Transcription
Hello everybody, and welcome to the 1% Better Recruitment Podcast with your host, Charles Kiraku. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Aaron Colmore, who is the Director of Business Development at Adam Zest. Aaron and I have worked with each other for about, what, six months now? Or is that right?
Yeah, about that. Yeah. And every single time we sit down, honestly, if we had a little mini camera and a mini podcast mic, we could probably have some good shows. So I'm sure today's show is going to be a very good one. Before we crack on then, Aaron, if you don't mind, give us a bit of an introduction to you and your recruitment career.
Cool, perfect. So, yeah, first of all, thanks for the invite, Charles. Good to be here. Um, so, an overview on me. So, um, I'm Aaron. I currently work at a business called Adam Zest and head up Business Development. Prior to that, most of my career has been spent in 360 recruitment. I started my career at Michael Page, spent a year there, then joined a business called Robertson Sna, doing Tech sales recruitment. Was there for six and a half years, top biller for five of those years. Um, and then left to help build, help build a startup in Adam Zest. So, yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
Nice. So, um, every single time Aaron and I sit down, we always end up having long conversations around BD process, the approach to all aspects of Business Development, the mindset, and both Aaron and I have a lot of experience in pitching and selling retainers. And we both, well, where you work at Zest, use a slightly different platform, but you know, used a very similar thing as well. So we're going to cover a range of topics all around Business Development, mindset, retainers, etcetera, etcetera.
The first topic that we wanted to cover in today's show was the mindset and approach for Business Development in recruitment today. So I think, to be honest, I think a good start for this, Aaron, would be because you've got a very unique approach to things. I don't, I don't really speak to a lot of recruiters that have your type of approach. Um, why don't you talk us through your approach to Business Development these days?
Um, cool, good, good question. My approach to Business Development is, I get really, really specific on fixing a different problem to what I think the majority of recruiters fix. So I think that the vast majority of recruiters fix talent attraction problems, and I focus most of my time on fixing the assessment bit of that, of that, um, situation. So I typically speak to people, speak to companies that have previously hired, or have hired fairly recently, and I try and just try, I try and uncover if they've had challenges around, um, certain stages of their hiring process. I.E., a candidate comes in for you, they have 15 people top of funnel for their, um, when they get CVs through the door, how many of those are through no choice of the companies, ending up dropping out? And that's the thing that I try and fix. And I try and get people thinking about, what impact would it be if you were able to predict, hire your top pick every time, or your top one or two picks every single time? What would the impact be on your business? What would it do for the team? So that's my, that's typically the problem that I fix. And I think that's really important to get clear on early because if you don't get, if you're not clear on the problem, then everything else you do in Business Development is kind of pointless, in my opinion. So hopefully, I've given you some context.
Yeah, yeah, it certainly does. I wanted to get your opinion on what you think, like, typical BD looks like in in recruitment in 2024 because, you know, I obviously work with a variety of different recruitment businesses now. I work for myself, and I've worked within a fair few when I was obviously employed. Now, I think the, and you and I have had this conversation about the traditional style of of recruitment where it is a simple case of, you know, maybe you have a fake candidate, or maybe you've got a semi-decent candidate, you mass mail them out to 100 companies, or, you know, you're, you're, you're spending two to three to cold call people, and nine times out of 10, people's introductions are just absolutely just water. Um, but what's your thoughts on like, you know, recruitment, like how people typically do recruitment nowadays, or Business Development, I should say, to be fair?
I, I don't know that much about like the wider market. I have my, I have an idea, but I'm not, I'm not doing it, so I don't know for certain what people are doing. But what I imagine people are doing, again, if they're still specking, still specking out CVs, still just chasing down those CVs, I think it, I just think it is a very, very transactional approach. And I think actually, if you want to sell retainers, or you want to get more committed work, you can't be, you can't act the same way that every other recruiter acts. So if 98% of recruiters are specking CVs and, and just randomly cold calling people, and they see a live job or chasing leads, and then they're confused why they don't win retainers, it's kind of like, well, you're just approaching it wrong. You're probably approaching it wrong, and you're probably approaching the wrong person, is my, is my thought. So that's, that's what I imagine people are doing, but I don't know for certain.
Yeah, I, I think largely you're, you're right. But I think the, the one thing that you and I can probably agree on is is the mindset people have going into Business Development now. I think, I don't know if it was the same for you, but for me, it took me a little while to really truly understand my worth, really understand the value that I can offer. Because I work with so many recruiters, and I feel kind of bad for them because they approach a Business Development call, and I've been there myself, where you kind of hope it goes to voicemail because you just, you have no confidence, and you don't really believe in what you're selling. And you're like, oh, well, well, there's one call on my KPI sheet that I can, that I can tick off. But people get off on the phone, and a client will sit there and say, you know, we don't want to work with recruiters. And they're like, yeah, I get that. You know, you have to pay a big fee for me to go and find your candidate. I get it. I, I think that's completely wrong. I think that's the complete wrong mindset, the complete wrong approach. You and I have a very similar mindset. And I think your mindset at the moment, and you're obviously doing the job and doing Business Development in the recruitment space. Tell me about your, I want to talk about firstly, what your mindset is now. We'll talk about how you kind of got to there. But what is your mindset when you do approach a Business Development call and Business Development activity?
My, my thought is, I think anytime that I'm doing anything from a, that's cold or net new, um, I'm really doing it just to try and understand if there even is a problem. That's it. So I'm not, I'm not doing a cold call or any cold outreach to actually try and sell who I am, who Zest are, what I've done before. Because ultimately, if they haven't got a problem, doesn't matter how good I am, if they are amazing finding hiring, they always get the person they want. I don't, they, they don't need me, and that's fine. I can just move on. And I don't get super caught up in that. I just think that we genuinely, I have an obligation to help the people that I could help, if they just knew about me. That's how I think of Business Development. Like, so it is just about having as many different touch points with people that you believe could have the problem, and figuring out if they do have the problem. That's all I'm doing on that first, on that first conversation. So actually, if someone says to me, I don't have that problem, then that's fine. I just move on and find somebody else that does have that problem. And when they do have that problem, then it, then it feels like I'm actually solving something for them. So I don't get that internal dialogue of, oh, I'm pestering them, oh, I'm doing them a disservice. I genuinely believe that I'm, I feel like I'm helping them. Like, they're, you're struggling with something, I can, I can fix that. I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't reach out and tell you I can fix it. That's how I think of it.
That's a killer mindset. Like, I feel like I would be doing a disservice if I didn't reach out to help you. I feel like that's such, that is such a good mindset to have because, and I, I say this to recruiters all the time, right? You essentially are changing people's lives. Think about how many candidates you've placed that have been stuck in a bit of a rut, they've been, you know, under market value, etcetera, and you place them in a job and they're buzzing, they're super happy, and you're giving them a great salary increase. Or you've spoken to a sales director or HR, because you obviously do sales recruitment, right? And they're like, we've got this area that we need to cover, we're losing market share, etcetera. You know, I'm getting it in the neck for my boss. And then you come in there, solve the problem, and find someone, and six months down the line, they're like, I've, I've overachieved on target, we're absolutely smashing it. You are essentially changing people's lives. That is what recruitment actually is, from my perspective. And it sounds like it is from yours as well.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Like, I think, I think lots of people, and maybe it's because there's a really low barrier to entry in recruitment, but I think there's lots of people's perception of the job, or the impact that people have, it's just that it's, it's really low value and it's really transactional. And actually, I think that it's one of the most, you hear business leaders talk about this all the time. I think everyone that's listening will probably see this, that people are the most important part of our, of our business. And ultimately, in a lot of scenarios, we are instrumental in helping shape that. That's really what we're doing. And actually, a business without its people just doesn't even exist. You can't build a good product without a great development team, a great development team. You can't sell a product. You could sell a product, but you probably aren't going to get the, the best out of it without a great sales team. So there's so many things that we do that directly impact not even just like people's lives day-to-day, but the stuff that our customers sell can, can also impact the world. So like, it's a ripple effect. I just don't think people pay too much attention to. And I think if they did, they would see the value that they actually offer and wouldn't feel like they're pestering, they'd feel like they're actually doing somebody a service by by calling them.
Yeah. So what, what about for a training recruiter that is listening to this show right now, or or a recruitment consultant that is either new to Business Development, or still in that position, that phase of life where they, like I was saying earlier, where they, they're hoping it goes to voicemail, they don't, they don't necessarily feel like they can add a lot of value? I think what we've already said is definitely instrumental, but what advice would you give those people to shift their mindset, shift their approach to kind of, I guess, yeah, know their value and and have that better mindset?
Um, that's a really good question. I think that's that's something that's going to be quite subjective because it's going to depend so much. It depends on the environment that a person's in as well. Like, if you're in, if you're a recruiter in an environment where nobody believes the value of what they do, then that would be, it's a really hard thing for you to change because you obviously aren't, you can't see it. My advice if you're in that scenario would be actually try and reach out to somebody. You can reach out to me, that's fine. I'll have a conversation with anybody and try and help them. That's that's absolutely fine. But if you are in, if you're in a scenario where it's just like, it's more of an internal dialogue, I would, again, if you have customers, go back and ask them. If you have previous candidates, go back and ask them, what did I do? What impact did I make? Yeah, like, what would you tell other people about me? Try and get that sort of information because that, that at a minimum should give you some level of internal validation that when you get an opportunity, you're able to deliver on that, actually, it is beneficial for the people involved. If you don't have that personally, if you're too early on, I would then go and ask the other people around me, can you give me an example of? Can you speak to your customers? So it's more collective, it's more holistic. Like, we as a business at Zest, we have helped X, Y, Z. And then you can kind of take that shared credibility, which should hopefully again, enable you to not feel like you're being a pure pest, but ultimately, so much of this does depend on the business that they're working for. Because some recruiters are genuinely, they are pests. And because actually, if they're not, if they're not offering any value, or if they are just shifting loads of CVs to people, is that super valuable? If I was a recruiter in that environment, would I feel, would I feel like I'm actually fixing a real problem? Again, I don't know. I've just been really privileged to be involved in businesses that are really focused on fixing, fixing problems. So yeah, hopefully that answered your question, but that's a, yeah, that's a tough one to answer.
It is, it is. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think the last time I was working with you guys, I mentioned about to shift a belief that you have, you've got first-party evidence and third-party evidence. So if I was a trainee and I worked by your side and I had no successes yet, I would ask you. And this is what I done when I joined Proce. I literally sat down to literally two or three of the top billers, took them for lunch, and just said, tell me exactly how you work, how are you successful, etcetera. That's third-party evidence. Evidence. If you are in a position where you have, like you said, maybe a year or so of experience, maybe you're still a bit nervous about Business Development, but you have made some placements, you've done a 360 deal. I always used to tell me and my team, go and get recommendations from your clients. Kind of what you talk, what you guys talk about with the NPS score. That will give you the first-party evidence and it'll make you realize, actually, I am good at my job. And that would just like compound and it will help you with those limiting beliefs, for sure.
100%, 100%. It is, it is. Um, and again, it is a, um, it's a snowball effect, isn't it, right? That's the, that's the big thing. Is once you've got one and you believe you can do it, then you'll get two. Once you've got two, and it just, it spirals after that. So again, I think the hardest bit will be if you haven't done a placement before, a 360 placement, and you're being tasked with just going out and winning new stuff. That's the, the first one's always the hardest, like anything new.
Yeah, absolutely. Something I wanted to, um, pick on, uh, something you just said a moment ago. So when I used to do, and to this day, obviously, I still have to do Business Development for my, for my business. You'll get a client where you maybe go on a call, call, and you want to kind of identify any of their pain points. Sometimes you're going to get someone that sits there and says, our internal team does a fantastic job. We don't really use, we haven't really had to use agencies. We're getting on fine. Now, what you said earlier, if they don't have the pain, if there isn't necessarily a need, you can't really sell to them. The devil's advocate, I'm going to say is, sometimes you get smoke screens from clients. How do you identify whether that is a smoke screen, whether they say, yeah, we're doing fine, but maybe you might know that actually they're not?
When they actually say they're fine, and there is no pain, it's all in the follow-up of the questions, isn't it? So somebody says to me, I'm, I'm fine. Great. If you are, if you are fine, that's that's amazing. Can you talk me through what does fine look like to you? Simply, really simple question. And then they, and then they give you context. And then from the context, you again, I can assess from that whether that actually is fine, or if that, if I'm able to beat what they are currently, what they perceive as fine, then I could, then I can talk to them a little bit more about that. Like you said, that was fine. Just out of curiosity, you said that you lost your top three candidates, but it was fine because the fourth person was really good. What would you, what would you do if you were able to hire the top three people? Just more predictably. What sort of impact you think that would have on you? Or what sort of impact you think that would have on the wider business? Like, it's those for you, you only get that again, my, my essentially what I'm saying is, you'll always get the smoke screen. The real killer, it is in the second question that you ask after you get the smoke screen. So just, and again, it's all of it for me, it's just about asking for context. Are we're fine? What does fine mean? Are we're doing great? What does great mean? Like, it's terrible, what does terrible mean? Like, I can't, without getting context and actual information, again, I can't assess if they're actually good or not, on just like smoke and mirrors. You just can't. You can't do it. And again, sometimes you'll ask that question, and they'll just be like, look, I can't, I can't talk about this right now. Fine. Or genuinely, sometimes it might not be. I have no idea on that. Actually, might be worth speaking to somebody in HR about that. That's probably more their remit. Cool. You can be then you've got a two-pronged attack. Understand that's not in your remit, but do you think that would impact you if we could fix that? If that was, if you could predictably hire the top three people, Mr. Hiring Manager, would that be beneficial for you? Yes. Okay. How would it be beneficial for you? What do you think when I go and speak to HR, or go and speak to the internal recruitment team, they're going to say about this situation, X, Y? Like, you just, then you can build a picture. So yeah, just like, that's my whole thing. Again, I'm not doing this to really try and sell on that first conversation. I'm just doing it to try and understand, is it, is it worth us collectively putting half an hour in the diary to go through this in a bit more detail? That's all this first. That's that first.
I love that. I love that. I, I think a lot of recruiters, unfortunately, they don't understand. What I used to do in training, I used to have like this GIF up on the screen of like, this person digging. And I used to go through like linear questioning, or chunking up, chunking down types of questions. If you ever ask somebody a question, like I always give this example to recruiters when they qualify a candidate, and it's like, what's the candidate's most important thing? Progression. Okay. Why progression? Well, everyone wants progression. What does progression look like to them? Well, they're a senior software developer now. So, or they're a software developer now. So they want to be a senior soft. Do they? I just assumed. I'm like, so you've just assumed? So you eventually screw this deal at the end, right? So it's just asking those questions, isn't it? It's like, why is that important to you? What else could be important to you? What does that actually mean? Tell me a little bit more about that. And get the real answers. Like, find the why behind the why. Otherwise, just sales in general is just so hard if you don't do that level of questioning.
I think it's impossible. Again, I just think you're shooting in the dark. That's my, that's my thought. And then ultimately, what you end up doing is you end up, um, you end up going in a, in a downward spiral. You end up selling to people that don't actually have the problem, and then you think you're bad at sales, and then you think, oh, I don't like sales, and then you just stop doing it. Like, that's the, that's genuinely the cycle. But so much of it can be underpinned by not asking those second, those second line questions, and actually trying to really understand the intricacies and the context of the problem. Because once you've got that, then then you can actually make an educated, an informed decision. Um, without the information, it is genuinely just like stabbing in the dark. And also, I don't think that anybody that said, if they just gave me top-line, surface-level context, and I didn't dig, and then I asked for a meeting, I haven't built any, and there's no gap, there's no value that I've built, or there's no like pain to value ratio. So why would they give me half an hour if I haven't even built that on the call? So it's, there's so many, there's so many things that we can go over on on that bit. I'm sure. But yeah, no, I totally agree.
Well, before we move on to the next topic around retainers, I wanted to ask you something. It's just come to my head. I'm working on on a project for one of my clients, and one of the, um, you'll know a lot about this, basically creating them a handbook, a playbook, right? And one of the pages is is all about call openers. Now, there's a lot of, stupidly, it shouldn't be controversial, but there's a lot of controversy around permission-based openers, and then you've got the more traditional style. Now, I've used every type of cold call opener. Main reason why is because I get bored so quickly. And recruitment is quite monotonous, right? Especially when I was in recruitment doing the same thing over and over. I had to do something different to the point where I just say ludicrous things in my opener, just so that people would be like, what the [ __ ] is this? It's a bit random. Um, before we move on, what is your textbook standard cold call opener, if there is one?
I have, I use two. I do use a permission-based opener, something along the lines of, if I told you this was a cold call, would this make you want to throw your phone out the window? Something like that. Like, I do use that. Or the other one that I do is just a little bit more disarming, slightly more confused. Try, essentially. I either use permission-based opener to be really upfront, or I use like slightly more confused to try and not trigger sales resistance. Typically, what I'll do is I'll try permission-based opener first. I think certainly because I sell to sales leaders, they're a lot more receptive to it. When I'm doing it, when I sell to HR, I typically do like slightly more confused to it because I think HR leaders are probably, or they're much more cognizant of sales people calling them. And they think, again, I think they have, this is an assumption, my assumption is people that aren't sales have an idea about sales people that they are going to try and make me do something I don't want to do. So I think with sales, I think with sales people, you can just be a little bit more direct. Typically, the sales leaders I talk to, I haven't got to sugarcoat it. Um, so I can just be a little bit more direct with them. But actually, I'm talking to, again, it could be HR, it could be people, it could be talent. I typically just try and be a little, play a little bit more of a confused tone and cadence in my voice when I'm talking to them. And typically, that just gets them to open up. And again, as I said, my, my ideal for sales leaders is, I don't care if I trigger sales resistance, I just, I actually just want them to think, this guy's pretty credible and sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'll give him some time. With HR people, you almost just need to earn the time by not triggering sales resistance really early. So yeah, hopefully that hopefully that helps.
Yeah, nice. So could you give us an example then of what your, the the confused one is, if you're going to speak to an HR manager or HR director?
So it'd be something along the lines of, "Hey, is this, is this John? John, it's, it's just Aaron over at Zest. I wonder if you could help me out for a minute." Literally that. And then they're like, "Sure, yeah, what can I help you out with?" And then, "Fine, I, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the person that looked after your hiring processes, um, and ensuring that they were just up to up to standard to ensure that you're able to predictably hire high-quality sales people? Do you know who who might be able to help me with that?" Actually, it's, it's me. "Aaron, where are you calling from again?" Like, you get one of those two responses. And then I'm in. Like, the conversation's live. They've asked two questions. They've asked me two questions. They haven't slammed the phone down. Quite, yeah, that's, they're one of the two.
Um, yeah, I like it. I think, um, something that is very difficult from my perspective to train and to coach people on isn't the theory, isn't the actual. I could write the lyrics for anyone, right? But I've written lyrics for people and I've, I've seen them deliver exactly that type of thing where they go, "Aaron, hi, it's Charles here. Can you help me with something?" They're like, "Yeah, just, who the [ __ ] are you? Who?" So it is all about that tone and that cadence. And I remember the first time you and I had that conversation, I was like, that's a really interesting approach. And I tried it a couple of times because I'm just, I'm very curious as a person. And I've tried it a couple of times with recruitment founders, which believe it or not, by the way, recruitment founders are my, either they just don't accept cold calls, or they absolutely love it. It's really odd because you think that they get their guys to cold call. But I've tried that before and said, and gone along the lines of, like, "I'm just wondering if you could help me with something." And they're like, "Where are you calling from?" I was like, "It's a funny thing, actually. I've worked for myself. I'm a self-employed recruitment coach and trainer with 10 years' experience. But I was just curious, um, you know, a lot of companies are investing at the moment, either external or internal, to train their staff because a lot of the newer generation recruiters typically look for one of three things, um, you know, culture, D&I, or or training and development. And I looked in your LinkedIn, didn't see you had someone internal, so just wondered what your strategy was for 2024." And typically people will go, "Yeah, do you know what? That that's actually very interesting. We saw a poll about that and it's something we need to do, but, you know, we haven't really got around to doing it." And then you just ask a few questions. Like you said, you're in. Once they've asked a couple of questions and given you a little bit, you're in. Two, two, two questions back. Two questions back. Whatever those two questions are back, that's commitment to a conversation. That is like, what? One?
Yeah, literally two questions. And in my mind, I'm like, I mean, it's really difficult, I think, to hang up on somebody after you've asked them two separate questions and they've spoken in between. So yeah, that's just my experience. And I think that works really well. That's worked really well for marketing and it's worked really well in, uh, yeah.
Nice. So what about your cold call for like sales leaders? Because you know, I recruited in medical, medical device sales for about five and a half years. And the next topic was, we'll talk about, which will tie in nicely with this, about the mindset, because I started contingent, then went over to exclusive, retained, etcetera. But even still, when I was a retained consultant, I found in my market, and it might be different for you, that one or two hooks worked really, really well. So if you were a manager within a surgical medical technology company, I call you and say, "Aaron, hey, it's Charles here, calling from, from X company. Look, reason for the call here, I'm working with someone exclusively at the moment. They've got five years of experience, they previously worked for one of your competitors, SVT, was 100% a target five years running, and they've just come onto the market following the business being acquired. On paper, looking at the people working in your team, this person looks like they could be a fantastic fit for your business. Just curious to see what your thoughts would be on that." And nine times out of ten, people go, "Oh my God, you're working with that's an unbelievable candidate. We'll open doors for them." And then you transition into the problem-solving and then all the, um, what about for you? Because I know that's more of a traditional one, because it's like a verbal spew out, right? What's your typical sort of cold call opener for for sales leaders?
It is typically like, um, John, how would I, let me, let me think. My typical cold call opener for a salesperson would be something along the lines of, um, "John, Aaron from Zest. I'll be really upfront, this is a cold call. It is a well-researched cold call. Can I get 30 seconds to tell you why I called you specifically? If you don't want to, if you don't want to hear about it after that, throw your phone out the window. You never have to speak again. Does that sound fair enough?" That is literally that. Yeah. Or, or some iteration of that, essentially. And again, typically, if I've, I typically try and do that. All right. And that was that's me assuming that I haven't done too much research on them before I've cold called. If I've seen something that is a trigger, I'll mention the trigger there. So instead of saying, "It's a well, well-researched cold call," I'll actually give the context and saying, "I saw X, Y, Z. Can I get, can I tell you why that prompted me to call you specifically?" That's my iteration of it, I suppose.
Yeah. Nice. Well, I appreciate we've been speaking for nearly half an hour on topic number one, but before we do move on, I wanted to ask you around that permission-based opener. Because every time I've done it, and again, it goes back to what we said earlier about tone, cadence, etcetera, right? Every time I've done it, it's it's worked. It's it's got me to have a conversation with people. Why do you think people were so reluctant to have their consultants do it, or why do you think people just don't like them in general?
I think that people think it's probably a fad, is my, is my thought. Um, I also think as well, um, that in with certain types of people, it's so much about understanding your bio-context. That's why I have two, because I have different bio-context that will respond differently to different cadences, different ways of communication. Typically, again, there will be, there'll be outliers on on both. But yeah, and I think it's all over LinkedIn too, people are like, "Surely it's saturated." But the reality is, people aren't making cold calls anywhere near the volume that people think they are. That's my, that's my perception anyway. Like, I speak to sales leaders and they're like, "I've had four cold calls in the years." Like, that's just mental.
Yeah, I, I agree with you on that last part. I, I saw somebody on LinkedIn, um, post a video of them cold calling, and the opener was, "Hey Aaron, it's so and so. This is a cold call. I'm, or I'm really sorry, this is a cold call. Would you like to hang up now, or have you got 30 seconds?" And the person just immediately replied saying, "Mate, I literally told you I'm not interested yesterday." And he was like, "Oh, I, I actually haven't called you." "You literally called me with the exact same opener yesterday." And he looked in his system, he was like, "I've looked at my system, it wasn't myself." He was just like, "Mate, like, what are you calling about?" That you could just tell the guy was just like, [ __ ] say, because everyone is doing that exact same one now. What I liked about yours was, I like the funny part about like, after 30 seconds, if you don't, you can throw window, three window out the phone, you never have to speak to me. But just just a couple of different things in the intro around the research, like, "What prompted me to call you was X, Y, Z. Have you got 30 seconds?" And if you don't, if you don't like me after then, throw. Just that tiny bit of research immediately makes that permission-based opener slightly different.
Well, it's just not, it's not straight out of the box, is it? And and again, it also, it does illustrate that you've done a little bit of grunt work upfront before. It's not, it's like, you can't, they can't just be in a list and you, I can't use that permission-based opening if there's nothing that's prompted me to give them the call. It doesn't work, right? So that's the, that's the big thing. I can't, it can't just be a random cold call with no research. That's what it removes. And I think that's really the cold call that infuriates people. If somebody cold called me and they said, and it was something that was bespoke, I felt like they'd done a little bit of research, I'll definitely give them the time. Always, always. Like, what's the worst? Waste 30 seconds or a minute? It's like, come on, it's fine. A minute.
Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you said that, because episode two of my podcast is a solo session on me explaining why recruiters suck at cold calling in 2024. And section number one of that video was because people don't do any research. They have a list of 100 people and then just power through that list and wonder why they get no connects or no conversations, because you're doing no bloody research. But anyway, um, the second topic, it kind of goes into what we were speaking about in the first part. Um, I want to talk about your mindset shift when you went retained. Because you, you, you started off doing contingent work, right? A pretty traditional approach to recruitment. Talk me through your mindset shift when you went from contingent to retained.
To be honest with you, I just got, I had a, I had a year in like 2018 where, um, and again, every recruiter will experience this, where like, I looked at the amount of jobs that I'd won across the year, and had enough to do like double my targets. Like, 50% of the jobs that I won, I didn't feel. And that just really frustrated me that I'd wasted so much time. That coupled with the fact that as a wider business, at the time, we were just a little, we were trying to separate ourselves from the market. So we were trying to add in additional tools and actually try and productize a service. So that really helped me. I had a separate product that I could offer to market, and I was fed up with having my time wasted. So that just made for a recipe of just giving it a go. Um, and actually, like, I always, what I hear the most frequently from recruiters as to why they don't do it, is what happens if I don't fill the job? I was like, you do fill it. You just fill it. Like, because there's actually, there's actually commitment. Like, that's, that's the difference. I don't, I don't understand that. I never really understood it. Like, like, what? Because what we're not saying with the retainer is, I guarantee that I'm going to fill the job with the exact person that you give me the brief on on this call, Mr. Customer. That's not the commitment. The commitment is, I will fix the problem for you. That's really what we're saying. But that might need to iterate over time. But you can't, I don't, you can't iterate, or it's really difficult to iterate a process, or to get changes on spec, or how can you do that if you're competing with four people? Like, it's, you just can't. It's literally impossible. So that to me was the, the really big thing. The only other thing that it did for me as well, is it got me to really stress test my relationship with my existing customers as well. People said they love me. Do you love me enough to cut off everyone else and pay me some money upfront? The next time we have a surge. That was a really good lesson for me as well. So it was a combination of those things.
Yeah. Nice. It's, it's similar for me as well, right? Um, I lost out on a few placements because I was so particular with the type of person I was sending across my clients. I was very vigilant and detail-oriented with the spec. Probably the only thing I'm detail-oriented on in life, right? And sometimes my boss would sit there and be like, "What about Aaron Colmore? He's a decent fit." I'm like, "The client wants five years' experience, he's got four. Uh, his sales versus target, they're okay, but like, they want like a President's Club winner. So I don't know if I'm going to put him across." "Mate, just send him across and just send another candidate that's really, really good." I'm like, "But he's not exactly what they're looking for." Next thing you know, another agency sent them across, sold them well, and they've gone. "He's not really on spec, but we'll have an interview." Boss gets a job. And I was like, "Oh my God." So it really, really wound me up. And then I realized that when I transitioned to retained, I could do that. So I used to have a weekly call with every single one of my clients and say, "Look, there's a candidate here called Aaron. Like, we go on a video call, right? Or if we're on the phone, I say, 'Get your laptop up in front of you. Like, I want to open this guy's profile. I'm going to do it because we used to use the same thing as you. We did like video interviews and psych tests.' Before I do that, I have qualified him. I think he could be a good fit, but looking at the CV, it's not entirely 100% on spec. Here's why I think he could be good. Here's why I think he might not be good. What are your thoughts?" And nine times out of ten, the client will go, "I rate your honesty. I really, really love the fact you've done this. I think he's worth a shot. Let's see how he does on the video, and we'll interview them." And that for me, I was like, if now they've, I've planted a seed in their head, they're like, "That's a good candidate." Even if they're not off on spec. And also, so like what you were just saying there, you're constantly testing the spec, constantly trying to get flexibility, constantly challenging your client, which is what a recruitment consultant should do. You should be challenging your client and saying, "Actually, that's, you shouldn't be looking for that, you should be looking for this," or, "You should be opening up your budget. This is what your competitors are doing." I could go on about that for ages, but that's what I loved about it.
Yeah, you're bang on. You're bang on. You're absolutely right. It's, um, that is that is it to a tee. Yeah, 100%.
So what, what about your mindset shift? So for me, I loved having a product to sell in recruitment. Some of the best recruiters I worked with were like spec-out demons, but like very targeted. They have a very, very, very, very small niche. Like, one of my, um, mates done cardiology in the German sort of DACH region. He done sort of mid, mid to senior leadership type level roles. Yeah, very, very small market, very small market. So if he found a really good candidate, he's going to place him. So he just done spec outs. Yeah. For me, I loved calling clients, solving problems, and stuff like that. So like switching over to retained, I didn't really struggle so much. But for some people, there's that, you and I talk about this a lot, like the limiting belief in their head of like, a client's not going to pay me money upfront. Yeah. This, I didn't have that. So what do you think that is for certain people? Why do you think certain people have this mindset?
I think it comes back to the same thing that we spoke about earlier, just people not actually believing in the value that they offer. Um, and actually, when we started offering additional services and addition, or additional bolt-on to a contingent service, or even our exclusive offering was different. I just thought it was an absolute no-brainer. So I, again, I almost couldn't comprehend why people wouldn't give that, or why people wouldn't choose that. So I, I had like the inverse. I had the inverse effect. I was probably overly confident with with prospects and customers, um, rather than sat there wondering, like, why would anybody pay me? I thought, well, who wouldn't pay me if they, if they have this problem? I don't, again, and maybe this is like a chip on my shoulder, I didn't believe, or I don't believe, actually, that anytime I, if I actually offer the retainer, because bar mind, I've done loads of qualification to get there, and that's, I'm rolling them in, and they're rolling, I'm rolling them out, and they're rolling me out. If we got to the point that I'm actually pitching, I've genuinely believe that I'm the best person in the country, or even in the world, to fix, to fix that problem for you. That's my internal belief. Whether that is actually true in reality, I don't know. But that's, that's genuinely what I, what I talk, the self-talk I have, or what's actually ingrained in my head is, there's nobody better than me at fixing that problem for you. So I just, I can't comprehend why you wouldn't do that. So I didn't have that problem, Jen. But again, there were people in the team that that certainly did. And again, I think that it was just a, that's an iterative process that people were, that people went through. They would work on a retained project that they hadn't won before, they realized they could deliver it, they take feedback from that, and then they would roll it into doing it themselves. Like, so again, it's that whole, that whole social proof. Social proof. Spoke about the time I used to piss people off in my team so much when I was a sales manager, because they would have like a discovery call with a client and they'd go, "Yeah, they've got like three roles in Germany, one role in Austria, one role in Switzerland." And I've got, "That's got retainer project written all over it." They're like, "Doesn't have to be retained." Like, "You know, if I sell the retainer, I can't fill the roles." Going back to what you said there, so many people like, "What if I don't fill the role?" "You'll fill it." Like, also, if you take the job spec on and you feel like you're struggling, you're going to have a weekly checking call with the client. You can just educate them on how you're getting on, show them your LinkedIn project, show them how many people come up, show how many people in the database get get flexed on the project and go again. But that's got retainer written all over it. Like, and you guys are experts of this, because you've got what, 100% success rate on on on retained projects?
I had 100% success rate retained projects because it [ __ ] works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Genuinely.
And and and but so much of this right. I don't want what I don't want to happen is I don't want the, I don't want people that are listening to think I'm just going to pitch retain to everyone because that's, that's not what I'm saying. You have got to be really, really critical about who you take on as a customer if you're going to work with retain. Because if you take on a retain project with a company that you know is terrible, that you know pays below market, that it's just going to be an absolute nightmare for you, then you're, then you are setting yourself up to fail.
But my argument would be, you shouldn't work that contingently anyway. So the customers that you want to work with, if they're good, then they should be retained. If they're not retained, then actually they probably shouldn't be a customer because they're bad. That's my, that's my thought process. But, um, yeah, anyway, honestly, it's like we're psychic. It's like we're psychic.
'Cause that was going to be my next question actually, is like, how do you rule out a customer who should be retained and who shouldn't? But you, what you've just said there is masterful. If they're paying under market rate, if they got a terrible reputation, if you got a crap product, um, management is awful, retention rate is dreadful, and they're not willing to change any of that. Because don't give me wrong, I love a challenge, and I've worked with businesses before that have said, historically we have been awful at retaining staff, we've had terrible management, products weren't the best in the market, but here's how we're changing. If you're showing me that you're actually willing to change and saying, you educate me, Aaron, you're my recruiter, you're an extension of my brand, I'm paying you money up front, how can we go around retaining staff? How can we go around changing our culture? How can we go around paying better salaries? What are our competitors paying? How can we make our commission structure better? If you are showing me that and you're willing to pay me money up front, I'm going to work that job and I'm going to get you the best people in the market, for sure.
But that's my point is that like, I use the retainer pitch on those, in those situations to kind to rule it in or rule it out. If somebody is genuinely serious about fixing the problem, then actually a tiny investment up front is, again, and also what we're not doing, we're not asking. It's not additional. That's what, that's what, that's the other thing I think people think about. It's like, why would they? They're paying you the money to fill the job anyway. You're just taking a little bit of the money up front. Does matter that goes back into the mindset as well. That I, I always say this to people because I train so many companies and recruiters to to sell retainers and things like that. Like, think about it, be creative, right? Like when I used to get on a discovery meeting with a client or go to the commercial meeting with the client, they've got the HR Manager on there, the sales director on there, and they say, you know, we're a bit, bit funny about paying any sort of money up front. I'm like, right, okay. Let's just say the fee is 10 grand. You pay me two and a half grand up front, and then once we complete the project at the end of the month, it's 7 and a half k, right? If you want, we could do it however you want. So we could do two and a half grand up front, then we can do five grand upon completion of the project when they sign the contract, then two and a half grand once they pay, when they, once they pass their probation. And then I'll be super generous, and if they don't pass their probation, I'll do you a free replacement. And if I can't deliver the service I've promised you, if I can't find you candidates, if I'm not getting back to you, if I'm ghosting you, and I'm being like the recruiters that you've had in the past, well, I tell you what, then that two and a half grand up front, you can have that money back. But the only thing is, is if you change the brief, you change the hiring manager, you dick me around, then I'm keeping that money because I've invested my time into that. And you know what? Every time I explained it to a client like that, I had clients sometimes will do it in thirds, sometimes they'll say, can we just pay you a grand up front? Sure. Sometimes they'll say, can I pay 50% up front? It's just a [ __ ] commitment, that's what it is.
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. It's, to me, it's more, it's more, it's less about the actual money. It's more about just illustrating their intent to their intent or their commitment to the partnership. That's all I actually care about. And ultimately, there's skin in the game from both. Because there is, there is again, there is definitely more pressure for you to deliver on a retain project than there is on a contingent. If you can't fill a contingent job, who loses? No one, actually. The person that loses is the candidates normally in that scenario. But you don't really lose. You've wasted, you've wasted your time, but you knew that going into it anyway. And the client hasn't lost anything because they didn't expect you to fill the job anyway, which is why they haven't paid you anything up front.
Yeah, you're spot on, mate. There's two questions before I move on to the last topic. Um, I've got to say this out loud so I remember that I don't forget this. There's, um, three reasons why people won't pay for a retainer. That would be the question I'll go on to in a second. But the, the first question I wanted to ask you, you and I, when we have sold retainers, we have had, you know, video platform to to sell alongside it. We've had psychometric analysis. Now I work with companies and I've spoken to businesses that are advertising on the website, you know, they've got the, the contingent and then the retained. But then the retained project is basically just contingent but just with money up front. Yeah. So I find it, yeah, I find it difficult. Because look, I think if I, as a client, and let's just say for example, my coaching business explodes and I want to hire two L&D consultants and you're a recruiter that recruits directly for L&D consultants, but you didn't have any additional things, but you had a proven track record and said, Charles, that I only take on X amount of clients. If you pay me a grand up front for both of these positions, and I wet my ass off, maybe it's because of my bias, I obviously believe in retainers. I'd probably be more susceptible to go through with that. Yeah. But what, what is your opinion on companies that have like a retained offering but actually don't have like a product or thing that that kind of goes along with that retained?
My, my advice there would be, have two, two different things that you fix. So I would, like, the difference for me, I think I've said this, but then again, it say, we only sold for one. But when I was doing contingent and retain, I, we sold for two problems. With the first problem we solved for, if you just want quick CVs and it's just a talent purely, it's an attraction problem, do contingent, that's fine. If it's an assessment problem, then that's where you have to have retained. That's where it has to be retained because there is just more in investment from us from a time stamp. And again, that isn't just that we work harder, that's a materially we are going to sit with your hiring managers to help coach them through the right interview questions to ask, to actually a bit of an audit of your hiring process. That's something we massively undervalue. We've interviewed, I've interviewed more, I'd imagine, more candidates than probably any hiring manager in my market currently. I imagine I have. I've again, I've been in doing it for 10 years, so I probably have. But and that's something we really underestimate, um, value on. So there are things like, there's loads of things that we could do around, um, improving the questions that are that your hiring, that your hiring managers are asking. It's a lot of the stuff actually that internal TA teams do. So I think that work, that'll work really well with, um, with non TA teams. I don't know because I've never done this, I don't know how you would sell a retainer to a team that have internal TAs if you don't have anything that is objectively different to a contingent search. I, I could imagine that being pretty tough. But I think no TA team, that's what I would do. I would essentially just look at what a TA team is doing and I would do and I would try and fix that for them essentially.
That's, that's an interesting point. I think the only caveat to them having an internal team and try, you know, being quite strugglesome to to to pitch retainers to the, the only time where I think it won't be as difficult is if the company have the TA hiring office managers, administrators, you know, like low level stuff, but high volume. And now they have like a business development manager that's like 100k a year, etc. That's, that's where. But yeah, I, I totally agree. I think the, for me as well, this is this is really good. I always learn on these on these podcasts. That the biggest takeaway is that if you don't have a product to offer, um, and I think largely that that video, um, platform that you and I use, I mean, I've used Interviewer, Intro, or etc. Is that going to be best value for someone that recruits software developers and engineers? Maybe not. Um, probably not because they just sat at home like coding. For sales people, I think it's just, it's a no-brainer. But for you to then say, as part of the search, we'll sit down with all your senior management and understand and identify how they're hiring. And I spoke to a, um, E&I specialist yesterday who's coming on the show, and she was talking about utilizing that in your BD to, and this will go into your retain project of like, look, we've been upskilled on E&I. You might not be aware of your internal biases. Like I just said a moment ago about my bias would be like, retained, cool, I'll go for it. But some of these hiring managers, and look, I was that hiring manager as well. I sat down with a kid, similar sort of age to me, loved MMA. I was like, yeah, he's got the job. Yeah. What [ __ ]? That's my point. Like, and that's, and that's what, that's essentially when I talk about like fixing processes. I think that again, I think there, there is like elements of magic in recruitment, right? Or there's elements of magic when you hire a person. There should be that, that wow factor. But I also think that it should, you should have a predictable system to be able to accurately quantify, can this person actually do the job? Like, can they do the job to the standard that I want them to do the job? And then again, if they are an amazing, if they're an O, if they're a 10 out of 10 fit for culturally, that to me is a bonus. If, in in the right context, it's a bonus. But so much of it is hiring managers or hiring companies just going to market saying, hiring manager, your head of sales, run with it. Like they got a clue. They got a clue. They, again, if they've hired even if they've built four teams and those four teams are 30 people, so they've hired 60 people. People do people in McMan do that a year? And that's their whole, you've done that in your whole leadership career. It's like, you can't compete from a skills coupled with the fact that we get to, we can cherry pick all of the best bits from all of the other companies in their market. It's such an underrated thing that I just don't think people leverage enough. It's my, I'm going with it.
Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with you. I've, I've actually had the pleasure of sitting in face-to-face interviews and video interviews with clients and sometimes you see them asking questions and you're just like, what the [ __ ] is the point in this? Like, what, what type of question is that? You're absolutely right.
Well, last thing on the, the topic around retainers then, Aaron. Um, you said to me, and I've, I've taken this in, there's three reasons why a client won't work with you on a retained basis. What are the, the reasons why a client won't do that?
Typically red tape, which is stupidly rare, doesn't happen very often. The next thing is, to be fair, typically if they don't trust you. That's the, that's the, that's what it really boils down to. Is typically they don't trust you were able to fix the problem for them. Um, what did I tell you, Charles? What were the three? I told you. I want to see if I change them. You might have the last one. You said to me before was budget. So it's like the, the money thing. And, and, and what you said to me was similar to what you said about the red tape. So for, and this is, this is common with me as well, with a startup who doesn't necessarily have a lot of money, which nine times out of 10 is bollocks. They go, we don't have the money in the bank. I think that's [ __ ] because if I then placed the candidate with you today and I had to invoice you 10 grand, you'd find that 10 grand. But I'm asking you for a grand up front. That's why I always used to challenge that. The red tape is more common for like SMEs, not necessarily startups, because startups, you're dealing with a sales director who's like a co-founder, right? But for a mid-size business, and they go, right, the director of HR is based in Amsterdam, the VP of HR is based out in San Francisco, and the Chief People Officer is also based out in San Francisco. We also need to get signed off by the FD in Amsterdam, the MD in the UK. That's like, okay, do you know what? I might as well just get some gentleman's agreement to to just work on this exclusively. Because by the time I get this money up front, it's just like a waste of time. But the main one is the trust. Yeah, that's really what it boils down to. A lot of it. So much of it. All of that can be underpinned by trust. And, and again, even with the red tape one, like we recently signed one with a business that are massive, bit like, I don't know, billions and billions and billions, huge company. And that took, I'm going to say, we started speaking to them in September of last year. And again, we could have taken that in, yeah, we could have taken that in January or February of this year and just worked it. But we didn't. We held fast because again, we looked at the big problem. Their big problem was it needed that really, it genuinely needed our retained service. But again, and that took calls with people from again, Amsterdam, Germany, France, England, like all over. But that was, sometimes it is worth doing that. So I don't want people to think again, just rule it out if it's red tape. Again, you have got to use a bit of common sense or a bit of sense there. But yeah, but basically in my mind, all of it is underpinned by, I don't trust you, really. That's why I think the main focal point is. And the reason they don't trust you typically could be either you're selling to the wrong person, it's genuinely not a big enough priority or problem for them, so they're just like, not interested, or you just haven't done a good enough job at educating them on why you are the person to fix it. That's really what it boils down to.
Yeah, I think it's really important to take accountability because I, I had a phenomenal track record at pitching and selling retainers. And I had a load of people come in and sit in the face-to-face pitch with clients and people would always come out with a notebook full of notes like, oh my God, that was incredible. I love the question you ask here, etc. But obviously, I've had times where I've pitched services and and retainers where clients have come back and said, you know what, we're going to go with this other agency or or whatever. And in my mind, and you and I are very similar, I'm like, they're mental not to work with me. I'm the best at this. I know everyone in this market. The product I have to offer is unreal. But you have to take your ego aside for a moment and go, okay, there must have been something I've done there that wasn't up to scratch. Or maybe I forgot to ask a certain question. Maybe I didn't find out the bad news. Like, what could I have done differently? And I think these days, any companies that have invested in tech where you can watch your video meetings back, listen to your calls back. I know so many recruiters these days that do that and they listen back to their calls religiously and you just see them improve.
Of course, of course, of course. That's, uh, yeah, 100%. I think that's a, it's a really important thing from a, a learning standpoint because actually, when you're in the moment, it's really difficult to remember what you've said when you're actually focused on the conversation to remember, did I ask that question? Didn't I ask that question? Or unless you have a really like formula way of selling, it's quite difficult to to do. And even then, you should still listen back because you can still make iterations, even if it is a formulated process.
Yeah, 100% mate, 100%. And well, look, um, conscious of time. The last topic I wanted to go through with you because I think, you know, from from where I've been working with you, I've certainly learned a lot about different approaches to BD and a unique approach to BD. We kind of talked a little bit about your approach to start with. But what, what I've written down here is that your sort of approach to business development, you start off with a potential cold call or warm call, just essentially you call them. Right? Then there's a discovery meeting, and then you have like the sales pitch, then you've obviously got the sending proposal, then you've got like closing. So there's like a variety of different steps. Now, as someone that's like a, you know, top biller expert in that sort of area, I wanted to kind of get you to break down those, those steps. Don't need to be too long because I think a lot of recruiters these days, and to be honest, I was certainly like this when I was in my early 20s, you expect that you call a client up and they answer the phone and then, boom, you've sold a retainer or, boom, you've got a job on and then you get CVs and you're hitting your KPIs. Doesn't work like that. Um, it takes some time. So just tell us or talk us through what your sort of typical approach is to going and winning a new client.
Yeah, cool. So I think you kind of, you kind of nailed it there. But the reality is, my first step is a cold call of some description. It could be, could be deemed as a warm call. Um, but that call, I think I've mentioned a couple of times in this conversation, is purely just to understand, do they even have a problem that I fix? That's all I want to identify. Is that problem large enough for them to want to spend half an hour with me to understand a little bit deeper, I suppose? Then I'd go to a discovery call. Um, I try and get that done pretty quickly. I try and get that done really within 48 hours if possible. It's not always possible, but that's my ideal because I want it to still be pretty fresh. If I can find half an hour in the next 48 hours, that conversation is genuinely just a more structured time where I can actually ask deeper questions, really try and understand not only what the problem is, but the wider impact of that problem. Um, and then I try and get them to commit to agreeing that it's a problem worth solving. Um, if they agree it's a problem worth solving, I then move on on to the second stage. I usually at that stage in the discovery stage, I also try and find out who else, who else is impacted by this. And then I try and have conversations with them in between. So I usually try and leave a week. Is it ideal? A week in between discovery in presentation? Because that gives me enough time to maybe have a couple of other discovery type calls with the VP of marketing or, uh, the CEO, whoever else might be involved in it, right? And then I try and get everyone together for that meeting that's a week later. And there I am, typically presenting, understand is, has anything changed? Is this still a problem? Do we still want to fix this? Great. Let me give you an overview on how we fixed it. This is really just an a run through of our platform, our product, some case studies, testimonials, that sort of stuff. Asking, answering any questions. And then I essentially move forward. W I try and get some sort of verbal commitment as well there on price, or I mention price normally in that conversation, so it's not a complete shot to them. Then I send a proposal with, uh, actually what I do after that is I send individual follow-ups to everybody saying, thank you for your time. This is really useful. These are the key things I think might be interesting to you. Here's some information that might help you. I'll get a proposal over collectively to everybody at this time. Then I send proposal. Then the proposal goes. And then I can follow up with my champion, usually to try and help get things pushed over and closed. And that's the process.
Yeah, nice. And how long does that, that process typically go on for? Obviously, you mentioned by the way, we're recording this today in September, and Aaron, earlier in the show, literally said that he's just sold a retainer when he spoke to them, what, last September, right? Yeah. So obviously, not always does it take that long. But typically, if you follow this process and it's going fairly well, how long will that typically take?
I think that you can add three customers in 90 days. I think from a standing start, 90 days. 90 to 90 to like, yeah, nine, yeah, about three months is my would be my my suggestion. And I think it could, yeah, three accounts in three months. But I wouldn't be looking at like one in every month. It would be more like, I think that there's a really good chance that you will close three in late month two, early month three, is what I would imagine, rather than closing one in month one, one in month two, one in three. Um, but typical, my typical, the hardest bit is actually finding people at the right time. Is finding on that cold call, finding them when they're in the right time to actually want to make that change. That's the hardest thing. But once somebody's there, then typically like two or three weeks from there.
Yeah, it's honestly, this job, that's the most savage part of it. I always say to people like, especially recruiters that are struggling, they're like, you know, they've made 300 dials and they've got no connects and no one wants to speak to them. Mate, this job, your life can change after one call. And you hear recruitment founders say this to their staff all the time, like, your life can change after one call. And so many recruiters that haven't had that one call yet have no idea. And for me, my my fondest memory was like slogging away, working a bunch of contingent jobs. And one of my, um, good mates that I worked with, Jack, literally called me about 5:00 on like a, I think it was in February 2017. And he goes, mate, I've just had an interview with this company. I'm not going to take it. But the hiring manager, she's awesome. I think you could really, really help her out. She's really been struggling. He texted me her mobile number. I called her. I caught her in the most peak client pain you could ever think of. Her sales director from Italy came all the way down to come and interview. Five out of the 10 people never turned up. Three out of the other people weren't actual talent people. She's obviously interviewed this guy that she wanted to offer, but he's took a job with another blue chip. So she had all the pain in the world. That account turned out to it generated 250 grand in that year alone because we'd done their entire team building. It was my first proper, proper retained account. So honestly, like what Aaron's just saying there about how things can take time and all the rest of it, you have to be patient. Sometimes it is a lot of catching people at the right time. But if you're making the cold calls, which unfortunately not many recruiters are doing that at the moment, if you're making those cold calls and you're doing the research and actually making sure that you've got better quality than quantity. But then also, I always say to people, if your quality is good and you're still not getting results, you still need to up the quantity a little bit. Then eventually, you can make one phone call and your life can change. It really can.
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. That is, uh, yeah, bang on, bang on. You are, you are always one call away from changing your week, month, quarter, year, life. So just keep your head down, keep, keep plugging away. Again, not saying that in in going to be like, just keep, keep going. There's, there's obvious, if it's not working and you've tried something for three months, then tweak it. Like, don't just, don't just go on aimlessly. But I think people massively underestimate the amount of amount of touch points and the amount of conversations that are nos to actually get that actually get that yes. And I, I think we said it, it is a, if you're super attached to that person saying yes or no to you every time you call, call somebody, it just, mentally it would just break you or emotionally it would break you. But yeah, I'm, for maybe I'm just fortunate, but it doesn't, doesn't bother me thankfully.
Yeah, well, you've also done it for a long time, right? I think a lot of people when they get into recruitment, especially people that get into recruitment are very young, right? And people don't really understand how their own mind works, how their emotions work, how their state changes their physiology, how it changes your tone. You know, now it gets to a point where, you know, I'm sat at home in my home office by myself. I have to do my own business development by myself. Do you know how many times I've had clients sit there and be like, mate, I'm working with this person or no, I'm not interested or [ __ ] off. I've had that a couple of times, which is odd. And because I've had so much rejection in my life, it's just like water off a duck's back, you know what I mean? So it's just, it's just reps, it's just a muscle, basically.
Um, but look, we're coming to the end of the show then, Aaron. So the question I ask everybody at the end of the show is, following today's episode, what can people do to be 1% better in recruitment?
It's a great question. My, my thought is, is I would, two things. I, I would either pick, um, really get really diligent on the problem that you're fixing. Really think about the problem that you're fixing and then take that to market and see if that actually works. The second thing would be probably what we mentioned right at the end. Don't try not to get hung up on the rejection and all the rest of it and just keep your head down and keep going. And I think enough, if enough people just keep going, then over time, with small tweaks and improvements, you'll be more than 1% better.
Absolutely incredible. Love it. Well, Aaron, thank you very much for, uh, for coming on. Honestly, it's been one of my favorite episodes and I don't say that to everyone. Honestly, like I said this at the start, no, I said this at the start, didn't I? Like, every single time you and I sit down, we we end up having just phenomenal conversations. We're obviously both very passionate about the recruitment industry. And, you know, I've obviously worked with yourselves and Callum. Callum was one of my first clients. And I remember the first time I met him, I said, I've looked at your website and looked at your LinkedIn and I showed him my phone and it said, trying to change the perception of recruitment. And we both looked at each other and was like, oh mate, this is a match made in heaven. So honestly, I genuinely think anyone that listens to this is going to take incredible, incredible amounts of value. You're someone that even I take a lot of value from and I learn from. I've even learned on this show, for goodness sake. So thank you very much for coming on. You mentioned obviously for people wanting to reach out to you, what's the best way to to reach out?
LinkedIn. Hit me up. LinkedIn's fine. Yeah. Hit me up. Awesome. I'm always, always happy to help.
Love it. Love it, mate. Thank you very much. And, uh, yeah, hope everyone enjoyed the show and take care. Thanks. Say.