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. And welcome back to the Retrained Search podcast. Well done, it's always cool.

Jordan: 0:27

It's been a thought. Now we are five, six episodes in, we'd have got to grips with at least the name of the podcast.

Louise: 0:35

I'm so sorry Still a working progress. Maybe we could call it something a bit more catchy, something that I can remember.

Jordan: 0:43

I mean it does what it says on the tin, right.

Louise: 0:45

The content is the most important thing, right.

Jordan: 0:48

And the hosts.

Louise: 0:49

Yeah, and the hosts. And the listeners, that's cool, yeah, and the listeners.

Jordan: 0:53

Yeah, that's not thinking.

Louise: 0:54

So what it's called doesn't matter. Whatever it's called, hello, welcome back. Nice to have you here, yeah, lovely to have you here.

Jordan: 0:58

I'm in a different place.

Louise: 0:59

At the moment I'm with this gorgeous little office of my friend Lara's, because my internet is well. Shit basically at home. That's being kind.

Jordan: 1:09

Last time we recorded the podcast this is a true story Lou had to pause recording said podcast in the middle of it to go and scale her house and put a Wi-Fi dish on the roof. Oh yeah, I actually did.

Louise: 1:21

I actually did have to do that. I actually did. There's no, that is no lie.

Jordan: 1:25

Yeah, yeah, true story. So it was dangerous. It was dangerous it was better and there's no scaling of properties.

Louise: 1:31

The thing about accidents. Like most accidents happen when you like fall off a stat ladder or like a a car, a box that you're standing on, and as I was climbing up the ladder to put the satellite dish on the roof, I was thinking, like shit, I'm going to like break my leg or something right now.

Jordan: 1:47

The problem is. The problem is the problem is, if you break your leg as well, your 20 minutes to the nearest shop, nevermind yeah To the nearest hospital. I don't want to know.

Louise: 1:58

I know. So, jordan, we haven't really spoken since your little girl's not very well. You've just come back from the pharmacy and I wish you now. I think you might be entering the world of like squirting medicine into child children's mouths, which is a whole new world which only happens when you become a parent.

Jordan: 2:15

Is that is that what they've given you Is a medicine to yeah, a bit of medicine to squirt in the mouth. I've also given you some tips around when to squirt the medicine into the mouth. Currently, before three times, because then she's more likely to open the mouth. It's horrible, isn't it? Like as a new dad, like seeing your daughter and she's got a bit of eczema, but it's like you feel so powerless, like there's just nothing you can do really other than put this cream on and hope it works.

Louise: 2:42

Squirt medicine into the mouth.

Jordan: 2:45

She'll be fine. She'll be fine, she's settled.

Louise: 2:47

She's not crying. I'm glad she's okay. She's taken the bubbles.

Jordan: 2:50

So she's, she's all good. She's still projecting her vomiting on me. I went through four huddies yesterday.

Louise: 2:57

God.

Jordan: 2:58

Yeah, yeah.

Louise: 2:59

Dad life, dad life.

Jordan: 3:01

Yeah, welcome to the world. Absolutely, but I'm loving it. I'm loving it Right.

Louise: 3:07

I'm okay, I'm getting ready to go away. I'm going to New Yorker tomorrow morning. I'm so excited, all packed, ready to go.

Jordan: 3:14

Bloody.

Louise: 3:15

Well.

Jordan: 3:16

I think we've talked before about the team here at Retrain. So it's loving New Yorker. So you go to New Yorker this week, Claire goes to New Yorker next week and then I go to New Yorker the following week. So, yeah, I think in the next three weeks you've kind of got New Yorker covered. If any of you are listening in New Yorker and what, we'd love to meet you all for a bit.

Louise: 3:40

Yeah, totally, let me know I'm there for the weekend. I'm saying hello, okay, so what we're first, we're kind of mixing up a little bit. We're actually going to talk about what we've been helping people with first and then move on to the other stuff.

Jordan: 3:53

Yeah, well, that feels very. Can I share what I've been, Doesn't it at the moment? Well, we were what we've been helping people with, because we were fortunate to run our virtual mastermind event last week. Right Lo yeah. So I know you've been helping people with lots of cool things. So the floor is yours in part. Your wisdom on us all.

Louise: 4:15

It's been so good. Like we have two days and we get together and it's just incredible what happens. It's not as good as when we get together in person. So twice a year we actually get together physically, and last time, of course, it was in Dubai if you heard about the ANSIX and amazing stuff that happened there and next time it's in London, which is in December, but this time it was virtual, so every other one is virtual, so it's over. Zoom. It's two days.

Louise: 4:42

We start by basically by saying where are you at the moment, where are you trying to get to, what's going really well for you and what's holding you back, what's blocking you? And we go around the room and we understand where everyone's at and what's going well and what's not going well, and we wipe all those things and then categorise them into topics and then we cover all those topics when people have got scribbles with things, then get helped with the people that have got those things going well and it's just a fucking awesome magic. Am I allowed to swear on him? We've swore it on him before, haven't we? That's fine.

Jordan: 5:16

Fucking right you are.

Louise: 5:17

Like magical thing that just happens and it's brilliant because we're all doing the same thing Well, the similarities with all search firms or retained search consultants going looking to get better at what we're doing, and I wanted to share a couple of things that came out of that. One of them was a couple of our members Liv and Deb have really taken the organic content to the next level and it's working. What they did was they went and did 10 client meetings over a couple of days and over the course of those 10 client meetings, they basically collected all of the information that the clients were talking about their challenges, their struggles, hot topics and it was really interesting, meaty stuff and they wanted to share it with their networks. So they did this really cool LinkedIn post just saying we'll learn this, we'll learn this, we'll learn this, this is what's happening here, this is what's happening here.

Louise: 6:08

And the post went viral. It was raw, it had a Facebook, just those two on it, and it was tens and tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Right, it was the most popular post I've ever done. So because of that, and they saw that this was obviously like something of interest and it was their clients and their prospects and their candidates that were liking it. But they took that and then they put it into like a market commentary document, like a PDF, and then they shared it out across their prospects and audiences and it's gone down so well and they've booked so many calls off the back of it and it's obviously raising their game in the market too.

Louise: 6:45

And they also noticed there was a really cool theme like this thing about executive presence kept coming out and they were asking questions like what is this? They kept hearing like someone say, well, she hasn't got enough executive presence or we really want to develop those executive presence. So they did like a little survey with their clients and candidates to ask people what is this? Is it inherent? Is it developed? How do I identify it? How do you teach it? And then they produce the results of this study and they've been using that as a lead generator and it's absolutely fucking awesome because the leads that they're getting are so well qualified. They're really interested in having great conversations with their clients that are to work Well.

Jordan: 7:27

they've already added value as well.

Louise: 7:28

I mean I can go on those. Yeah, totally, I mean, it's exactly, we do exactly the same thing. What one person is talking about is usually what everyone else wants to talk about yeah. And things like candidate marketing came up. We've had several people winning retainers off the back of specular, simply introducing C-suite candidates, and so everyone was sharing exactly how they've been doing it what the introduction looks like, what the sequence looks like next to that, and how they're actually then converting it into retained work.

Jordan: 7:59

I loved about that specifically the spec of candidates is that so often when I speak with consultants or business owners who want to transition and work on a retained basis, they feel I've got to kind of reinvent the wheel, they've got to start again and everything they do has got to be totally different. Specking out candidates were and it was the first thing I was taught to do in contingent recruitment. Now, okay, it can be a little more sophisticated and, you know, a bit more polished at this level, but it works.

Louise: 8:33

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it does work. It does work, but you need to position it in such a way that this candidate has been found as a result of a search.

Jordan: 8:42

Yeah, yeah.

Louise: 8:45

Because otherwise you give me the impression that you've just got these growing on fucking trees or something. So it needs to be positioned slightly differently.

Jordan: 8:52

Yeah, absolutely, but it does work beautifully.

Louise: 8:55

And then, finally, we covered lots of stuff, but the other thing that came out as a theme was video outreach and how well that's working, both for candidates and for clients. So we dived into that and looked at how everybody's got that working, that different software people are using.

Louise: 9:10

So someone actually Tara who nails video outreach so much so that she has banned her consultants, for she's banned them from making written introductions to candidates. Now they have to record a video because it's like three times more effective. And so she's done a whole analysis of all the different video software, the pros and cons, the costs, and she shared that with the group too. So, yeah, it's awesome, everyone's just yeah, everyone's just busy and loving it and we can't wait to get together again in our membership. So what about you, george?

Jordan: 9:48

Yeah, the main thing I've been helping people with. Actually the market seems really positive at the moment, and actually so many people are coming to our call-op calls and saying I've done a great pitch. Customers indicated they want to go ahead. One of the biggest challenges that they're facing at the moment, though, is I think there's an assumption that the process is going to be very similar to that of a contingent pitch, in that I get the yeah, I send the terms, they get signed, and a day later I'm working on the project. Then it's not the case.

Jordan: 10:18

Sometimes Very easy to get contingent term signed right. There's no commitment. They'll sign them at will almost, and actually, when you get to decision point with a retained pitch, often there will be spanners thrown in the works, and that's totally normal, right. It might be that all of a sudden, you realise it isn't entirely my decision and I need to get this signed off by my managing director. Hr have said they've actually got a couple of candidates in process and we need to interview those people first. There are so many things that can come into the process, but the big thing I've been helping them with is, firstly, not getting demoralised and understanding that that's normal and it's to be expected and helping them figure out that process and how do they dot the i's and how do they cross the t's. Normally it's about pitching again and again and again to every stakeholder you need to to get on board in the process before you get to the point where everyone's on board and things can move forward.

Louise: 11:16

Yeah, I completely agree and I agree with what you said at the start totally, where people think when they've got a contingent agreement, that's it, they've won, like woohoo, I've got term signed. And actually what you've got when you've got a set of term signed is you and maybe even a contingent job then that they've issued or given to you as a result of that is you have won the possibility of spending, of a 75-80% chance of spending time on something that doesn't result in a fit. That's what you're winning when you win a contingent job and being precluded from poaching from that client, because more often than not there's non-poaching clauses in contingent terms. So you've got a 20-25 if you're lucky percent chance of actually making money from that. It's not a win. It's actually more likely, three times more likely, in fact, to be a loss. So you're winning the opportunity to, in 75% of cases, lose actually.

Louise: 12:20

So it's really hard to get out of that mentality that that's a win but it isn't. And yes, the retained project takes longer and it's more challenging to get to where you want it to be, but once it's won, that's it. It's a win. You've got a 99% chance of getting the full fit. You've got a 100% chance of getting the first stage, probably a 99.9% chance of getting the second stage and a 90, I don't know 8% chance of whatever your fill rate is on retained in the final stage.

Louise: 12:51

So I completely agree with you. It's a great thing to do.

Jordan: 12:54

Normally right, it's normally only that first project where you have to kind of go through all of the doors to get to the win. Once you've won that first project, then terms have been signed. In my experience, the next project it's more of a Jordan. We've got another mandate. We've got with. Can you send us the invoice please?

Louise: 13:18

Yeah, yeah, even before you finish the first one, they're like right now, can you do this one, can you do this one?

Jordan: 13:22

and like this was my experience, so yeah, completely agree 100%.

Louise: 13:27

Okay cool, and we've got some good news to share with everybody.

Jordan: 13:31

Loads of good news.

Louise: 13:33

Loads.

Jordan: 13:34

It's flying in at the moment. It is.

Louise: 13:37

Yeah, it is, it really is.

Jordan: 13:43

And Louise is now responsible for working with technology. Oh well done. I was just about to say this is very good.

Louise: 13:53

Well, I know that a lot of people don't watch the videos, so you don't get to see our lovely faces. In fact, I was just saying how wrinkly I was, so it's a good job that most of you don't watch the videos. Jordan was very kind and you're always very kind to me and softening it, but my son said to me Mummy, you've got so many wind guns.

Jordan: 14:09

I've never shooted myself in the foot. But your son, your is mum and you're always going to be his mum, so he can tell you directly you're my boss, yeah you can't tell me that.

Louise: 14:23

That would be well you could, but it would be dangerous, wouldn't it? Anyway, let's move on from wrinkles to good news, and in our mastermind, people are winning the biggest pieces of work that they've ever won and showing their gratefulness and gratitude of the help Ben was sharing. We've recently completed our largest search assignment to date. It's a $90,000 fee. I can confidently say that we wouldn't have won it if it were not for the retrain team and the ongoing support of the mastermind community.

Louise: 14:57

I appreciate you all, which is really nice Top work. This is one of the.

Jordan: 15:07

This is yeah, aaron, yeah, why any of it? So he said this week he has two discovery calls booked, he has three upcoming pitches and he said it's just fantastic to be witnessing this level of progress and, what's more, today is his birthday, so a big happy birthday, aaron. He said a massive thanks to Louise Archer and Jordan Taylor for creating this outstanding course and offering such valuable guidance throughout. The sky is truly the limit. It absolutely is. He's giving all the strength I've known about.

Louise: 15:45

Here's Ross was sharing that there was some news in Germany evening. He says, following on from the CoLab call last week in the mastermind at the briefing meeting yesterday for the opportunity in Germany Turns out they're looking to hire four, possibly five, candidates with the same skill sets. The whole project has the potential to be worth over 100,000 euro. Hopefully we'll deliver an excellent shortlist and have multiple hires. Thanks again for the advice and support about recruiting in Germany last week. Time for a beer Right but I'm sorry.

Jordan: 16:16

Can I just say that is the worst emoji Right. Is anyone that is watching on video? Is it just me, or is that a loaf of bread, not a beer? Because I read that and thought time for a loaf of bread and I thought, I mean, I'm going to be on it. Time for a loaf of bread.

Louise: 16:34

I'm celebrating a better way than loaf of bread. I think it looks like like an alpine house with snow on the roof.

Jordan: 16:42

Yeah, maybe all that, or maybe like a double face. So Ross is making that much money he's bought an alpine house with snow in the snowy mountains.

Louise: 16:55

I love this little, I love the gift and it's not moving on this because it's a screenshot because I had someone on my mind.

Jordan: 17:02

Do you know what I love about this one?

Louise: 17:03

It shakes its little shoulders.

Jordan: 17:05

So Harriott came on a collab call with me a couple of weeks ago and she was like right, george, I've been doing loads of delivery, I'm getting back on the BD train, right, and this call was at like nine o'clock. It finished at 10 in the morning. I got a WhatsApp off Harriott at like eight minutes past 10 saying just spoke to a customer and they've retained me on like two rolls, something. I was like Jesus, that's like that new high speed train they're putting in in the UK, this BD train. How are you? It's like it's about eight minutes. The following week she comes on and she's handling the session and went through a couple of objections.

Jordan: 17:40

She had a pitch coming up with customer and we kind of knew the types of objections she was going to get. Came off the call. 10 minutes later I had the picture with the client and handed the objections won it. So, she has perfected the picture, has worked so hard to get to this point that, yeah, just everything she touches, turns the gold. So yeah, she's been coming, she's so she was so diligent.

Louise: 18:07

Still is diligent about coming to coaching calls, but she's just really nailed that bit. She spent ages like just getting comfortable with it, getting really sure that she was really comfortable with everything, and and then she took it out, and then she came back and then she's like right, I think I can improve this bit in this bit, and she just puts the bloody work in and she's flying as a result.

Louise: 18:29

So she says those that aren't watching our video win. This little star emoji is very exciting. We've won a new search day for a new client and the briefing meeting is tomorrow. This is the first retained search we've won off the back of a spec from another retained search, so she's been in the mastermind and following the lead of those that are in speculous of introducing the silver and bronze medalists and seeing exactly how they've done it, and she's copied it and it's worked.

Jordan: 18:53

How that went is worth something like that on it.

Louise: 18:56

It was yeah, with his shoulders we're going it's nice. Yeah, it's been his backward cap on yeah, yeah, it's cool.

Jordan: 19:03

Yeah, so this was Simon. I love this one. So Simon is relatively new to the course and he said he wanted to reach out to the team, the cohort that he's going through the course with. He called them the dynamic duo. He said they had the pitch coach coaching session yesterday and they the other two members of the team had done a much better job. That was followed by his awful and unprepared pitch to to our team yesterday. He said well, after that session he read his PowerPoint and his narrative and used it immediately after with a brand new client and they've agreed in principle on the call to retain him to find their brand new managing director. They also want multiple hires in addition. So this happened not least to your feedback and help. So thanks again. What I loved about this is it's so much more than me or you in the coaching sessions. It really is the community, isn't it? Lugh? I love it.

Louise: 20:01

Yeah, so community it's if you do as part of a cohort, it's your cohort, like peers and buddies, and this is like Claire. This is Claire's first pitch coaching session that she does with them. This is what he's he's used here.

Jordan: 20:14

Awesome.

Louise: 20:16

And what I love about it is you use the TTFN at the bottom. Haven't used that for ages.

Jordan: 20:21

I have no idea what TTFN means. I'm going to be honest. I sat there for a minute trying to figure it out.

Louise: 20:29

Did you figure it?

Jordan: 20:30

out. No, I was thinking the first one might be no. No, no, no, I'm going to clue. You're going to have to give it to me. What is it?

Louise: 20:39

I'm pretty sure it's to tar for now.

Jordan: 20:43

Honestly, you could have given me a year and you'd have still come back next year and I'd have been in the same place you never would have. I'm going to clue what that means. There you go. Well, I like it. It's a tar for now, all right, so yeah good news all round.

Louise: 20:54

So we're going to finish up with a bit of mindset. Aren't we Still sticking with that as a format? I think a bit of mindset we were talking about yeah, cool, I think it's just a bit of positivity, right, like.

Jordan: 21:14

I don't know about you, lutia, but what I'm hearing from people in our industry has changed massively over the course of the last three to six months. We were what do you think, though?

Louise: 21:32

Yeah, massively, massively, I mean it. What I said this at the virtual event. Actually, what I've noticed since the last event and as a theme, a common theme running through each of my weekly coaching and co-op calls and one-to-ones that we do, is that the conversation has shifted from being in BD like survival mode.

Jordan: 21:57

Yeah.

Louise: 21:58

Like I've got to get working and my pipeline's empty. It's all just BD, bd, bd, bd, bd. Everybody cool. And it's now everyone's talking about hiring again. We had such a huge piece in the virtual because everybody wanted to find out everybody's experience of the best way to hire, the routes to market routes to talent.

Louise: 22:20

Do you hire experienced search consultants? Do you hire a contingent and train them? You know the maths man. Obviously it's a little bit different because we're already retained, but what I loved was the themes. Bd was such a small part of what people wanted to know. Most people have got that nails now and actually it's those pieces, it's assessment, hiring, so that just says to me that's a massive indicator that it's changed.

Jordan: 22:45

And I'm a firm believer that that makes it easier to sell, obviously because there's more opportunity. But I still remember one of the first lessons I learned in my first sales job, which was selling adverts in the yellow pages, was that desperate people never sell and that when you're desperate, it comes across and people don't buy from you. So I think people being positive and encouraged makes a massive impact on conversion rate as well.

Louise: 23:16

Yeah, absolutely. It's like a catch-22, isn't it? Your wedding works.

Jordan: 23:21

you do more work, you don't want to sell to that you're actively trying to put off, they're the ones that end up wanting to bloody buy it.

Louise: 23:30

You know, I don't think this is quite right for you.

Jordan: 23:33

Well, I want it. I want it, so I want to buy it.

Louise: 23:38

Typical right, yeah, it's true.

Jordan: 23:39

But I also think it's worth noting right that that might not be the case for all of you. That might not be the case for everyone. I understand that some markets are still tough and for you guys, just be reassured that it doesn't last. It won't stay like this forever. The tab doesn't turn back on Me and Lou. Six months ago, we had the call, didn't we, lou? Where we thought what are we going to do? I'm going to have to we're going to die.

Jordan: 24:03

Yeah, we're going to die. We're not going to be able to put food on the table. I'm going to have to start going to like men's health and selling pictures of my body for the front cover and stuff like that. It isn't the case, don't worry, it's all going to be okay, you have to take?

Louise: 24:17

was it ASOS? Asos upon the Oxford 2 module.

Jordan: 24:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, until I realised I wanted me to wear a vest with nipple tassels on and stuff like that. No, no, no, I ain't about that life.

Louise: 24:32

I love that, I love it Well, you know that's always there as a backup my huddle.

Jordan: 24:37

Yeah, yeah.

Louise: 24:39

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.

Jordan: 24:42

But we don't need to.

Louise: 24:42

at the moment, anyway, most markets are picked up, haven't they?

Jordan: 24:45

Yeah, they have, they have. It's a good time. It's an exciting time to be in recruitings, to be in staffing, especially if we can do a financial commitment from clients right.

Louise: 24:57

Yeah, especially a good time to convert to retain. So, as always, thank you very much for listening everybody to our chit, chat and stuff. If you want to talk to us and we always want to talk to you, as always- we want to find out about you, find out what you've got going on, what you're thinking.

Louise: 25:18

what kind of thoughts does this provoke with you? Do you want to find out a bit more about our programme and joining us and whether it's a fit? Then we're always happy to take time to do that with you. Just go to the website, retrainsearchcom and the talk to us tab and our calendars. In there you might be speaking to me, you might be speaking to Jordan, you might be speaking to Robin, who is a customer, basically, who's gone through the course and now he's happy to share his story and he'll find out.

Louise: 25:49

He's also an advisor and an expert and I'll ask him.

Jordan: 25:51

Yeah, he's great.

Louise: 25:52

Yeah, he is. He's really good. So, yeah, just have a chat with us, as always, and until next time.

Jordan: 26:00

Well, I was thinking, just going that, by the way, I was thinking at some point right, we can even do a special offer for podcast listeners that want to join us, and on the website there could be like a discount code, but the code is specific to that podcast. So, like the code for this week could be use discount code nipple tassels.

Louise: 26:20

Oh, my God. You get the drift.

Jordan: 26:23

Right, you get the drift.

Louise: 26:27

Yeah, okay, I mean maybe the discount code could be different.

Jordan: 26:32

The idea yeah, I mean, I'm going to be honest anyone who comes on a call with me and quats, nipple tassels, I'll give you 10% discount. I'm making a decision.

Louise: 26:44

Yeah, I think that's a really executive decision. I support that whole heartedly.

Jordan: 26:48

Cool, yeah, let's do it.

Louise: 26:49

Let's do it, See what happens. Nice to see you, George. Thank you for listening everyone. We'll see you next week Safe flight Bye Lo Bye.

Louise: 27:00

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 experience with us by emailing podcast at retrainsearchcom. And don't be shy. Connect with us on LinkedIn and come and say hi, we don't bite, unless you're a Shrek firm, that is.

Louise: 27:30

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 at 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 retrain search the podcast.