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. Welcome, Got it done, got it, we're in.

Jordan: 0:27

Hi everybody, welcome to. I don't even know what episode we're on now, Lou.

Louise: 0:30

No idea, no clue. Sorry, seven, eight, I don't know.

Jordan: 0:35

I don't know. Welcome back to the Retrained Search podcast, hi Lou. Hi we are delighted, both of us to be joined by the wonderful David Wolstenholme today from Brand Me Better, who is very kindly joining us all the way from Sydney, Australia. It's 10pm and I have confirmed he is allowed to continue drinking beer.

Louise: 0:59

Yeah. I've approved also secondary approval grand session.

David: 1:04

Thank you, I've earned it.

Louise: 1:07

You have. You had a busy day.

David: 1:10

I don't like the word busy, but yeah, I've been busy.

Louise: 1:13

How's baby?

David: 1:17

Amazing, oh, 15 year old smelly boy. I've got a six year old who's close to be diagnosed with ADHD. They're intense, they kind of love me, but I've got this almost two year old daughter that just thinks I am Like I'm like God, I'm like Eric Cantona to her, so life's pretty wonderful Eagle Testerpole Aragon, that's Eric Cantona, isn't it? Yeah, so I talk to her about seagulls and stuff like that. Is that what he talks?

Louise: 1:50

about.

David: 1:51

He's mental, he's amazing, but mental.

Louise: 1:54

Yeah, it's like a creative side isn't it? How are you Jord?

David: 2:00

Talk about. Before we get into chit chat, talk about your hair, lou.

Louise: 2:04

Oh yeah, I was going to do a LinkedIn post on it, actually, because we're going to be talking about that, so I might as well share that with you. I was going to do a curly or straight LinkedIn post and the team went I'm not sure about that, so I haven't done it. What do you think? Curly or straight?

David: 2:25

I'm liking curly.

Louise: 2:26

Yeah, that's what Jordan said.

David: 2:28

Yeah, like he loves to kill each wave Right? Thank you very much, noe, very much, noe, very much.

Jordan: 2:33

Yeah.

David: 2:34

When you're a curly specialist.

Louise: 2:35

A curly hair specialist, apparently they have those seven of them in the world. And there's one in. True's brain and they are saying nowhere near where I live. How cool is that. It would have thought it would have thought. Who would have thought?

Jordan: 2:49

What are they saying?

Louise: 2:50

It's just. I'm blessed. That's a good thing that's happened. We've had some tough stuff happening recently. That's overcome some challenges, you know, with your hair, no with people, oh so.

Louise: 3:06

So people, not no, I've had some people not be very pleasant recently. No, that's not something you should talk about, but how, that's a sort of be quite no, we don't need. And in fact, weirdly, on the um her lab call that I've just done in our mastermind we've got a guy, carson, who's just recently joined us, who is working with a client that doesn't want to work with anymore and his question was here's the situation, how do I say it's over? And weirdly, we've kind of had to do that with, yeah, with a couple of people recently because they've just not been very pleasant. And sometimes what I've learned and I'm getting better at is the time that you free up from working with people that are difficult and pleasant, unkind and not, you know, not not doing positive things for you or your team or your business. You, great things happen when you free that space up. You don't have to be tied down to that, do you? Is that?

Jordan: 4:04

Older Mallorca.

Louise: 4:05

A little chit chat. What Go to Mallorca?

David: 4:07

Is that what you just said. I think the other thing with it is Go to Mallorca with the time. Yeah, I think the other thing when you go through that kind of process and you break up with somebody, you're quite diagnostic about that relationship and then you start to look at those early warning signs where they were there and you might not recognise. I think it keeps herging good stead for the future when you get those kind of alarm bells ringing.

Louise: 4:32

Yeah, I was talking about this to well. I was going to say my coach, rebecca, but also now Jordan's coach, rebecca Shannon, who I'll give a quick shout out to because she's fucking awesome and she was explaining that when you're in growth mode which we all are but earlier on in the journey, when you come across people like that and behaviours like that, you internalise it and think what is it that I'm doing and what should I be doing differently and how can I please this person? And it's the same when you're working with a new client who's being awkward and difficult. You're thinking oh, it's me, and how can I? And then, when you get better and more confident in yourself and all your process and your business or whatever it is, whether it's personal or business you get to a stage where you can realise it isn't you. It is a red flag and it's something that you can pick up on early. And that's what I'm getting better at doing, and I just advise people not to ignore those red flags.

David: 5:30

Maybe the narrative as well, of the customer is always right. As Ali fired, to that, ali fused on violence as well. The customer is always right. Well, they're not always are they?

Louise: 5:41

No, they're not.

Jordan: 5:43

Do you know what I think? An old boss of mine used to talk a lot about aspirational clients and who did we want to work with, and I've took this from him. But he used to say the way I define that is if I'm sitting at home on a Friday night at 8pm and a client calls me and says, jordan, you're not going to believe it, I'm in Warrington, you're fancy grabbing a beer. If my first thought is no, not really. Yeah.

David: 6:15

Give the boss a plug. What's their name?

Jordan: 6:17

Yeah, a guy called Doug McKay from the church. Yeah, yeah, and it's so true, right.

Louise: 6:24

Yeah, I agree. It's nice when you're working with people like you would go for a beer with. It's nice, it's fun, it's like this, isn't it yeah easy, easy easy.

David: 6:35

But I've got the beer.

Louise: 6:36

So, Dave, what have you been up to? Work-wise, what kind of work-wise.

David: 6:42

Well, I've had a little bit of American interest because I went on a certain call. I've called with some wonderful people by the name of Louise and Jordan, and so that's meant more interest in my services, more early morning calls and there's going to be a couple of people who've signed up, so there's going to be more late night calls maybe as well.

Louise: 7:04

Oh, nice good.

David: 7:06

I like. I mean, I am a one person company. I do have a couple of contracts that I'll be out with a few different things, but I like being global. It's a great feeling and I think some markets might dip some pick up. But the opportunity to have a global client base or international client base is something I don't say lightly. It's brilliant. So yeah, thanks for letting me go on your show, your collab show.

Jordan: 7:34

Pleasure.

Louise: 7:35

We love it, we love having you around. And what, when you say you're working with these people, what will the typical journey be on? Be that you go on with them?

David: 7:51

It depends. I mean it depends on what they want to do to engage with services. It could be I mean, I tend to have three options where I work with people. That's like a package of a handful of coaching calls. It could be a really strategic personal branding programme called Build. Or it could be a similar version to the Build but whereby they want me to help them with their content because they haven't got the time, the resources, the skillset and they want me to provide that support for them.

Louise: 8:22

And I love, love, love. We both do love, love, love, love what you do and we work with you because of that and you're an all-round great guy as well. But not many people do work in the way that you do. And that journey that you go on with them, that Build programme will you tell us a bit more about it?

David: 8:46

Yeah, of course I will. Well, the first thing is brand. Whether you call it personal brand or company brand, it's strategic, it's a strategy. Marketing is more of a tactical bait thing, and so brand to understand a personal brand or a company brand, you've got to go through a process of discovery, and that process is by uncovering who you are, as in your authentic self. That it's looking at things like your brand substance, your purpose, your vision, your values, and then it's like how you position your brand in the marketplace, what your proposition is as well. How do you communicate that to the world, online and offline as well?

David: 9:25

And I've become a student of behaviour of personal brands, become a little bit too obsessive, and the reality is that if you're an experienced consultant or leader, then it's what your customer or employees say or feel about you, and so part of my process is to actually talk to those customers and get the insights for them and then build a strategic plan around that that's going to improve your personal brand, provide them with the marketing and content that you want to create and also drive your value proposition in the marketplace as well. It's not for everyone, because I think it's all about that kind of get quick fix now and, you know, jump on to LinkedIn and do marketing tactics, but if you go through a process of doing something like this, then your brand is everything, it's all consuming. It's what you do online and offline, how you think, how you believe, what you believe, so what promise you bring to the world, and so it just flows into that marketing consistency as well. So it's not for everyone and a lot of people don't want that.

David: 10:30

And the process I go through to understand their internal brand and proposition and then understand the customers they're trying to attract and then find in the middle ground of how we're going to do this, online and offline, to to build this community of Ideal clients or candidates you want to attract. Who is it for Dave?

Jordan: 10:50

Right, you said it's not for everyone. If you were to kind of look at your, your perfect Customer, right? Someone that's sitting there that's got a great opportunity and building a personal brand, what was that person look like?

David: 11:03

It's a really good question. Firstly, that the kind of person that really believe in development, they always want to keep getting better. They tend to be the kind of people that would do the retrain course, dare I say, and they also recognize their skills shortages and they earn enough money and they're successful enough to go the things there that I need to outsource and rely on, depending on what kind of service he Engaged before. But the reality is they realized as well, they have a brand and they want to know how to kind of package that out, position that and how they want to, you know, communicate that to the world as well. And they like confidence.

David: 11:44

I've said this a million times to it. Lots people you know I, where we see you old of 300 million dollar businesses are where we start up as well. They all have this little bit of imposter syndrome about going on this journey with me, because you know I get them to look really inwards of themselves, but also then defining their proposition and message to the market. And then these people are successful people. But they, you know they feel intimidated because when they put their world out on social media, there's gonna be people that think they're amazing, some people think they're a twat. There's some people that just don't think anything about them, and so that is hard for a lot of people.

Jordan: 12:26

It's interesting you you talk about the Imposter syndrome piece, because I see that in a lot of our members, the most successful people are the ones that are willing to be vulnerable and To share their weaknesses and to share where they're scared, scared. Sorry, they've not scared.

Louise: 12:45

He's going for a haircut like.

Jordan: 12:48

For a haircut in a bit. Yeah, sorry, I'm working on it. I'm trying to improve, but that's that's a theme, isn't it you?

David: 12:55

know, just so I thought as well, which is really important. You know a lot of my clients. They they want to know what customers really think about them, the ones that engage me to go on the bill program. I don't want me to interview their customers because, yes, they want to know about their proper position, they want to know about what content they want, need to create, but they want to know what are the things that they're not doing so well that mr or mrs Client might open up and tell me more things and they might get from themselves.

Louise: 13:24

Yeah, and that is scary.

Louise: 13:27

Yeah, it's really fucking scary I mean it from for me and for us, and Jordan, I know, went through the same process. But even just getting to the heart of like who you are like, how can you, how can you live and breathe a brand when you haven't connected it with who you actually are? Like it makes so much sense that it seems so hollow. Having been through that process, thinking even thinking about just putting stuff randomly out on linkedin, you know, and embarking on marketing and branding without doing that doesn't make any sense. Like, if it's not connected to you and your values and your beliefs and who you really are, how can you really live and breathe that? And it doesn't. It doesn't mean anything, does it? And it's? It's very Well, I suppose the word I would use is, yeah, a bit scary, quite invasive, almost like, because you really dig very deep and you can get a bit like Really.

David: 14:24

I think the.

Louise: 14:24

Thing is as well is.

David: 14:26

Sorry is uh, you know I, we have company values and core values, but I understand I go through people's journey of personal values and, you know, studying other human behavior experts which I know, um, I found a methodology that really Interpreter if you look at the biggest boys and challenges in your life, they will determine the things that you value most in your life and they can change. But the bigger the void and the change Is typically the big the more important that value is to you as well. So it's about knowing what they are and communicating them to the world as well.

Louise: 14:59

Yeah, yeah, which is which is really, you know, it's our most vulnerable selves, isn't it the biggest challenges that we face, um, but the best place to Get to what our real values are, and it's amazing. It's incredible what you do. The piece that um is also I absolutely adore about what you do is the talking to the customers that you mentioned. When, what, when you're talking to someone's customers, what, what are you like your? Because you'll interview a client only for, of some of these Um, often like ridiculously senior, if that's their target client, what kind of things are you wanting to find out from them and what, what kind of things do you find out?

David: 15:41

Well, what problem they solve. You know how they do things differently. You know how would they describe their personality, what they know for Um, what do they want for them they're not getting? Uh, how would they describe their, their service or solution to another senior peer? You know there's some generic questions I ask in there as well which didn't, let's say, think that we're going to be in there.

David: 16:05

But Most great recruiters around the world do not ask for referrals and they don't ask for referrals in a way that's um, compelling to the Um, to the client, or memorable. So they will do that. So I even asked that question on many of my interviews, you know, did they ask for referrals? Uh, most of them say no, I can't, I can't recall that. And then I'll put them on the spot and say, well, can you actually tell me two or three people in your network Do you think might be a really good fit? And they just sometimes go. That's weird. You should say that there's john smith and such as hoodja company, it'd be a great person for Ralph, I'll, I'll message him today and I'm like no, this is something could be doing themselves, it's. But they just don't ask it. And I'm talking about really, really really successful recruiters as well.

Jordan: 16:56

Yeah, you shared some of this on on the co-op called the other week, dave, about speaking to customers and understanding you know what do they want to hear about. And I was speaking to a member of ours a couple of days later and I was sharing what you shared and I said do you know what dragons then in the UK for any of yous that know it right, where people go on and pitch these business ideas, these entrepreneurs?

David: 17:16

in Australia, but yeah.

Louise: 17:18

Yeah, yeah.

Jordan: 17:20

Yeah, yeah well more sharks in Australia, right, we don't have dragons in the UK though. Anyway, I don't get it, but Every now and again, someone comes in and pitches a business and you go Shit, can't believe, no one's ever thought of that before. Yeah, it's so simple, it's so obvious. I was there to bury you in the face. Some of that. That's just exactly the same, right, of course, like, yeah, I wouldn't just be on titty, because what you can hear about when I'm yeah, I know, yeah.

Louise: 17:51

I know. Like it was anything came up because we were talking about what you know. What's your advice? You're about to make some content. You might put some content out on LinkedIn, Dave go. And Dave's answer is I'm just asking customers what they want to hear. What do they want to say? It's a fucking simple, it's the simple thing if nobody does it.

David: 18:15

Well, they literally tell me what your value. If you talk to enough customers and they you know you've Delivered them an old value to them they will tell me that the benefits of your service and what your value proposition is, and then you just feed that through your content. You know, the LinkedIn bio will feed out what those customers say about you and when you go into meetings you'll be talking about these differentiators, because it's what your key customers say about you. Yeah, you don't need me. I mean I can help because I can develop the messaging and the Position and they will tell me things that they might not feel so open to telling you. Um, but it's just so simple, yeah.

Jordan: 18:58

And again.

David: 18:58

The reason why I've kind of Done this is because if you look at great brands, they don't just jump onto LinkedIn. You know great product brands and company brands. They do a whole lot of research, they talk to consumers, they look, they do competitor analysis and you know they look at positioning in the marketplace. They bring that brand to life. They get so obsessive with their ideal customer Then they start to do the marketing.

Louise: 19:25

You know that's why it works when I was younger, we used to make some extra Pounds from um going and doing market research sessions. We've ever done them. But you have to go and sit and talk about toothpaste for like two hours or uh yeah, or or anything, or crisps or I've done so many and that's what they do Like. What do you like about a product? What don't you like? Well, the bags are like A quarter full for a fucking start um, or whatever it might be Um and and, and they get it like.

Louise: 20:01

They get it from their customers and they ask like where do you, where do you want to see us? Do you want to see adverts for us on the tv? Do you mind that it's in a magazine? Where did you last see an advert of ours? What do you, what do you want our branding to look like? Like, here's what we're thinking of rebranding. Like they ask their customers all the time Absolutely. Just do that as a regular like.

David: 20:24

Never thought about brand strategy. That's. That's the the end of all of it. All as well, it's always tactical based marketing, not brand strategy, and I think the the reality of all this is that um, people are getting it. I mean, what's stopping you from invest? I mean it costs money. That's one of the problems. Yeah, I'll stop you actually getting a focus group together, um as a recruitment agency, and getting your best clients in together and get them all talking in a group.

Louise: 20:54

Yeah.

David: 20:56

You know, yeah, what do they want from recruiters, what do they want you?

Louise: 20:59

could design your ideal recruitment. You know, partner, what would it look like?

David: 21:03

You know, I I might even ask questions about what services in my one.

Louise: 21:09

Or what they're not getting, yeah.

David: 21:15

Ridiculously. I'll ask them about their challenges and opportunities outside of recruitment. They just come to me with all these you know it's strategic planning, it's debt reduction or whatever that is in their field and I just just listen and write all this down and type those and then I become like a content machine for my clients, because you know all the things that their clients want, what's keeping up at night, what happens if they don't solve it. It's borders on ridiculous, but they give me all that information.

Louise: 21:44

You're a bloody genius. That's why we love you so much.

David: 21:48

No no.

Louise: 21:50

I know, but it's sometimes the most incredible. Things are the simplest, aren't they? You know? Yeah, maybe.

Jordan: 21:59

Well, it's difficult as well. Right while you're heading it, you've got all these plates spinning and everything's going to be all right. It's difficult sometimes to take someone with your skillset though that's outside of it to say I've got this.

Louise: 22:13

Yeah.

David: 22:15

You think about that. If you then start to do tactical advertising and content and promotions and events You've done all that research how much more likely is he going to succeed when you develop your marketing plans and you go to architecture?

Louise: 22:32

Well, it's like why would you go and talk about stuff on LinkedIn or on emails or anywhere for that matter? We don't know what your customers want to hear. It just seems fucking stupid. Why wouldn't? You ask them what do you want to hear from us? What do you want? What can we give you that you'd be interested in reading or watching, or seeing.

David: 22:53

Yeah, the other thing as well is, you know, when you do read positioning is about trying to find a gap in the hearts and minds of your target audience. Most great brands do this and businesses do this. But you know your positioning statement is really your target audience. The problem they have the solution that you provide what you do different to your competitors, and then that kind of key differentiator. And if you position that it takes, you know you have to go through research and do analysis of the competitors and look at your strengths and whatnot. But if you build that statement I should inform all your marketing.

David: 23:33

I'll give you an example. You know, we know the wonderful people in yield in Australia. Okay, so you know, one of the things that we identify with their business was that when they work on projects or search assignments together for executives, they work on it together. And when you go to a search firm, you know the partner might win that business and they might feed it off to the researchers and the lower level people as well. And when they work on something, they work on it together as a team, which is just kind of unique to people. So the differentiator for them is around diversity of thinking and we can then sell the benefits of that in their content, of what that diversity of thinking comes when you've got two partners working on one search project, which is unusual.

David: 24:26

Yes, it is very nice, but again that came with a journey that we didn't just come out of the sky with that. That takes a lot of planning and research and conversations and analysis as well.

Louise: 24:40

I mean, you talk about it being an investment, which it is, and but people get quite good results, don't they Like? I mean, we know first hand that going on a journey to align your beliefs and your values with your brand and your personal brand, understanding what your own beliefs are, what you want to hear in that journey you've just set out, and then speaking to that, speaking to that gap in their hearts and minds and their problems, like produces quite incredible, like astounding in some cases results, doesn't it Like?

David: 25:16

can you share some of?

Louise: 25:16

those with us. Can you tell us about things that?

David: 25:19

happened. One of the most successful relationships I have with a recruiter is a chapter or name I'll keep you in confidential, but normally successfully builds close to $3 million a year on his own and we work together very strategically. It's so invested in our partnership and he reckons about 15% of what comes in business wise is through our partnership. We can't put an exact figure on that, but that's a serious amount of money. That's just one person but again, we work as a really close team. We're always looking at online and offline activities, repositioning these brand if it needs repositioning these customers. We have conversation all the time about content and content pillars as well, but it works phenomenally well. But he's so invested in the process. So that's just one example.

Jordan: 26:13

I think that we're an example of that as well. Yeah, I was going to say yeah, like the conversations that we have with people that we've never met before. That tell me, I feel like I know you already is testament to them understanding our personal brands and how we feel and how we act and what our values are.

Louise: 26:35

And I shared in.

David: 26:37

We've worked on things together. That has been around your personal brand, but it's then you've had our hormones, because I've given you input and you've got wow, that's great stuff we could put for a company campaign or, you know, part of our webinar message or whatever that might be. So you know personal branding is ridiculously important, but so is company branding and messaging and marketing as well, and so there's got to be some crossover there.

Louise: 27:06

And that one of our members that has been working with you shared some content that you had worked with them on, as in exactly the process that you've just talked about, that was put out through their company brand and went viral and then got turned into another piece of content that ended up generating meetings with very, very, very senior prospects.

David: 27:32

That's converted within weeks to nearly $200,000 with work Well, I think the thing is look, look at LinkedIn. I mean company pages, and not necessarily the flavor of the month.

David: 27:48

They don't get engaged, but people don't know that doesn't mean in my eyes that you don't use that, because you still have a connection to people. And so we know that most recruitment firms and search terms part of my friends are pissed poor at this and they don't deliver value and insights and engagement and connect with our audience through that content. So I'm not an advocate saying that LinkedIn company pages are dead. Yes, maybe they don't get what you're looking for in terms of engagement, but they're still an amazing platform or channel to be able to disseminate good content to your audience.

Louise: 28:25

Thank you, they are. Thank you, dave. I wanted everyone to hear that because it's been like game changing for us and for everybody else. I know that's worked with you. So, like Dave says, whether Not everyone.

David: 28:49

I don't succeed with everyone, because I think you can oversell that, but with you in the way that works well with the right people.

Louise: 28:58

I think we all work well with the right people and we're all on a journey with that, aren't we? Hence the starting point of our conversation, before we get better at going no, this isn't going to work, this is not the right partnership, and we have the same thing.

David: 29:14

I'll give you an example of that. There's one client that I've worked with and I just don't think they really got value with my service whatsoever. And then they went to one of my competitors and they started to brand themselves left, right and centre. Now me purse. I think their content is quite poor. It's not thought provoking enough, but I think it generates results, for it works. So sometimes you just got to find that right person, that is, a supplier that will partner as well with you.

Louise: 29:45

Yes, but you know you can help. I'm talking of helping. What have you been helping people with recently, Jord?

Jordan: 29:55

Lots of things. One of the big things actually, is just trying to help our members relax when they're talking about retain the customers.

Jordan: 30:05

It's funny how I think there's. We've talked before, right, lou, that one of the biggest misconceptions in the town is often that it's only right for C-suite and boardroom level hiring. And sometimes people do join us with that misconception and it's amazing how, when I'm engaging with them, just in conversation, their personality shines through and they're so engaging and then sometimes the first time they pitch it's like they turn into some super corporate stick.

Louise: 30:40

I wonder why there is this misconception?

Jordan: 30:43

And often the first piece of feedback that I give people is chill out, Just calm down and speak yourself. Yeah, that's so good. So being able to start over the past week just helping people understand that people are buying them right and, yeah, the solution is really important. The solving customers problems is really important, but there is real emphasis that needs to be placed on how they deliver the message and being human and yourself.

David: 31:21

Is that more nerves, or is it more that they just put so much pressure on themselves that they want to do well, do they?

Jordan: 31:30

I think it's a bit of both.

Louise: 31:31

And it does come, but you see people relax more and more and more and more comfortable they get with it. But if you can relax from the start, then yeah, it helps, definitely helps, and it's going to be a massive step change.

Jordan: 31:43

Like you'll see, often they'll come the first few weeks and they'll be a bit nervous and they'll be a bit stiff and rigid and then there'll be a point where, like the penny drops and they become comfortable with it and it becomes their own. And it's when that happens that the step change is crazy.

Louise: 31:59

Yeah, it is.

David: 32:01

Do they record themselves, like you know? Perhaps they do that something like just to get into the flow.

Louise: 32:08

It's something that we recommend. Not everybody does it, of course, but it is something that we recommend that they do. To listen back Maybe real.

Jordan: 32:17

ask how many times I used to say uh, Uh.

Louise: 32:22

Especially with people that do things like that, that you don't, you don't, you're not aware of it yourself until you listen to yourself back. So if somebody's talking ridiculously quickly, then the first thing that I'll suggest is that you just have a listen to yourself and hear how, what speed you're talking at, so you can get a feel for it. Or if they say uh or um or what did someone say to the day essentially about 75 times um, then it's good to do that. Do you record yourself, dave?

David: 32:56

Well, I, I live on zoom, and so I you know, not only do I record my calls, yeah also record all my interviews as well with customers, and it's interesting.

David: 33:08

There's a guy recently I got a transcript to save me time when I'm trans. Uh, you know, write someone else. And there was a gentleman recently and I interviewed him. He's a senior person as well but he said you know that much. When I actually looked at the content, at the end of it there was about seven words left. But again, you know, it's interesting. People often say to me what are other people working on? You know recruiters to develop themselves and I think you know there's probably some really good communication coaches out there and I don't think many people would actually think they're engaged. Somebody like that, because you know people who can communicate really well through language and body as well, it's it could be a super power.

Louise: 33:52

Yes, I agree.

Jordan: 33:54

There's a guy that always pops up on my TikTok. He's a young guy and he's like a communication coach and basically his videos are in delivering a message in one way and then slightly changing the tone and talking about how differently it lands. I'll find him, I'll share it, I'll share his, his name and maybe the next part.

David: 34:14

Yeah, I'd like to see if you just sounds really good that reminds me of each shoots and leaves.

Louise: 34:22

You seen that book? No, it's just like it's based. Well, it's about grammar and how just changing the position of like one comma comma can change the whole meaning of a sentence. And the example of the sentence is eat, shoot, eat, shoots and leaves.

David: 34:40

I might read that. I think I'd enjoy that.

Louise: 34:43

So obviously can be interpreted in two completely different ways depending on where you put the comma, anyway. So what have I been helping people with? I know you haven't asked me that question, but I'm going to answer it.

Louise: 34:57

I've just come off a call where I've been helping with three main things. The first was a client who is disappointed with what they found in the market through the search and they're in week three, which is challenging, and our member was looking for help on how to help his client through the next stages of the search and guide on what directions are going. It's all associated with transparency and showing the client what is in the market rather than what we have produced, and there's a big difference as a contingent recruiter we tend clients tend to see us of can you, can you get some CVs and can you send some CVs? And we're just going to pull these people out of fucking hats. And yet, moving into being a search consultant, we execute the search to bring what is available to them in the market. So it's not often the fault that they're not finding what they want to find. We're only here to bring that to light. So that helps and we've worked out a journey for the next call for him to walk through the journey they're on, they've been on and what their options are, moving forward using evidence and data.

Louise: 36:24

And then a LinkedIn marketing challenge, which was like inertia. I know I need to do BD. I've just finished a couple of searches. I know I need to get out some stuff. I know who I am and who I serve, but where do I start? What's the first thing that I do and how can I just get going on that journey? Like if that were you, dave, and someone came to you with that problem, how would you help or would you have any advice to help someone? Just do something that's going to get that the juices flowing and the ball rolling for.

David: 37:08

I think he sounds pathetic, but just do it. Yeah, yeah.

Louise: 37:15

That's what she was saying, but she just didn't know what to do first. Really, I know I need to do some call calls, I know who I need to call, I know I need to put some stuff on LinkedIn and I know I need to send out some emails and I want something working in the background for me whilst I'm hand approaching people. I'm just like paralysed with all these things I need to do and not actually doing anything.

David: 37:36

I think this might sound branding 101 and this is what people thought about years ago, but I don't think many accruesers do it that well present day. If you find out what other your clients are consuming in terms of content, and you just find good content and you put your spin on it in a way that's going to make them think of you as a thought leader, or you position your brand around great content, it's really not that hard. Everything creates fabulous content every single day. But just go where your customers hang out, find a great article or video, put your spin on it a few words that make you feel like you've got an opinion or you've got a thought or you want to get some conversations going and do that. It's not really that hard.

Louise: 38:26

No, I love it.

Jordan: 38:29

By the way, called PASL. To help you do that, there's a really good tool called PASL. Pa double S L E.

David: 38:40

The sponsor of your podcast.

Jordan: 38:42

No, they could be.

David: 38:44

No, I'm joking.

Jordan: 38:46

Yeah, basically it allows you to pick up articles, pick up videos and turn into your own blog and put your commentary around.

Louise: 38:54

Yeah two.

David: 38:55

I have a question to ask you guys. Yeah, I'm going to be the interviewer when you know, a lot of the narrative out there is that contingent recruiters fill 20 to 30% of the roles that they assign, but there are recruiters that work continually that actually do 60, 70, 80%. How often are those types of people actually coming to you and wanting to get out to maybe nice and want to look at a retained solution?

Jordan: 39:35

Yeah.

Louise: 39:37

Quite. I think they tend to fall into different categories. One of the most common ones is that they're working on a contingent basis and delivering in a contingent fashion and don't want to be doing that anymore because the fill rates are so low. But quite often we come across and people come to us because they are actually delivering what is essentially a retained solution, but on a contingent basis, not being vulnerable, and they're exposed because I don't know that I've come across a contingent recruiting with a fill rate that high there 80% I don't think I've ever come across, not because they're not good at what they do, but just because, like clients, change their minds and change the things that could their control.

David: 40:34

Yeah, I think I've got one that I know that's around the hovers around the 78% mark yeah, maybe 70%.

Louise: 40:42

Yeah, I think I've come across people, I gotta climb the moment so sorry that was gonna say.

Jordan: 40:48

The risk for those people, right, I found when I've had conversations with people like that in the past, is they're super successful, right, if you're working contingently, you've got an 80% fill rate, you're earning good money. Now most people I find kind of lift, lift to the means, right, so they have bills based on them having an 80% fill rate, but they're totally vulnerable because overnight that can change, right, a changing market condition. They've got a mortgage, they've got nice cars, the kids are in private school all based on this 80% fill rate. But it's built on sand. It can just fall away.

Louise: 41:26

Okay, there's nothing to stop the client from just saying, yeah, we've got a pin on that, we're not, we're not going to go ahead with that anymore. And there's just nothing. There is there.

David: 41:36

So, yeah, we do get people like that well, I'm not an economist but I think you know, looking at the interest rates going up and up and up in Australia and around the world, I think volatility is just going to be. I know everyone's really super positive and optimistic in Vancouver land and you know 2024 is going to be the best year ever, but I think there's going to be. It's going to be volatile for the next 12, 18, maybe 24 months.

Jordan: 42:02

That's just my personal feelings maybe we should have a switch up in a in. Normally we do winds of the week and then we go on out of a minute on mindset, but that leads very nicely into the mindset and the conversation Lou's had. So Lou over to you it does, it does.

Louise: 42:18

Okay, we'll do that do that now, then so I had a conversation with one of our very long-standing experience and esteemed members, I should say, who is in the private equity space in North America and has access to how did I describe this guy this morning? Very senior, very clever and yeah really very well very well respected

Louise: 42:48

this is our member, but also the guy he was talking to. So I don't know who it was he was talking to, but it's somebody in the private equity world, very, very, very senior and very, very, very well respected and very smart. And he said about market conditions and about the impromptu economy it's fantastic. Finally they've announced that we're in a recession, which they have in North America and Canada, as you know. Thank fuck for that. It's brilliant. And then our member said oh okay, thinking that this was going to be a you know me type conversation.

Louise: 43:25

There's opportunity, adversity and you know every cloud and all that shit, which I maintain my stance on, by the way. But he didn't say that. He said the reason it's so fantastic is because we have to be in a recession officially for two clear quarters to be able to announce that we're in a recession. And when you look at the trend of recession after a recession over the decades, once it's been announced, that's when the boom starts. So we've got another quarter maybe of people being getting their ducks in a row ready for a changer and all of the private equity firms, certainly in North America and Canada. That's what they're doing. This quarter is preparing for what's about to happen. So 24 is predicted to be excellent because they've announced we're in a recession. I love it.

Jordan: 44:24

I'm going to come in January New.

David: 44:30

Year, new Start. I'm really quoting the private equity folks on my post.

Louise: 44:35

So now happy days yeah, so let's go to that. So now we're backwards, um, let's go back to wins. In the week we're going to share some more positivity.

Jordan: 44:48

I'll tell you before why you're bringing them up. I had a call with a lady yesterday um who hopefully will be joining us very shortly and she said I'd like to see a podcast. And look, these are wins of the week. I can't just all be so positive and I was like, no, no, it is, it is, yeah. I showed around, showed her all the wins. On our platform, it is um, so yeah, this was does that work?

Louise: 45:13

by the way, I know I've put our faces on that screen, does that? Can you see our faces now? Could you not see them before?

Jordan: 45:20

I have no idea what you mean oh, it's fine, I'll leave it there.

Louise: 45:23

I just want to make sure for the recording, like I can just see, I can see the.

Jordan: 45:27

I've got two screens.

Louise: 45:28

Now I'm getting very confused. I never used to have two screens before.

Jordan: 45:31

That's why I'm like looking over here anyway, go on Jord, take it away what is this we're looking at here? A first pitch to a new client today. You had no immediate need. This is half a win, but nevertheless half a win.

Louise: 45:43

Do you know how? How is half a win?

Jordan: 45:46

you did the diagnostic on a general level, did the pitch and use the iceberg slide. Our members will know what we're talking about there. After the objection of all recruiters telling me they are covering the market and engaging passive talent, he was absolutely bought into the whole process, didn't blink at the fees and has booked his in for a site visit in a couple of weeks to meet other stakeholders in the business and take us out for lunch, very happy with the pitch oh my gosh. You all so much for your help so far.

Louise: 46:15

I think I know who this is as well as this is this, I won't say. Last name is this Tracy is yes, yes, she was so nervous about that pitch.

Louise: 46:23

She was so nervous about it and she came and practiced like three times and it was so good and I was like go for it so and you know what that just shows the different levels of relationships when you start engaging and asking deeper and more strategic questions that you think you, you know you think it might not go down well or whatever, but like what you're saying is is is is like, even if they don't want to do it, it's good and it's helpful stuff, like they're not going to be, you know, unhappy with you or cross with you so get about a PSL take me out for lunch.

Louise: 46:56

That's why yeah, so tell us about this one yeah, win of sorts.

Jordan: 47:03

Um, so this guy, brian, is actually based in Australia. Um, he said he pitched to a big data banking solutions business in Australia and the outcome was not a brief yet, but they do want him to write them a market report for senior management, looking at salary, skills, experience and availability, some benchmark knowledge for them whilst they engage the market to make hires an understanding of the landscape. I say a win because they're going to pay me up front for this work, lovely. I feel that it represents a chance to be their go-to guy for multiple senior hires in the future. The person they use has just left the industry. They're one of the fastest growing companies in their sector in Australia awesome.

David: 47:43

I think he's undersold the title of win of sorts.

Louise: 47:46

I think it's win of sorts, it's a bloody big win yeah and then he goes on to say um, I want to make a good impression as anyone's another such a document. Will you share your template? And, of course, I might have done a few things like this before. So I sent um in the chat all of the templates um several videos on explaining how to go about scoping it and carrying it out and delivering it so that they're wowed in the same way that um I was referring to. Well, I didn't actually get around to talking about it, but we talked about the LinkedIn content that one of our members was struggling with. What she actually had was she's actually done one of these compensation benefit reports, and so what we started with was what about taking that and saying I've just done this, I want to share the results with you. Who wants to hear about it? Um, anyway. So, um, that was one, and what's this one, Jord?

Jordan: 48:42

yeah, this was Mark yeah, hi guys, short and sweet. New client signed a retain search, first one since completing the course, been spending most of my time on bd. Since I'm feeling really good about the pipeline, let's build it right, well done Mark.

Louise: 48:56

Yeah, he's doing really well um another one yeah, sharing a win.

Jordan: 49:02

Just had news that I've won a retainer that I pitched for on Monday. I'm absolutely buzzing, as I know I was up against some big firms still working on my pitch but decided to just go for it in the meeting. But I might as well try it out, so I'm super delighted that it's delivered the result I wanted. Now I'll keep the nail it with Louise Archer on my pitch training call tomorrow. That's the one service for the one with Louise yeah, yeah, in there in Dunham.

Louise: 49:26

I know, I know very good, very, very good, and we like sharing that just to encourage people like, yeah, you might be feeling like things are a bit slower, but people are winning retained work still and we'll keep doing so and we'll keep sharing it with you.

Jordan: 49:42

So, um, we also like to talk about something that's kind of peter, our interest or is yeah, we do, and actually normally we pick something that somebody else has been through or someone else has shared on LinkedIn.

Jordan: 49:55

But actually I want to talk about a personal conversation this week that I have a coaching call and somebody was talking about a challenging situation they were facing with a client where HR slash Talon had said they weren't allowed to speak to the hiring manager and somebody made a comment it might have even been me that oh God, yeah HR, oh no.

Louise: 50:23

It wasn't you. What was it? I don't know, Someone said I don't know.

Jordan: 50:28

Anyway, yeah, normally go to the source of the pain, go to the hiring manager, right?

Jordan: 50:35

And then one of our members said ah well interestingly, I was a HR director for many years and I have a totally different perspective on this. I know how it feels when you're kind of navigated around and you feel like you've been cut out of the process and how that can get you back up and it can make you feel out of control. And I just thought it was a really interesting topic of conversation around how you know, can we sell retain to HR and talent teams?

Louise: 51:07

Yeah, when you told it to me the first time this morning, I think it was more like somebody had kind of started saying, yeah, we don't want to talk to HR, they're a fucking nightmare. They always get involved in everything. And then someone on the call was like I'm a HR director, or I spent 20 years being a HR director and I was thinking, oh my God, where's this going to go? But it sounds like it wasn't so fast it was tough.

Jordan: 51:34

It was a really, and the topic of conversation then went on for about 20 minutes. Yeah, I was born and raised in a contingent world right, where I was told just avoid HR. Yeah, it goes for hiring manager. They're the one with the control that makes the decisions. Hiring manager contact. If we talk a lot about the grading system and contingent right, yeah, that was one of the. The continuity of fact was an A grade job. Did you have direct manager contact? And I'm still to a point. I feel often the best way to engage is to start with the people with the sharp point of the pain. Right, the hiring manager.

Louise: 52:12

Sometimes that's HR, though.

Jordan: 52:14

Yeah, yeah, exactly Exactly.

Louise: 52:18

What do you think?

Louise: 52:19

of the HLO so well I had. I was exactly the same as you and been brought up in contingent and avoid HR like the plague and all the things that I suspected probably did come up and hopefully the HR person wasn't was understanding of that rather than upset by it, and it sounds like they were very helpful in the end. So that was cool too. But I then moved to a firm who specifically only work with HR and that those were our prospects and that was what all of our branding, marketing, material, services, products, solutions, everything was geared to HR, and what I discovered was they experienced massive pain. They're just different, and we worked with the HR teams and the three main instances were I've I've shared this before already you can never say things too many times, can you? Well, they say you've got to say something nine times to someone before it actually goes in, and I often say that just so that they hear that again.

Louise: 53:22

But it's either the three C's it's either capacity, and they just haven't got enough manpower to deliver the kind of requirements that they need to deliver, or it's capability. It's a skill set or something niche that they could get up to speed with but haven't got the time or the resources to be able to get there that quickly and we happen to be experts and you can get to the understanding of the requirement more quickly and therefore finding the people more quickly. Or confidentiality, where they just can't go to market themselves because it's a confidential position and they're all branded up with the company brand so they need a third party to do it. And those are the three main instances that we positioned ourselves to partner with HR and it works fucking beautifully.

David: 54:09

I think this is what we're talking about when we go over positioning. I think I worked with someone about four or five years ago now who I think a moment dad were in HR. She was a senior consultant, she was a director in a business and we helped position a brand all around HR and content, content creation, around talking to the needs ones and desires of HR for you. Nobody else was doing it, so she played up.

Louise: 54:35

Yeah, yeah, maybe else doesn't you set yourself apart straight away when you have good, productive, constructive, helpful conversations with them, rather than trying to bypass them and trying to use certain like? It's simple as that.

David: 54:49

Well, the other thing we need to think about here as well is that more and more organisations are bringing in chief people officers, which is a new evolution. It's not HR per se, it's employee experience, customer experience as well, and so they're the new HR people in my eyes, and so could you position your brand, to be talking to those people, if you weren't with those types of firms.

Louise: 55:14

Nice.

Jordan: 55:16

Love it Okay.

Louise: 55:19

I think that's all we've got time for today. Hopefully whoever's listening and there used to be like 12 of you, I think- there's a bit more now.

David: 55:29

I checked last night that you got six.

Louise: 55:31

Six, I really have.

Jordan: 55:34

It's actually gone down, that's why we're rolling out the big dogs. I'm saying we'll get a viewers up.

Louise: 55:40

Yeah, we need to actually bring some people to listen to us. So, whoever is listening, thank you very much for listening. I hope it's been helpful to you, dave. How can people get hold of you if they're interested in engaging or finding more about your services?

David: 55:53

Just find me on LinkedIn, David Wolstenholme. Brand me better.

Louise: 55:57

David Wolsten holme brand me better. Yeah, finding on LinkedIn. You heard it here.

David: 56:02

Yeah.

Louise: 56:03

And we'll have you know, a cut day. Thank you very much. Only joking, only joking, all right, we will see you next for the next episode, whatever number that is and whatever we're going to be talking about then. Thank you very much, jordan. Thank you, dave.

David: 56:20

Look at Jordan smiling. There's a reason why I'm in love with the guy. Look at him. Look at that smile, beautiful man.

Louise: 56:27

Thanks a lot, Good night guys.

Louise: 56:30

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 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: 57:00

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.