Louise: 0:00

Welcome to Retrained Search the podcast, where we lift the lid on what it's really like to work retained, discuss the stories we've gathered along the way and give you all a peek behind the scenes of our amazing community and how they're getting ahead. Hello Jordan, hello, how are you? Welcome to this week's episode of Retrained Search the podcast. Everyone listening and of course to Jordan as well.

Jordan: 0:33

Yeah, it's been a few weeks since we last recorded one right.

Louise: 0:36

I know, because a few things have happened, haven't they?

Jordan: 0:39

They have.

Louise: 0:39

You became a daddy.

Jordan: 0:41

I did, I did. Gia was born 27th of August, just after 12 o'clock, after a pretty traumatic morning, but we're all here, we're all alive and she's perfect.

Louise: 0:59

Oh, she is perfect. I can vouch for that. I've met her codder. Didn't want to put her down, didn't want to give her back. It's so nice, I'm so happy for you, jordan, welcome to the wonderful world of parenting, although you've already experienced part of the impact of parenting, haven't you?

Jordan: 1:18

Yeah, sleep deprivation is a thing. It is a thing. And now you know, you told me it'd be a thing and I can't hold you. I can confirm it is a thing.

Louise: 1:30

It is a thing, it really is a thing. And there's another thing isn't there. You now know why I don't have any memories.

Jordan: 1:37

Well, yeah, I was saying to you, wasn't I, luke, that it's just incredible. I don't remember, like two hours ago, and I don't know why, because all I'm doing is changing dirty nappies and feeding bottles, but I don't know whether I'm coming or going, I don't know what day it is. What I had for my tea last night, yeah, it takes up a lot of mind space, that's for sure.

Louise: 2:00

Well, I used to be embarrassed by the fact that I don't have any memory and every time someone says now, Louise, do you remember? And then they go stupid question, stupid question, and you guys don't even ask me anymore. And I'm not embarrassed by it anymore because it just is what it is.

Jordan: 2:19

And actually I said yesterday in the call with David Wilson home, who everybody knows that we adore and actually we've just been talking about doing getting our events sorted in Australia next year.

Louise: 2:30

We were talking about that yesterday.

Jordan: 2:31

So very excited to be doing that. Yeah, big plans, it's exciting.

Louise: 2:35

Yeah, it is very big plans and I was saying to him actually it's quite nice having no memory, because it's like a goldfish, like you experience the joy all over again and like I'll read something that I wrote like a year ago and go, oh, that's really good. Or like, hear about something that I did or said and think, oh yeah, that's quite interesting and it's nice to like and I don't know, just nuggets of information that you forget, that you then remember and you realise. Anyway, there we go, so you become how much you're playing down your lack of memory.

Jordan: 3:05

I remember something I did a year ago. No, I'll be the realist here. Lou will speak to someone yesterday and then we'll say to the team you spoke to John Smith and we'll go you about eight hours ago.

Louise: 3:25

Oh, but I'm very loving and kind and caring and you know, there's other things I'm good at.

Jordan: 3:30

There is. There are lots of other things.

Louise: 3:32

So, anyway, let's move on from my downfalls, and congratulations to you, george, for becoming a daddy.

Jordan: 3:39

And I miss you a lot and I'm very glad that you're back.

Louise: 3:42

That's what I'll say. I'm glad that you're back.

Jordan: 3:44

Yeah, I'm writing off a car in the process.

Louise: 3:47

Oh shit, yeah, Tell everyone the story.

Jordan: 3:49

Yeah. So my wife had said to me three week, the baby came two and a half weeks early and she said I think we should go to North Wales for the bank holiday weekend. I said I'm not sure that's the best idea, considering it's two and a half hours away. And she said I'm not due to give birth for two and a half weeks, which I said oh yeah, because nobody's ever given birth two and a half weeks early, have they? That would be a first. Not, we agreed we would just go for the Saturday and Sunday when the traffic wouldn't be bad, because I wanted to make sure I'm going to apologize to any Welsh listeners that we might have I wanted to make sure we got back across the border and I wanted my daughter to be English. So we agreed we'd go for the Saturday and Sunday.

Jordan: 4:33

At 4am in the morning my wife called George. George, I think my walls are broke. We stayed very, very calm, very calm, loaded up the car. Two and a half hour drive home. We'll be back in Warrington by half seven. The baby can be born in Warrington and six, seven minutes into the journey this 50 foot tree falls into the road on top of the car. Cars are right off. I'm stood on the side of the road with the police officer and my wife next to me, who's water's broken. It was all very traumatic, but very me is what I'd say. There's the type of thing that would happen to me, any of our listeners who are watching on video. I'm going to show you a little picture of said car. You can kind of see it there.

Louise: 5:24

Oh, can you?

Jordan: 5:26

I don't know if you can like hold it still.

Louise: 5:28

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if you can see that it is a big tree. I can vouch for that. I mean I can laugh now because you're okay, but thank God it didn't like fall actually on you, because it was like just in front wasn't it Just in front, slammed on, we kind of skidded into it, but it showed my commitment to work.

Jordan: 5:46

I think when the first thing I texted in the work group chat in the morning was, have I got a story to tell on the podcast.

Louise: 6:01

Okay, right, we've got some stuff to share with our listeners, haven't we? Because we've had some incredible things happening and I wanted to do that. We're going to share some wins of the week to give everybody a little bit of lightness and share the joy, so let's see whether I can actually do this.

Jordan: 6:25

I've got complete faith in you.

Louise: 6:26

There we go. Can you see that?

Jordan: 6:30

Yeah, I can see it now. Remember, we've got to read out the whole thing.

Louise: 6:32

Awesome. Yes, I do need to read the whole thing because I know a lot of you are listening on audio and not watching the video, so this one is a little message. I think this came through the school group.

Jordan: 6:44

It was an email? Oh, it was an email. Was it an email? Okay, yeah, it was a email.

Louise: 6:48

It says Dear Louise and Jordan, I had chance to review part of the material you created for modules one on two and I must admit it's really impressive.

Louise: 6:57

Thank, you very much for admitting that. I was two decades in HR and talent acquisition. I can tell you this material is a gold mine. Thank you very much indeed. Yes, indeed, it is Regarding the sales module, which I was particularly interested in. Even though I went through it quite quickly, I can tell you that it's exactly what I needed. Thank you, in big letters Talk to you soon. And that is from one of our members that's only just joined. I think he must have watched it pretty quickly because it's only a few days yeah.

Louise: 7:25

Yeah, absolutely, and then, yes, this is an interesting one. So this is a chap he's based in God. Where is he? I can't remember where he is now. He's like he's a nomad, like you know, traveling. It goes where the wind takes him.

Louise: 7:49

Really, really nice, very entrepreneurial guy, very good at recruitment and doing incredibly well, but wanted to develop, basically just wanted to get better. He says Hi, louise, sorry for not having been active here in the community so much, because he started the course and I didn't actually hear from him for a few weeks. And he said I'm happy to tell you that so far I've done a six times return on my investment. I mean that's bloody good going in a few weeks. The variable is I'm not doing any retained search. So I thought, oh, that's a bit strange. Oh, dear, what's going on here? And then he says just intelligence gathering in two industries that I found on a working well for me, which is really interesting because I've had quite a lot of people winning intelligence pieces recently, compensation benefits, because I did quite a bit of that when I was with Armstrong Craven. I tend to do, you know, I'm helping people about and suggesting it all the time. And yeah, so he says I'm very busy between this work events and I'm attending, but so far I found just what I'm looking for. It's a very different journey, but I am made for this. Isn't that nice? It's so nice when you discover pieces of work that aren't recruitment and they're not, you know, a single search mandate, and they don't actually involve making hires, and still get really well compensated for it. I really liked that.

Louise: 9:14

And then, yes, another one, one of our mastermind members who was in Dubai. We talked on stage maybe a couple of times in Dubai about winning work from the search that you're already working on, and so many people have been doing that since then. So we've just had the sign proposal taking on board what was discussed in Dubai. We've just had the sign proposal back on a follow on retainer worth 15k. It was all discussed in the post search feedback meeting. It's only a 35k salary, but they really liked the process and 15k was the lowest fee. We would agree to take it on to apply the process. That stuff was magic. So that's nice, isn't it? Are you still with me, jordan? Just checking?

Louise: 10:02

And then, yes, so Aaron has just announced that he's excited to share that, after a long and arduous process, my first proper retained project is creeping towards the finish line and in fact, since then I've seen the celebration of it being completed, navigated various obstacles and disagreements between stakeholders, and it happens, but if you don't have the retainer, it's very difficult to navigate and have ended up with two finalists and they've indicated they would like to hire the second choice if the first doesn't accept. That's just bloody perfect, isn't it? That's exactly what you want, and an offer is being prepared. As I write, as an added bonus, the HR director told me they have another, more senior position coming up which they'd like to apply the same model, and he says awesome. So that's really nice.

Louise: 10:53

There's a few more, but that was the only ones I had time to get ready for you. So I wanted I just wanted everyone to hear and see those this week, because I know the market is still a little bit slow for some people and you just don't need to worry about it. Like, get out there. If you're using techniques and methods that other people aren't using, then you will win. You will win work. If you're just doing the same as everybody else, it's going to be a lot harder. So, jordan, what have you been up to? What have you been helping people with this week?

Jordan: 11:27

Yeah, quite a bit. One of the things that was a very hot topic in the Coal Lab call last week was, I suppose, a level of apprehension around selling retain to existing customers, people that they've worked with for a long time, that I've good relationship. Specifically, one of our newer members had said I've got this customer that they're an absolute cash cow. They give me so much business on a contingent basis I'm a little bit scared to rock the boat. Yeah, I'm a little bit scared to change that relationship out of fear that I'll lose it. And what would I do? And it kind of took me to something that you always say right, that initially with customers they don't have to marry you. When we try and sell retain, let me try and win retain business. They don't have to give it us all everything. All you're looking for is an opportunity to demonstrate, create capability to demonstrate the process, to show them why this is so much better.

Jordan: 12:27

The way that I did it when I was converting my old contingent client is I would start with one of two things either a a vacancy that I'd been working on on a contingent basis and I wasn't able to deliver on that basis, because it's a really logical conversation explaining to the customer why, when working at risk, I've reached the end of what I'm able to do commercially. Is it viable for me to go any further? But I can absolutely help you solve the problem if you can commit financially to me. The other option is go into that customer and asking them what's the hardest thing you've got on the desk at the moment, what's the one position that's causing you most pain, whether it's something you've worked on before or not and solving that problem for them.

Jordan: 13:16

Because, if you solve the problems that keeping them awake at night nobody else is solving. That's how you'll build partnerships that will stand the test of time, and I found that working on a retained basis allows you to solve problems that the contingent model just doesn't.

Louise: 13:36

Yeah, yeah it does. And actually it reminds me that of the. I was in Coventry with Wreck Talk, the podcast this week last week actually and it was great to be there and it was great to talk to Nitin and it's recorded and it's going to be released soon. But he was saying to me but how, like, I don't get. You know, most people work their backside off on a contingent basis and they haven't or they haven't been able to solve it on a contingent basis. What difference does it make If it's retained, like with the best one in the world?

Louise: 14:12

I don't like taking retainers because what difference is it going to make? And that, for me, is one of the biggest like barriers for a lot of people. They think, well, I don't want to commit to that because actually I'm not sure what I can do. And I explained to him like sometimes what the financial commitment allows you to do is to go further, allows you to go deeper, allows you to prioritise that, that position in the certainty that you've got that commitment and will make the full faith right.

Louise: 14:46

So it's worth taking your time and that means that you sometimes find people that you wouldn't find on a contingent basis, because you can carry out a thorough and meticulous headhunting exercise, whereas you might not have been able to do that if you were working on 10 different jobs on a contingent basis at the same time right.

Louise: 15:04

But sometimes that isn't the case and more often than not, the reason that you're able to solve a problem on a retained basis that you can't solve on a contingent basis is because of the position you're able to put the client in and the way you're able to carry out the project, because you're able to be fully transparent and you're able to share the journey with the client all the way along the way, collecting the evidence, collecting the intelligence and having the opportunity to restere it, depending on what you find. You're able to put the client in the position at the end of the project where they're making their decision from everything that is available to them and they are certain and that's why, in a retained basis, they so often hire a candidate that they wouldn't have hired on a contingent process because it gives them the confidence and the evidence to be able to do that, knowing it is the very best option that is available to them.

Jordan: 15:59

And it gives you, as the recruiter, the ability to drive them to that result and to influence their thinking in the right way. And that's just in my experience. That's a level of control that I never had when working on a contingent basis.

Louise: 16:16

Exactly, exactly. So that's cool. What have I been helping people with? There's two main things that I've been helping people with this week. One is compensation benefit studies. So lots of our members are finding their clients are struggling with comp and bans, that they're either getting counter offers or they're getting offers rejected, or they're getting people internally saying I'm not compensated well enough and I'm gonna leave unless you pay me more money and they don't actually know what the market is paying.

Louise: 16:43

There's no data out there with the specific skill sets that they are hiring for, whether it's, you know, some of it's not particularly Xenia, but it's specific skill sets like I don't know Xamarin or whatever the the or C++ engineering or sub C electrical engineering, whatever it might be, and there's no actual data out there for them to compare. That's live and accurate. And before you commence a search, if a client knows that they've got some challenges around C and B or you know they've got challenges around C and B, it doesn't make sense to carry out a full search because you run the risk against the end of the project and the more under offering and the candidate rejecting it. It makes much more sense for you to carry out an exercise of gathering intelligence and I think you can identify talent along the way. So I always suggest that we carry out the mapping first, collect all the data information and then decide whether we're going to proceed to the next stage, and that in itself is a C and B study and charged for. So we've got quite a few people carrying out those exercises that may or may not turn into full searches and but they're really loving it. And so I've just been helping them with how to present the data, what to share with the client and when, and how to put it in a nice clean report and that the stakeholder can then take to the board to get the approval they need for the sign off of the salary range increase in salary range usually that they need to to be able to then move forward with the rest of the projects. So that's been a nice thing that I've been helping people with.

Louise: 18:10

And the other thing that I've been yeah, no, yeah, it's nice, it's really nice. And every time I see someone like oh, my god, I've just won a little C and B study, like yeah, that's great because it really opens the door to a much more strategic relationship. Like one of our members, harriet, was saying that the relationship with the client is just so good. They said they've never done anything like this before, they've never had anybody work like this with them before and they're absolutely loving it. Like every time they meet together they've got new ideas on what they want to do next, and so she's really loving that.

Louise: 18:39

And the other thing that I've been helping people with is video outreach. So we're doing a lot of business development and a lot of digital marketing work with our members at the moment and it's paying great dividends. And what's working really well at the moment is video outreach whether you're using like a short loom video and keeping it simple, or whether you're using something more sophisticated, like an Odro, which we really like and lots of our members do a little short clip, really personalised to the stakeholder or the candidate to say hi, I really like the lucky profile, I really like what you're doing.

Louise: 19:15

I wanted to reach out because I know just that you're doing this and we've just done this and I'd love a few minutes to find out a bit more about about you. And then there's a nice little link to the calendar and people are getting really good responses and, in fact, what I didn't show actually one of the that was I wanted to talk a little bit about our email outreach, because that is working really well at the moment and I meant to show you which I'll read out again yes, so Rob, in our mastermind shared. Happy Friday everyone. I hope you're all having a great week, sharing a win this week as we want to CEO role his first CEO assignment with a client based out of the UK. This was a new client, although we did have a contingency role with them back in 2020 through the CEO then now replacing.

Louise: 20:09

We've been in communication recently with the non-exec chairman through our speculative candidate mailer that we send out weekly that generates conversations, capabilities, possible leads in the occasional interview. So this is my first CEO mandate taking on myself. The opportunity came, so keep pursuing. It came from these mailers generating conversations. You never know what could just be around the corner. So I wanted to share that, because lots of people say that email marketing doesn't work for C-suite positions. And it bloody does mmm yeah anyway.

Louise: 20:46

So just because it made me chuckle you, mentioned Harriet.

Jordan: 20:50

Harriet came on one of the pitch coaching sessions last week and said right, I've been really busy, I'm gonna get back on the BD train, gonna get out there and win some roles and you know I need some new mandates and came on the call and 18 minutes later probably message me saying well, that was great, came off the call, called someone one retainer.

Louise: 21:24

I was easy, I love it, I love it, and so we've always got, we've always got good stuff going on and we're always helping people, not just with the good stuff, but sometimes people hit stumbling blocks, they hit hurdles, and we're there to hold the hand and we help everyone through through it. So we sometimes talk about links in controversies at this stage and there was something that I wanted to raise that I saw in the last week or so, which was a post talking about how you don't always need to sell on pain and that it isn't, doesn't need to be that a customer is having, you know, pain in order to be able to, in order to be able to sell something to them. And, jesus, you should have seen the comments. There was so many like I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds of comments. It got a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of traction.

Louise: 22:21

I was like this is interesting, because I've always found that selling on pain is a really effective way of selling and actually, maybe you can sell in a different way, but selling on pain has always worked so well for me. Why would I? Why would I not do it? And and and I was thinking I wonder what the comments say. Are they agreeing with this guy? Are they saying like, yeah, you're right, you don't. And it was exactly the opposite. It was exactly the opposite and, almost unanimously, everybody that had commented had said that that isn't. That isn't true. Even when a customer is buying something that's perceived as a better what I mean what the post was saying, that that basically, you don't need to sell on someone's problems. It could just be better, it could just be a better service. And and they were saying that, even if you're selling it as a better service, it's because it's solving the problems that the current service that it's that it's an improvement and therefore the pain is moving away from whatever isn't quite right.

Louise: 23:27

Exactly yeah, exactly that's exactly it. And even if I don't know, you're buying a. I don't know like. I'm having my drive done at the moment, so I'm having somebody do my drive.

Louise: 23:41

That's because my drive at the moment is shit and it's really muddy as you know, because you know it's a loose house and it's white trainers very, very muddy yeah and and I didn't you know, and yeah, okay, I'm doing it to get better, but the reason is there's there's pain there in the first place and and so it was really interesting the debate, and I just I couldn't agree more like do you have a feeling about that, jordan? What your thoughts.

Jordan: 24:05

I think sometimes people don't like the word pain. They feel like there's negative connotations with selling pain. But actually, for me, whether you want to call it pain, whether you want to call it providing solutions to customers, it doesn't really matter. It always takes me back to something that our good friend, dave Walston, home, told me, which is the word sell comes from. I think it's from Latin origins many years ago and it means to serve, and I feel like when we have conversations with customers, it's about providing solutions to their problems and by doing that we are serving them. Now, yeah, there are other occasions sometimes. Sometimes we were we. We pitch retained because the contingent model isn't working for us and it's actually us that's in pain. But for me, if you are pitching for retained business or trying to pitch for anything without there being a need for it or without trying to solve a problem for either you or for the customer, I would argue, the moral compass is maybe a little askew at that point.

Louise: 25:18

Yeah, yeah or all that. It's just not going to be that effective, and I love that. I love that that you've just shared about the word sell, I never knew that, and the one that I always come back to is and I do know I can't remember where I where I actually first heard it but that all professional services are solutions. Every single professional service is a solution that a client buys to solve their problems. Now, I don't know where that's come from. I will go away and have a look and see if I can find out where it's come from, but even if you're, if you're getting a lawyer, that's because you need to arbitrate a discussion between two parties or, you know, take someone to court to claim back money or whatever it might be. If you need an accountant, it's because you need to have your accounts prepared, ready to submit to HMRC, and you don't have the skill set to do it yourself, so that in itself is a solution to a problem.

Jordan: 26:21

How often have somebody sat at home and gone? I really fancy a, really fancy retaining a lawyer, not for any reason. Really fancy a lawyer. I might go and get an accountant while I'm at it.

Louise: 26:37

I just really fancy a lawyer, right? Yeah, I know, and so that's where I went with it. Anyway, I think we're in agreement. I'm, I'm in agreement and, to be fair, like I think, I've always found that there's enough problems out there to be able to just go around solving problems and provide solutions to people with very little resistance to, to, to, to be able to being able to do that without having to try and push you know up hill and try and push something on someone that somebody doesn't really need.

Jordan: 27:10

You're right. Even the customers that aren't in pain now, that don't need my help now, I, honestly, I, I am, I wholeheartedly believe that the contingent model is a ticking time bomb, and if they don't need my help now, it's only a matter of time before there's one particular mandate that's causing them real pain that isn't being solved. At some point they're going to need a solution.

Louise: 27:38

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the other thing that came up and it reminds me of the other thing we were talking about I was talking about with Rectork and that is that he was saying in this market, though, you know, there are so many recruiters and they're all falling over themselves for business.

Jordan: 27:56

Yeah.

Louise: 27:56

Everybody will work on an on a contingent basis. Nobody is is saying that they have to have money upfront and clients can pick and choose. And they've even got candidates coming to them direct to like why on earth, how on earth do you sell a retainer in that situation? You know they just don't need to. And that's valid too. Like I have to take a deep breath when people, when people ask me stuff like that.

Jordan: 28:22

But it was like okay, where do I start? It was a really easy podcast. You know just some nice easy questions to handle.

Louise: 28:32

Oh, my God Jesus.

Louise: 28:34

I was like I came out and I was so hot. I was like, oh my God, I feel like I've like. I feel like I've like run a marathon, but it was. They're great questions, but they're just such big questions that I've got to, I've got to kind of go back and think how, how can I explain this in the clearest possible way? And the way that, the way that I explained that is what you've got to.

Louise: 29:01

What you've got to remember is just because a client has got hundreds and hundreds of recruiters at their disposal and candidates come into them directly, it doesn't mean that they're having a good time. It doesn't mean that they're getting what they want when they want it and that it's an enjoyable process. In fact, having been in house and having been in that situation myself and having known many, many, many HR and talent acquisition present professionals over the years and I know because I used to recruit them, I did it for several years at Hudson and I've still got close relationships with people in that arena now I can tell you that they're not necessarily having a good time. And actually we're in a market like this where there's so many recruiters banging on the door. They're getting bombarded with speculative CVs, candidates that aren't right recruiters banging down the door because they're desperate for jobs on and desperate for revenue, and it's actually pretty horrible and when you do need something, you can't see the wood for the trees. It's very difficult to filter. As soon as you put an advert out, you get absolutely bombarded and the retained search solution, even for junior, mid, mid level positions, even if it's not particularly seen, a, solves all that.

Louise: 30:17

It solves all of the challenges that are related with the noise, the the hustle of constantly being bombarded by recruiters. So the main question that you want to ask is not what's the market doing and will the client buy it based on this market, but ask your clients directly how's it going? Are you getting what you want when you want it, and is it a relatively enjoyable process? And if they say yes, fine, let them do what they're doing, because most people aren't, and say, well, like that's great news, keep doing what you're doing. Having asked that question of every single client that I've met for the last 10 years, I can't remember any of them answering that question with a yes, it's always.

Louise: 31:02

It doesn't matter what my kind of market is and I've been through several downturns, a massive oil price crash it doesn't matter what market you're operating in. Clients will be having problems and they will be having challenges, and whatever's going well for them, leave it well alone. If that's going well for you, carry on. Talk to me about the areas that it isn't going so well, whether it's that they're getting bombarded and it's too noisy, or whether it's like tumbleweed. And even for some of the most difficult skill sets at the moment, the candidates are very thin on the ground.

Jordan: 31:32

Or whether it's that they need information or it holds the things right. And actually the proof is in the pudding For every customer over the years that I have transitioned from contingent to retained. There isn't a single one of them that has gone back to working contingently once I've had the opportunity to demonstrate that we're taking to it. No same for me Not one.

Louise: 31:58

Yeah, and in fact, the thing that you get is why didn't you tell me about this before?

Jordan: 32:04

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Louise: 32:05

And then that's the anything they're annoyed about. Like I could have saved myself so much time and hassle over the last however many years if you just bloody told me that we could do this before.

Jordan: 32:15

And you could have saved yourself time and hassle over the years as well.

Louise: 32:20

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that was our little, a little mindset minute, I think too, because that's what I want to leave everybody with.

Jordan: 32:29

I've got one other thing I would like to talk about. Oh, have you Same mindset? Maybe it isn't mindset, it's just when this happens. Yesterday I thought that's great Right, and all I wanted to say is a lot of people, I think, they believe this is really, really difficult. Transitioning clients to retained, and it isn't easy right. If it was easy, everybody would be out there doing it already and, Lou, you know as well as I do. Our listeners probably know that isn't the case. Not everybody is out there working retained.

Louise: 33:01

Yeah, but it isn't. We wouldn't have a business, would we?

Jordan: 33:04

But it isn't rocket science right? It really isn't. And I wanted to give an example. I was on an objection handling coaching session yesterday and I threw the objection at one of our members, ollie, who is is flying. He's going to do so well with this. And I said to him I'll give you exclusivity. That's what you need, isn't it? I said listen, you have my word. Yeah, ceo of this company, every decision goes through me. I'm guaranteeing you you are going to fill this role, ollie. This is, this is yours. No one else is going to fill it. So exclusivity should do the job. And he said to me well, if you guaranteeing it me, then you'll just pay me the retainer. And I was like, oh my God, he's got me.

Jordan: 33:50

I'm right. If I'm guaranteeing him that he is going to fill the role, it's not going to cost me any more money. Why wouldn't I just commit financially? And it was so straightforward and so simple. And so much of this is straightforward and you can do it too. You really can.

Louise: 34:09

Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, it really is. It isn't rocket science at all. I do say, and I did say the other day and it reminds me of I was doing the pitch coaching session the other day, and for those of you that aren't members and I guess there's probably a lot of our audience, that of the 15 of you that are listening to us that aren't I- think we're up to 16 now.

Jordan: 34:34

We've got to be up to 16 now, though, are we yeah?

Louise: 34:37

I'm so pleased. Welcome, whoever you are. And I was doing the pitch coaching session and a couple of people were like, oh God, I haven't quite got my head around this yet and I haven't quite. I don't feel like I'm a bit behind some of the others, because there was a few in there that are killing it and I've really hit the stride with it. And I said first you don't worry, because those of the two have been doing this a couple of weeks now. So you just set behind and everybody goes at their own pace.

Louise: 35:14

Try not to compare yourself with other people. It's good to have a bit of healthy like oh well, if they can do it, then I can, and that's nice. But don't put pressure on yourself, because what you've got to remember is organically, this process would take five, six years if you were to just gradually figure out what the way of saying things and the way of explaining things. That then puts the client in the position where they're like oh okay, I get it Right, okay, so how does it work then? And then how does it price? And it takes a long time to figure out, to change the way that you're doing at the moment and figure out how to do it and then experiment in every client meeting over and over again. Well, if I say that, they then think that, and then they think that, and now that didn't work.

Louise: 36:07

And then you come away and then you book another meeting and you're like, right, okay, how try it this way? And actually what we're doing is like a five, six, seven year shortcut, like you're making the step to becoming a search consultant in a matter of weeks where organically it would take you years.

Jordan: 36:22

Yeah, and even though even though actually I'm going to backtrack a little bit, because even though I say it's easy, right, well, it's not as hard as you might think it is All of the lessons that we teach, all of the help that we give our members, comes from our fuck ups over the years and comes from going Don't do that again. And actually definitely don't. And we've done it because we've been on the arse and we've gone and we're just yeah, yeah help other people avoid those those mistakes.

Louise: 37:01

Yeah, yeah, and it's been amazing like for you, you know, moving firms, and for me, moving firms and seeing, like you know, I remember joining six and then joining Armstrong Quaver and looking at the way they do things and going, oh my god, shit, that's good, like I can see, like why they have their pieces in the process that they do, because it stops the problems that I've been Experiencing. And, yeah, you know, not only do you learn through your own mistakes, but if you're lucky enough to go work for firms that that do really well, I mean, they're not without their challenges. They have their own challenges, but it just you know it just gets more and more sophisticated as, yeah, they're different and, and, and then you realize like how?

Louise: 37:41

And we just have the benefit as well. Over the years of coaching and working with so many people that have experienced problems and then solve them themselves, and then they share it with us, like I faced this, so this is what I did. Yeah, it's like shit, that's really good. That's amazing how you've done that. Like I love that, but that they're showing it because they want us to know so that we can help other people with it. Yeah, so what's brilliant is you need you know, you're learning, you're short cutting a lot of those, those mistakes along the way in that trial and error, which, of course, you could do if you prefer. You can just go out and Experiment over however many years and eventually you'll get there. But if you want to short-cut it all, then, um, yeah, I don't know of a better place than to come and join us to do it.

Louise: 38:22

So, whoever's listening. Please come and join us and at least book into our diary so we can at least have a chat with you. Yeah yeah exactly Okay. And what do we want to leave everybody with? Just have a chat with us. You know bite. We want to have a chat with you and find out more about you, and, and until then, until the next episode hopefully we'll have 17 listeners then maybe, maybe God, maybe exciting.

Louise: 38:55

All right, go forth and conquer. I'm about to get on a plane to go to Poland, to Warsaw, to speak at the Tinsen Retained executive search conference. Yeah, in Warsaw. So I'm gonna be away for a couple of days, so good luck holding the phone.

Jordan: 39:10

I'm holding the fault, um, but it's about time I did some work after Lou holding the fort for me for three weeks while I fed bottles and changed nappies. So I'm back In the words in the boys in the bad and short to nigga.

Louise: 39:27

Very good, good luck. Nice Bye everybody, love you all.

Jordan: 39:32

See you, bye.

Louise: 39:33

Bye. Well, that's another episode of retrain search the podcast in the bag. Thanks for listening to our wild tales, linkedin controversies and our top tips on how to sell and deliver retained search. Get involved in our next episode, send in your questions and share your experiences with us by emailing podcast retrained search Dotcom. And don't be shy. Connect with us on LinkedIn and come and say hi, we don't bite, unless you're a shrug firm, that is.

Louise: 40:04

We want to say a special thank you to our retrained members for sharing what's working for them right now and Innovating new ways to grow and evolve. It's an incredible community. If you're wondering what exactly we mean when we mention our communities, well, we have two separate programs. Our search foundations program is for recruiters who want to learn how to sell and deliver retained search solutions consistently, and we have our search mastery program. That's for business leaders or owners already out 50% retained or more and looking to scale and grow and structure their search firm. We cap memberships to these programs to protect the integrity of the community. If you want access, just talk to us. Okay, thanks for listening. We'll be back very soon with another episode of retrained search the podcast.