling always looking for new tools techniques strategies is um I think it's really interesting as well cuz as a business owner I've learned more about recruitment than ever but you know when I started this I thought I knew everything you know I thought oh I'm the best and actually I look back at it now and I'm like well if I feel like this then every person going through this journey needs to feel the same as in wa I've come such a long way and you know it can be time labor intensive and stuff to find all these new technologies and and there's businesses that can help fast track that you know I'm sure you give a great blueprint to that and we do something similar, but ultimately you have to be able to willing to invest in yourself to make. And so, yeah, you can throw money at a problem, but it doesn't solve the knowledge issue. And
so, that that's one thing. And I think the other thing is that we we're looking for someone who's not in a trapped mindset. Um, again, you know, I I talk about mindset a lot with these guys because going from employed to self-employed, we we've noticed two two or three trends across self-employed people. one, they call them and say, "Is it okay if I take some holiday?"
Yeah, sure. Like, you don't have to ask me anymore. This is your business.
Um, number two is that they they take it too far the other way and they say, "Oh, you know, I'll start at 10. I'm going to take my dog out and then I I'll clock off at 4 and have some some beers with the boys." And they're actually, you know, this is a if this was you doing on your own, you would you would have to slug it out. You have to put in the graft. And hours and seat ultimately when you first start a business equal hours in success. And so, you know, to make sure that they manage everything correctly either way of that pendulum. Um, and then the last thing is some people just really struggle to adapt to being not not employed. I suppose they're they're so fearful of that mindset and they're you can't I don't know if you've ever seen this, but sometimes I'll say you can earn £10,000 and here's a full breakdown of how this works. You can earn £20,000. This is how this works. and they go, "No, no, that's not possible." No. Because they're so conditioned to think and that mindset issue is is a really hard thing to overcome. Um, and ultimately it's a big barrier to entry because it it feeds back into the training side of it. Mhm.
Um, and so but do you think you because I don't know if we can really um we can train skills, we can teach strategies, we can definitely help people to u make shifts in their mindset but um mindset is one that's really tough to change for for externally. I think that has to come from them, doesn't it?
Yeah. I think that you can give them the breadcrumbs to follow. And if I look at myself, um, I was someone that went completely 180 and I'm a different person than I was 5 years ago, for example. And so, you know, I'm the advocate for change. And so, if I can do it, then in theory, everyone should be able to do it. You know, have you been fired from 20 jobs? No. Cool. Brilliant. And so I think the big thing for me is you know yes you might be able to uh you can't give them everything and it has to be almost self-discovery but what you can do is lay the breadcrumbs and say right look into this talk to this person do this. Um, but sometimes it's a losing battle and like you say you can't uh you can't move people if they don't want to be moved and so it's the willingness to to change which obviously feeds back into theability of someone. So yeah, you know, I think uh I think that one of my advantages is that I was I'm, you know, fairly young in recruitment uh by all accounts, but I think that's actually been a massive advantage for me cuz I haven't I've adopted with the new change, the new flow that's coming through, the new wave of recruiters. And sometimes I speak, you know, we brought I had a conversation with someone the other day. I said, "Right, what do you know about CHBT?" And they went, "What?" And I was like, "What?" Um, you know, and just little things like that. And what tools do you use? and they're like, "Oh, I just send a thousand messages out on LinkedIn." And I'm like, "Okay, let's start again." Um, so I think with that new wave of people coming through, I think that we're all starting to adopt change a little bit better now. Um, but it it takes time, doesn't it? Um, and there are some other smaller things that we look for. Um, you know, how do they know that a niche? You know, we're not here to babysit. I'm not here to teach people how to close deals. I'm not here to teach them, you know, the basics of recruitment. We can help them sharpen their skills because that's traditionally lacking. But we don't take someone that's got 6 months experience. You know, most of our guys 5 10 15 years experience. And then
I mean sometimes there's an argument. So maybe we need slightly less because uh it's it's an easier change to to take in new skills but
um it's a battle.
So then the journey that they're going on with you. So there's focusing on their niche and then what what else are the kind of in your blueprint that you mentioned what what else is in there?
So we look at so obviously defining the niche we'll then obviously build out the avatars and then what we'll do so we do things uh head office back end and so we'll set up marketing funnels and AI tools for them so they can basically build and develop their own business.
What does that really mean? Can you break that down a little bit? So we've got uh so email marketing obviously it's fairly self-explanatory but we run two different campaigns. So we'll have a candidate and a client campaign and they are lead magnets essentially. So they will relay you back to uh websites where they can pop in their details and whether that's uh free CV templates whether that is salary guides whether that's x y and zed. And so we'll also give them what I refer to as actual real content which is you know some of the content that we give out to some of the guys for their email funnels are for example uh holidays um unlimited holiday is actually statistically proven to show that you actually take less holiday than more and so you know if you're a business owner and you see oh okay yeah that's really helpful and so we actually try and provide content that's really really helpful rather than just a use us we're recruiters um because that just doesn't work anymore. So,
that's one part of it. The other part is we have automation tools for LinkedIn and other bits like that which we run in the background just to make sure the guys are building out their audience. And then there is a few different things where you can use uh clay um with lem list and like phantom buster. So, you can basically build things to strip details from from websites from uh from emails and all of that kind of stuff. So we basically the main aim for us is we want to populate as quickly as possible a database
right.
So data is obviously king at the moment and you the companies with the biggest databases I have a belief that job boards will be gone um at least majority of them will be gone at some point because their their value is declining fairly rapidly and so I have a sneaking suspicion so I have a horrible feeling that AI will take its place. I think whoever can adopt AI and has a strong database will be the businesses that survive the um the great recruitment culling I suppose which is probably on its way and so you know for us it's about helping these guys build out their data build out their areas understand their niche in a in a much more in-depth way as well because you know surface level knowledge doesn't go as far so is there a course that they need to go on is there do they need to go do real life experience what do they need to know can I do sessions with them and then we'll run the other side of that coin which is business training. So
um something that I've realized is businesses whatever gets you from zero to two deals or 5 grand's worth of bankings and then what gets you from 5 to 10 and then 10 to 20 and 20 to 50 they're all different processes and so what we have to do is take that person on what stage they're in. Show them what the barriers of entry are going to be, how they can overcome them, take them to the next stage. Once they're at their next stage, right, take them to the next stage. And so we help them scale up until they're happy. I mean, some people they don't want an empire. They just want an easy life and they want to work 4 days a week or 3 days a week and and just, you know, cash in based on what they've got. Some people want four virtual assistants under them and they want, you know, a team of recruiters and and they want the world and so, you know, we'll help them scale accordingly what works for them.
Mhm.
So, okay. Uh let's press pause here on the um the go to market stuff clay.com and because we use that as well.
Phenomenal tool extremely powerful. Uh so we have a team member who um just focuses on that is um building out our uh outbound um campaigns. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh and um and what for you guys have can you give me an example like what's been one of the most successful uh outreach campaigns where you've combined say clay.com and Lemlist or Yeah. You know what what do you find works the best?
So we we've got two that we're we're triing at the moment and they're both proving very successful compared to some of the other ones we've run which were maybe a little bit more traditional. just ping an email, reply back to us if you got any if you need any help, which was outbound candidate outreach. So, for example, if someone it's a back filling uh job. So, if someone leaves a business and joins another, we'd send out an email to that business using um Clay as the as the source pool. And then what we would do is we'd send them an email saying, "Hey, I've got a X person that would fit this role." Um, there is a point where we might be able to take that step further and actually find someone in the database because it has our our CRM system has the ability. So we're trying to hook that off at the moment and we'll actually be able to give a real life candidate um that's actively looking which would be cool. Um, but at the moment it's you know we'll send out uh know she's got a roll on we have and then it will pull the data x amount of candidates in this area. We'd love to see if we can help give us a call. Um, and that works extremely well. Most of our clients at the moment it's value value and then you have to hit them at the exact right time as most people do which is when they need you. And so it's that's working really well because we've got the campaigns running in the background and then it would just be a fire off email to say hey not you got this thing blah blah blah.
So wait wait wait let me just try to understand. So um I I love this idea by the way. So it's basically a backfilling campaign. Yeah. So um your automation is identifying the signal which is that someone has left their job and started a new job and they see that then we use clay to figure out okay who potentially is the hiring manager from their previous employer like okay so this candidate has got a new position where have they come from who is their hiring manager let's scrape that data add them to enrich it add them to an outbound campaign and you're using Lemless for the
So we use Clay combined with chat GBT and and uh Phantom Buster for that one. So that is so it'll just send the email and it's got set parameters. So it'll say please add first name add uh job title add uh the the candidate you know candidates name was one of them but that didn't work very well. It was a bit too personal interestingly.
So okay I I'll circle back to that because I want to know more. So what I sorry I interrupted you.
No, that's okay. Um, so yeah. Um, so they they basically just send and then it'll format the email for us and then it just sends them automatically as connected to our Outlooks and so that's run by the recruiter. So it'll go out by their name. Yeah.
And so it'll say they have an open position. Um, love to be able to help on that. We've got X amount of candidates. It will pull that data from our CRM system to show how many candidates we got under that job title in that area and then it will send that. Um, we we did have to we did someone that said we have zero candidates in that area put in minimum as five but you know so that that's a fairly easy exercise because if someone leaves you know it's an open opportunity. Um, it's good. It there's definitely improvements can be made and that is uh something that we want to tack on to that is that we wanted to be able to um add um when people post jobs on LinkedIn and then scrape multiple job boards, check Indeed and that stuff. And that would all be in one campaign ideally. So then we've got multiple different fields of outreach for one campaign because at the moment we wanted to do it via loads of separate ones and it was all going a bit bonkers because you have leads coming from different places. So if something went wrong you're like which one went wrong? Why did it fail?
So that campaigns work really really well. Um, and
so what's cool about this I mean back filling is nothing new that that's an old school strategy but you've got it automated.
Yeah.
So that's the cool part. It's a lot of the old stuff still works. Um, but it's how can you ease the pain of doing that because it it can be pretty labor intensive.
Well, also just exactly the time of being able to uh figure out where are all the like where are the openings, who are the hiring managers, where's their email address. Yeah,
that's a lot of work that you've outsourced to play and chat GBT and even stuff that I mean for anyone who like wants an easier version of that they can just build like a chat GBT bot. So something that we show to the new starters is we've got an AI bot called Steve. Um, it's I name everything Steve uh because it's just the first name that pops into my head every time. So, uh, Steve, and Steve's designed to help recruiters build out customized emails. And so, for example, if they spot a job on, uh, Indeed, for example, they can pop in the person's profile, their LinkedIn profile under the business, and then they'll pop in the, uh, Indeed ad, and then it will customize a, uh, an email that will go out to them, and it will also scrape the data if it can find it. And so that's just a really s like everyone can sit down and it'll take them 20 minutes to write out that check it over and it's something simple that they could implement straight away. And
is that a just to clarify is that a custom GPT or is it an actual agent?
It's a it's a custom chat GBT bot.
Okay. So it's you could anyone can create one. You just uh you sign in, you say create bot in the back end and it will you basically give it a list of commands. We made ours particularly sassy. Um, and just just to be just to liven it up a bit, keep the guys amused. Um, so it quips jokes at people, but the actual emails it sends out. And something for me was that I was getting a lot of responses from my emails that I was sending out to clients. And, you know, cuz we help our guys get a client sometimes. And so sometimes if an email is better coming from me rather than them, we'll do that.
And so what I was noticing is I was getting a lot more traction with my emails. And the guy said, "Well, how are you sending your emails?" well, slightly different every time. And so I gave it uh I made it basically because it speaks like me and actually the guys all of a sudden start getting a lot more message backs and and kickbacks and stuff and it it's obviously a language thing and how I talk. Um, but I'm assuming that it it it's not as easy to replicate as you think. And sometimes you'll send an email and someone else send an email and you go, they're pretty similar. I don't know why this one worked but this one didn't. And so it was actually easier just to replicate it over a chatbot and give it everything that I've written over the last 6 months for example and just paste it all in there and say this is how I talk this is how I you know uh
I I I think it's casual language I think that's that's the reason mom's had more success but trying to teach people casual language is difficult. Well, look, I love copywriting and I feel like it's a craft and it's a it is tough for people to learn. Some people just are more interested and maybe have more aptitude for it than others.
Yeah. What I find with and and so the way you've done it is clever because you're leveraging Chad GPT but you're also adding your own uh voice the style guide and you're at you're training it with examples of campaigns that were successful.
And um so that definitely gives people a a huge head start.
Yeah. And that they you know I think over time everyone learns their own slightly different way of doing things and so they'll take that and they might adopt it and I and I show them the back end so if they want to tweak it themselves and play around with that then they can make
I do think what works in one market may not translate to another and I also feel like it should sound like you communicate but as you say making it slightly less formal because if it's a very formal and especially if it's too long it's a dead giveaway that it's just a mass message, right? Whereas if it's a little less formal and short, then it comes across more like an individual email.
I think I I'll give I'll give everyone my two top tips.
Okay, let's hear it.
Number one, four to five lines is ideal from all testing.
Number two is once you do a follow-up email, type in the bottom of it, sent from my iPhone.
Right. I've thought of this before. Yeah. Yeah. Does that do you think that actually works? Yeah, it upticked about 20%. Um, really cool. What? So, uh, one of our friends and a guy who's been on the podcast a few times, Rich Rosen, actually intentionally puts in typos into the email because then people would think, well, they'd never scale out an email with mistakes in it, right? So, yeah, it's um it's it's actually uh it's something that probably I do, but not intentionally. But I I I one of the big things that I try and teach the guys is it it's the thought of the message usually not the message. And so if you're sending a message to someone, whether that's a voice note, whether that's a message on LinkedIn, one, don't think don't get in your head about it. I notice recruiters and they sit there for like 20 minutes and they're like, and they're like, and I'm like, just type what you think. Type whatever it is. If you make a a you know, a mess up, for example, keep it in.
Like you're real people. Like mistakes happen. It's not the end of the world and people appreciate it.
Absolutely. And especially because it's now possible to clone like your voice and and and even your, you know, video. And so if you make a mistake or it's not 100% perfect, it actually seems more real.
Yeah. Because it is. And and so it's more authentic. It's more human. And therefore, I think actually might increase your response. And I think it will that that's a really good point. I think that that will actually in the future be a big thing like if they see a mistake go oh is a like yeah cuz how will you you won't be able to tell is this a real person you know or is this really James right and so I think um being authentic being yourself letting what if you make a mistake just rolling with it I think that is actually maybe in some ways better
I think from a mindset view once you get past that hurdle of not wearing so much what you send I think that also brings And like I was I was on the phone to um one of the guys on the way and she said, "Are you nervous?" And I don't get nervous anymore. She said, "Oh, interesting. Why?" And I said, "Because what's the worst that could happen?" And if I mess up, it's not a problem. Like it's why why would you get nervous about something you don't need to be nervous about? And actually I think that you know when you stop worrying about one what what you think of yourself more importantly rather than what other people think of you you stop caring so much in the right ways as in you still care about the end result. You still want to do a good job but you stop sweating over the little things. And I think you know the guys you know some of my clients they send me messages back and I'm like I can't even read that like cuz they're just like and so I have to call them. But if they don't care from a respect that they trust you enough to, you know, I'm sure if he sends out a nice offer there, it's not going to look like that. Um, but you know, from the respect that he trusts you enough just to drop you a message like a text message or like a friend or whatever, then you should reciprocate. And so, you know, the obviously there's levels in everything and sometimes you'll have to be a little bit more professional and sometimes you won't. Um, but at the same time, you know, it's about adapting to what's around you, making sure that you understand your client and all of that stuff. But it all comes from authenticity.
Definitely agree on that.
Okay. So, you've got campaigns running. Y we've talked about the one that's working well for you guys, which is the back fill campaign. We actually have noticed that you Oh, I want to hear the story about the one that didn't work because it named the candidate who had vacated the position.
Yeah. So, it by hope you I I like getting really tactical here because people Like the value is in the details, isn't it? Yeah. And uh like if Oh yeah, we send email. Oh, what kind of email campaign is that? Um, so yeah, I mean I think uh when we started sending emails, I would love to be a fly on the wall, but sometimes let's say someone leaves and they're a bit gutted about it and you sending them a follow-up email, bam, like that. And they say, "Oh, I've noticed Lucy left. Would love to give you a hand." And they're like, "Did you take Lucy?" Like I think the assumption was if you're using their name, how did you know about it so quickly? Were you the person that and you know we I've had businesses that I've taken people from and I said look use me and I'll stop taking stuff. Really sorry but it's just part of business 50/50. I found it can work or it can backfire and they don't want to speak to you but yeah and so I think it was just a little bit close to home. So the more general approach and and then we would bring it up on the phone. Oh yeah, we've got a system that runs um you know, so that that was quite a good one. Um, and then we have run some other campaigns as well that have done poorly. Great. Um, one of the ones that's probably lead magnets are probably uh the big one that we're focusing on at the moment and there's the most success and I think that's mostly because of value ad.
Yeah. So that you always have to think right what's really valuable to my client or and this works for both sides of the that campaign. So client or candidate can I build a useful asset for them because the thing is assets are reusable. So the email so if you're writing out a custom email every time to your clients that's very time consuming. If you build a salary guide or if you build a uh your top five um CV templates or whatever it is, that's a reusable asset over time. And for example, you have to change the yearly salaries, but that's not really that difficult. But if you build up a repertoire of assets that you can use over the next 10 years, you know, and then just keep refreshing them and as the branding comes along and as the information changes. Yeah. You know, and be able to give that. I think that that is the best use. And all you do is you do something really simple and that is you set up a lead funnel where you know you've got a a open page or um a password protected something. There's a bunch of different ways you can do it and they just punch in the details and they say yeah cool and you'll say look just got an asset guide. Do you want a copy?
Yeah. Um, it's great conversation starter. It's a really really easy way. And also if you've got clients that are on the edge and you you say look I've got a bunch of free assets. Do you want to have a look at them? It just gives you credibility. It shows that you know what you're talking about. Um, and it comes down to being niche as well because you'll every industry will have a slightly different determining what what's useful in their niche. You know, it could be, oh, you know, I'll help you build out a finance calculator cuz you're an FS business and so you could have a template for that. So, think about what your audience needs and then think about, right, how can I leverage that? Because it's all about leverage. Clients won't use you if you don't have any leverage. Whether that's a candidate that you've got or whether that's an asset that they need, that's where the value is. And so we we noticed the response rate from that was just insane, you know. Uh
what what do you consider insane? Because
50% sometimes
really. Um, so let me let me just find out more about this. So what list was this going to? Was this a deal? So the first one we run was the worst one. So that was a state agency and it was a test group of I think it was like a thousand people and our response rate was about 10%.
When you say people is this client? These were state entity owners.
Okay, perfect. Yeah. And we sent that out and uh the initial list and it was a salary guide and the uptick on that was like 10%.
Which actually is good for cold outreach.
Yeah, I I believe so. I mean uh ours was curated to current clients. So that obviously will affect it slightly.
Definitely. Um, and then I think the the best one we done was we done a um a live webinar guide where they could basically punch in their details and build out a live webinar that they could host their own recruitment events on. And so it was like a a live hosting at Anvert. And that was that was a really small test group because uh unfortunately it broke our uh our website hosting function fairly quickly. Um, but it was just a principle to say, right, if we change the asset, does it change the response rate or is it always roughly around the same? No matter the asset, it turns out it's completely down to what the asset was cuz our read% was it has to be something they actually want, right? And that is the key to successful lead magnet is you can't just offer anything.
And and this is where I find recruiters like they try something and then it doesn't work straight out of the gate and they're like oh that doesn't work. Yeah. And like so if I say okay let's create a lead magnet and explain why they would want that and what the purpose is and as you said it's generating value. It's establishing your credibility. It's inducing the law of reciprocity. that lets them get to know you before using your service and and so on. Um, so they buy into the idea and then um, but they choose a topic or for whatever reason it doesn't just doesn't the client doesn't care enough about that particular topic and it kind of doesn't work as well as they're hoping and they're disappointed and then they kind of give up on the idea. But we just need to keep testing. Yeah, define what's the one that they're you're going to get that response to. Build off of that. And you know, AB testing was something that I I look back when I was actually doing recruitment and I was like like I think back to it now and I said to the guys, what's your customer journey? What's your client journey? What emails are you sending? How do they look? Can you upscale everything you do by one? You know, that's the classic adage like the 1% gains everywhere. And so like we've just redesigned our emails for email confirmations and they look lovely. They look completely different. They're not just a basic email. It custom fills everything out for the recruiter, but it looks really smart. And then they click on a page and they have a full breakdown of interview prep stuff now. So, they were able to go through that. And that journey is different. But guess what? It wasn't our first iteration that we got right. It wasn't the second. We kept having to make them and change it and tweak it and make it better. And it I think recruiters are instant gratification demons, which is did it work? No. Okay.
I think it's just recruiters. I think that's most humans, right? And and yeah, for sure. And you know, like you say, you got to find that one that one thing that that kicks it off, but it might not start as one thing. It might be one asset that works. Then you go, "Ah, I can do this because of that." And so, you know, I think every single business and every single recruiter needs to look at what their journey is, what their client and candidate journey is, what are they, what are they offering? You know, I sat down and asked my recruiters the other day, "What value do you provide outside of recruitment?" And they were like, they eventually they got there and there's tons of value, but if they don't know it straight away, then it's really difficult for you. Like if you don't if you don't know what your value proposition is like that, then how are you going to say that to your client and put them on the spot? Obviously, never work. So, it's like doing a test call. But like the the main thing was like really think about where you can add value. um you know, and and your value could be look I give the best candidate journey you've ever seen like you could make it one of your your selling points, you know, that this process is unlike no other um and and work towards that.
Okay, awesome. That makes sense. So the 50% response rate, what was that?
Yeah, yeah. So that was the webinar host function. So that was our best one.
In I don't really understand what the offer was.
So, uh, it was an email that went out and basically uh we seen in a business recently and they were launching um they they were launching webinars to recruit people and so it was a live webinar and so what we done is we said we will host your webinar for free uh and you we will host it to our database. So the idea was they would click a button, they would book in, it would then host a live webinar for them. Um, and so it would be it would put in the business name, it would put in who the thing is, uh, we would sit in as background as administrators, and then it would send it out to our database and say, "We've got a live webinar in this area for this job. Uh, come along if you want to learn more about this business." And so it was a really direct version of it. Okay? And we sent it out to 50 clients and half of them came back. And we we only ended up hosting about 10 in the end, but we signed uh a good I think it was seven or eight clients out of that. Um, but it was a really
That's a cool idea.
It it was really good. Um, has has a lot of backend problems.
Yeah. I mean that's not a straightforward one to pull off. If you can pull it off, that's really I've never heard of someone doing that. That's quite cool.
Yeah. So if I if I understand correctly, so the Was this offer to existing clients?
Correct. Yeah.
All right. Yeah. So, exactly. I understand how you got such a high response rate because I I misunderstood. Uh, I thought it was like a cold email campaign.
Yeah, the cold the cold email campaigns they they you kind of need to be it's a little bit more tongue and cheek, a little bit softer and subtle approaches and and and that that would be a very bold thing to send out to your current clients. I wouldn't suggest it. Um, but the the what we do for all of our clients is we do uh what is it? Jab jab hook I think they call it. Jab, jab, jab, right hook.
Yeah. So, obviously our aim is content, content, content. You know, get to know you then ask. Um, because there's nothing worse than you add someone on, you know, LinkedIn say, "Hey, I've actually got a job." And so, it's very crass in a lot of ways. Uh, you know, you wouldn't ask someone to marry you on the first date. And so, you know, we we spend a lot of time nurturing these these people. And we what we try to want to do is start nurturing campaigns before even people have started. So then when they do come in, they're able to go cool and then they can do their hook and and it's there straight away.
When you say before people have started, what do you mean by that?
So for example, I mean a lot of our businesses that we do, they they usually split geographically. So um not always. Uh, it just depends on the industry. Everyone's slightly different, but for example, a state agency, we do geographically. So we've got uh for example, we've got no one's covering Scotland at the moment. So maybe what we do is we build out pre- data. Um, and then what we do is we start warming them up with really, really good content coming out already. When we do finally someone get someone in, we'll say, "Bill, we've just had a new recruiter start." Boom. You've got a warmed up audience. You've got a database already built for you.
Oh, that's cool. And that would, you know, imagine how much that would speed up the process because there's always a ramp up period. And and so coming back to your um proposition essentially like what is the ramp up period for someone who's wanting to start their own recruitment business and you know before they're they're starting to actually see returns and I know that's a piece of string right how long's a piece of string and a lot of it is down to how much effort are they willing to put in.
Yeah, so we usually see most people bank their first deal within in a month or two.
Wow. It's pretty quick. Um, and we we work on a system where as soon as it hits our account, it's straight back out. So we pay them as they come just like it would a business.
Okay. And so um, and most most of the industries we work, they like 7-day turnaround after, you know, payment terms. So it's pretty quick. So yeah, most of the time I think our fastest ever one was like 7 days. Uh, and that was last yeah sevenish days. Um, and that was that was a lady covering in Scotland. She was very quick. Um, but most of them you'll see and it the ramp up is usually if they do one in their first month, you'll usually see two in the second and then three in the third and then they start leveling out depending on what industry it is and and what the fee size is. So if it's perm placements for example, you know, and and let's say it was construction where the fees are super high, it's probably going to be max of one or two deals. So you that might take a little bit longer, might be up to three. Whereas something like a states agency or financial services, it's usually one to two months and they can do well as many as the heart's content. But usually we see the the physical limitations of not driving themselves insane and not trying to break their back about four or five placements a month, which is pretty good.
Still, yeah. I mean once they get um we do encourage the guys once they get to a certain point to bring on a VA and then sky's your limit. I mean it'll it'll take you to the next level.
Yeah, absolutely. James, this has been very different to uh what I was expecting and uh very interesting and enjoyable. So, thanks for thanks for coming on the show. Um, what we're going to do is include obviously your all your information in the show notes. So, if people want to reach out to you to learn more about what you guys do, then um, you know, I'm sure they'll they'll follow up with you. But uh, well, final question I guess is h so how many businesses have you helped to start and then what is the common denominator between all the most successful the people have had the most success with your system?
Yeah, I think so we've helped 18 soon to be 21 now um as of next month, which is exciting. Yeah. Um, and I would say the most common thing that the that and this is the most generic answer is just resilience. It's so so hard. Uh, and you will take an absolute pounding and it's only compounded when it's your business cuz it's your reputation. It's your money. You know, the fees aren't 10% anymore. It's worth a lot more to you. And you need to keep your head up. You need to keep your head above water. you need, you know. So, we encourage the guys to go speak to each other, share stories, have a laugh, um, to try and bring down that burden of, you know, uh don't do it alone, you know. So, there's probably resilience and just don't do it alone. Just share your story with other people, share that burden.
I'd 100% agree with that. And uh James, thanks for being on the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
All right. Thank you for listening to The Resilient Recruiter. I know how busy recruiters are, so I'm honored that you're investing this time with me each week. I don't take your attention for granted. That's why I'm going all out to deliver value for you here. Real insights you can apply to improve your business. And if you really want to help me to reach a wider audience and impact more people, please consider leaving the show a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave me a review, please reach out and let me know so I can thank you personally. Please hit the subscribe button and I'll see you next time.