Speaker 1: 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. Hey, and welcome to Retrained Trained Search, the Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Not the one.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Yes, not the one in it all. There we go, welcome back. It feels like this is a bit new, because it's actually been a few weeks since I last saw you all. Well, certainly not a few weeks since I saw you. Jordan and I have just spent two weeks together in Australia.

Speaker 2: 0:44

On a romantic break yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Yeah, I'd say we had. We definitely had a good time. It wasn't romantic. We worked quite hard. We just didn't do anything but work pretty much.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Oh we had a few nights out and yeah we did, it was good. Yeah, have you got a little?

Speaker 1: 1:05

tale or something that sticks in your mind about our Australia jaw to share with the audience, erm.

Speaker 2: 1:15

I had my wardrobe malfunction, didn't I? Oh yeah, did you see that video, sarah, on LinkedIn.

Speaker 3: 1:21

I did. I liked the shirt actually so I bought the shirt.

Speaker 1: 1:25

It was a lovely shirt. I went down. Can I tell the story I've got.

Speaker 3: 1:31

Have you got an anecdote? Can I tell the anecdote? Can?

Speaker 1: 1:33

I tell the anecdote right because I went down at breakfast and and I saw the shirt from behind and I was like, oh, he's got a really nice shirt on today. And he turned around. I said that's a really nice shirt. And he goes wait a minute, watch this like this. And all the buttons popped on. Don, he's like bare chested in the middle of the breakfast restaurant. So what happened was that I purchased it. It was like it.

Speaker 2: 1:59

It you know it wasn't cheap. It was nice because it was like one of the nicer material shirts it. It was a really soft fabric.

Speaker 1: 2:05

It's a Ralph Lauren, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 2:06

Yeah, and it wasn't a half typical shirt fabric, but I think because of that it was quite stretchy. So every time I moved any force that was applied, the buttonhole stretched and the buttons popped through. Oh my God. So then it was just a really difficult day. We were constantly fighting women off and getting between us and it was really. It was really very stressful, but we managed to get adjusted oh god we did get through it.

Speaker 1: 2:32

He managed to stay clothed for most of the day, but we did do a little video of him popping out of his shirt for linton, which was quite amusing anyway that that's not what we're here to talk about today. Um, we will update you on a few things, as we normally do. We wanted to share with you what's been going on, to keep everybody informed of how the market's going and what's happening in the world of retained. And then we're going to come to our exciting guest.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Thank you for joining us today, sarah chester nelson nelson, she haven't changed your name on the zoom, sorry. Well, yeah, so before we get cracking, just some nice news to kick us off. Uh, this is a lovely one. I don't know who this one is actually, george who is this?

Speaker 1: 3:19

joanna. She says first proper pitch since finishing the course last week. Hey guys, I'm buzzing. What's that? A picture of a battery. I've just done my first full pitch including diagnostics, pitch, deck and objection handling, and the client a new client in capital letters is potentially very interested said it was all very sleek, clear and super professional. I love that, because a lot of people are nervous about rolling it out, aren't they? And they worry about how it's going to be perceived and I will know by the end of the week. I followed everything step by step, so, fingers crossed, even if I don't get it, I'm so pleased to have done it, I can do it and it feels so good. Thank you, retrained and this amazing community.

Speaker 2: 4:00

And, by the way, joanna joined us from listening to the podcast oh, so you might even be listening to this, joanna.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Well, bloody done she's come full circle full circle, and this is a nice one too this is Keisha. I think it was. I was gonna say, was it Keisha? I saw her on a coaching session only a couple of days ago. Really, new first two retainers. Exclamation mark we sold our first two retainers with an existing client and a new client today. Thank you, claire Brevitz and Cobalt137. I couldn't have done it without you. So nice.

Speaker 2: 4:34

It's funny it always makes me laugh because, like in some of these posts, there's a real sense of like amazement, yeah, and I read them.

Speaker 3: 4:49

I'm like, yeah, it's exactly what I thought would happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know why you're so surprised, like that's exactly what it does. This is what happens.

Speaker 1: 4:52

I followed the training and it worked. Yeah, I know, yeah, shock horror, it's true. Actually, there's always loads of exclamation marks and like eyes wide open isn't there, and next one is lucy oh this is lucy.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Yes, very good, lucy's doing really well. She's in our mastermind group today. We want a retainer at 40k fee. The title is biggest retainer, one, which is the biggest so far. Uh, I recently did a 50k fee from a spec cv, which is something that we're going to be talking about actually, I think today. The client pushed for 20 fee but I stuck to my guns at 25 and they agreed. Realistically it should be higher, but I'm super happy with this super nice niche search for a grape breeding company. Great, lovely sounds niche it is niche.

Speaker 2: 5:38

No, that's good, that's a, that's a big fruity one, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 5:41

oh, jesus, she says, would never have got that if it wasn't for this group. Uh, that is gratitude for the mastermind group, uh, which we're excited about getting together in palma later this month. Uh, next month, okay. And lastly, uh, who's this one mark?

Speaker 2: 5:59

this is mark search delivered.

Speaker 1: 6:01

And another win. Hi guys just delivered our latest project. I know it was a challenging one because I've been working with him on it. Amazing reference from the client and candidates that's lovely. Within a week they've given us our next project on our now standard terms, moving forward, which is nice. They have said we are now their preferred search firm nationally.

Speaker 2: 6:20

There's one more, by the way, I think.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Oh, is there? Oh, yes, I like this one because it's got a little video gif, or is it?

Speaker 2: 6:29

a Jeff Gif Gif. I'm only joking, I'm just winding you up.

Speaker 1: 6:36

First retainer completed. Second retainer sold. Exclamation mark. Happy to share two positive updates. The retainer that we sold under 30 days ago had an offer to go against it already this week we were able to use this case study when speaking to another prospective client who was worried about a retained search taking too long. Yes, this is search from search, as we call it in the mastermind. Uh, we sold our second retainer today. This is number two, bullet point number two. So that very client who was worried about the search being drawn out on a retainer, proud that we definitely handled that objection. This makes for two retainers, so within 30 days, just a few weeks after jumping into the retrain program. Talk about quick roi, jesus, all righty, now we've got stuff.

Speaker 2: 7:19

We've got stuff to talk about.

Speaker 1: 7:22

It's over to you. Sarah chester, nelson gosh, nice to have you here, I'm so happy to have you here. Um, thank you. We're not going to sell everybody the full sort of story as to how you've come about to being here, because I'd like you to tell, I'd like to tell them yourself really, about how you've come to be doing what you're doing, and I define it as wizardry.

Speaker 3: 7:49

Yes, I do like that I have adopted that term, I will say but yeah, I am. Well, I guess I started my journey as a retained researcher. Previous to that, I was a graphic designer and I've got a creative degree. Um, but, as most people do, I found myself in recruitment.

Speaker 1: 8:10

but strangely, we worked together, didn't we?

Speaker 3: 8:13

we've known each other for a long time, yeah, for a long time and, um, yeah, I was a researcher on um, on the retained side of things, and then I thought it'd be a really good idea to become a contingent 360 recruiter, which I'm just going to put that down to being in my early 20s, and just you know, grass is greener apparently were you drunk, high on drugs or stupid?

Speaker 3: 8:42

but it's just that I think everyone can understand. Like when you're a recruiter and you like you, you just think, oh well, that looks quite interesting. I want to have a go at that. And, um, I will say it was very good because I went from doing something like I adopted some really good tech tools and techniques, went into something else. I feel like I've got a really good understanding of contingent and retained recruitment. But it was definitely when I became a 360 contingent recruiter that I truly understood the value of working on a retained basis. But what was really nice was, as a contingent recruiter, I worked, um.

Speaker 3: 9:21

I worked a couple of different sectors, but my most favorite sector and the one I spent most time in was digital marketing, and it was around the time when, like, I mean, I'm not even that old, but you couldn't do digital marketing as a degree when I was at uni, like I did advertising.

Speaker 3: 9:38

That was the nearest thing. So I just got to spend all day, every day, like talking to people about digital marketing and SEO and paid ads, and I just thought it was so exciting all these things that people were telling me about um, and I started to use a few of the tactics as well, like I've never really been one for like cold calling, so I was quite often getting a lot of my work through emails, email marketing and posting on LinkedIn and kind of before the whole personal branding thing. So then it kind of made sense to train and retrain in digital marketing and that's how I came about doing digital marketing for recruiters, but more specifically retained recruitment businesses, because I'd worked out working contingency, contingently that it's relatively easy to get contingent leads because there's no you know, um, yeah, they're, they're quite easy to to come by, because you just need to find someone who, who's interested, but there's no kind of financial commitment, whereas with retained it's a little bit more trickier and I started working with like a retained uh, multi-hire that type business good outfit, weren't they?

Speaker 3: 11:00

well, still are still really really good. Yeah, done really well they're doing well.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Talent works, it is.

Speaker 3: 11:06

Yeah, it's how it works but when I started, like they didn't have any, any marketing in place uh, they didn't have a marketer, um, they kind of thought we need one, but I'm not really sure why. Um, but they knew that they they were doing really well because the work that they did was so good, they got so many referrals. But they realized from the outset that to grow to the scale that they wanted to grow, they couldn't just focus on referrals alone. They needed some form of marketing to find new clients. So that was my, my role, essentially, um, and so, yeah, I started implementing a digital marketing strategy from kind of organic.

Speaker 3: 11:55

Seo is where I started. Uh, you always start with the free stuff first and then that sort of started working quite well. So we were like, right, let's supercharge this with, with paid ads, and that went relatively well. And then, uh, by the time I left, I was kind of heading up a digital division of uh, there was about four, four of us and we were doing marketing for talent works, um, so the internal side, but also for for clients as well, on the candidate attraction set of stuff.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So it's an incredible journey and, um, I you know we meet a lot of people, don't we? Jordan in the industry, a lot of people like even in just the course of two weeks we met, I don't know, 200 people while we were in in Australia, something like that in total maybe more yeah, at least yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:49

And so if you, over the years, we've met a lot of people, I've never met anybody with a background quite as unique as yours when it comes to contingent retained graphic design and digital marketing, and the blend of those experiences is as enabled you to be able to do something quite special for the world of retained that not many other people know how to do. So I'm just I want to just go back for a bit before we talk about what it is that you do now, um, and share some like, share some tips and help for people that you know on that journey themselves. What was it? What happened when you first started to do it? You know, let's take, because a lot of the people that listen to this probably haven't got very advanced um, I know some will, but some won't have very advanced or sophisticated digital marketing strategies or processes. So when you first started on that journey with talent works yeah, can you hear me okay?

Speaker 1: 13:58

yeah, it's most people right yeah, okay, um, what happened with, like, where did the? Because it was a while, wasn't it, and was there a bit of doubt around whether it was going to work? And yeah, oh, yeah definitely.

Speaker 3: 14:13

I mean, I will say, when I moved into marketing like I've been in contingent recruitment for a few years and I was I was definitely burnt, burnt out. That's one of the reasons why I moved into something else. I also was just at that point where I guess for a while I never really knew what I wanted to do until I started talking to people about marketing. I was like, yeah, that's what I really want to do, but more specifically, the digital side of stuff. When I got this role, I was really fortunate that the person that kind of ultimately hired me was very digital focused and he could understand or see kind of what I'd done previously and he wanted to go that way. But there was other people within the business who their version of marketing was more of a traditional approach, it was focusing on events, and so I did feel like at the time when I initially started, because there wasn't um specific guidelines like they've never had someone in that role before I was kind of being um, you know, put into many different meetings and getting a lot of. There was a lot of things that people wanted to do um and there was only one of me, so I had to kind of work out how to navigate the stakeholders and what they wanted and then ultimately pick something or go with my gut as to what I thought would work well. And so I kind of knew, or I had a feeling, that the the best way to go was the search engine optimization, the organic content side of things. I chose that because it's relatively easy to get started in. I could write content. I was fortunate that because I've worked in retained and contingent recruitment, I could write relatively easily about the the topic. Also, there was some really good people in that business where I could just go and they would give me their time and I could get that information from them. But it also meant that I wasn't asking straight away for, like, additional resource in terms of financial um, um resources. So I started with that and it is a slow burn SEO or anything organic, you know, posting on LinkedIn. You can't do it once a day for two weeks and think that you're going to get results. But it was the consistency that that helped me for about three months to the six month mark.

Speaker 3: 16:45

But when I got to six months and we hadn't got anything in, that's when people start to get a little bit itchy. Um, which was fair enough. Um, fortunately, after, yeah, six months, we got this, um, really massive lead come in. I think I can't remember now, but it was a US-based client. I remember exactly who it was.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Um, and it came through and what I'd also been doing, as well as kind of writing the content, was putting the structure, the, the implementing the, the infrastructure, so I could actually track where these leads are coming from. We got this lead come through, which had been because they'd read some of our content and then they'd filled in a form through the website so I could explicitly show, okay, the reason why they they kind of came to us because of, was, because of the content, and and, and that was the buy-in that I was able to use to kind of increase the resources. So that's, there's only so much you can do on organic side when there's just one person. So for me, um, we, I wanted to to focus on my end goal was was getting onto paid advertising.

Speaker 3: 17:56

I knew that that was one of the ways to be able to supercharge what we were doing without having the head count the same um, so, yeah, that kind of gave me the buy-in to to get some resource on the paid side of stuff and I remember, I think, that my first paid ads I got 500 pounds and I was so excited and then we used this 500 pounds and then I got a couple more leads in and those two leads the return on ad spend was astronomical because even though you know it's only two leads for £500, these two leads were like thousands worth in the first invoice but then a lifetime value of the customer as well. So then I got more ad spend then I got more, more ad spend.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Um, give us some numbers around that, if you don't mind me jumping in my Sarah, like just so people know what kind of context we're talking about.

Speaker 3: 18:53

You know those that first invoice and then the subsequent so the first invoice, I think, was 76 000 us dollars. So we were doing yeah, um, we were doing multi-hacker campaigns, rpo but we were also doing um, retained search, um, and all retained solutions in some way it was all retained solutions, like everything we did.

Speaker 3: 19:22

They didn't do contingent and it was really refreshing actually to to work with recruiters who, most of them, had never, never't do contingent. And it was really refreshing actually to to work with recruiters who, most of them, had never, never, known the contingent way of working that they that didn't, they couldn't get their heads around that it's a struggle now.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Yeah, everyone in the same place and um, by the time you um left, that marketing team was consistently generating income, wasn't it?

Speaker 3: 19:55

oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:55

So when I first started there was just me and then, as I said, when I left, there was um about a team of three and I mean we made three quarters of a mil in the first 12 months on this lead gen strategy and then, yeah, by the time I left they were easily getting at least a mil a year from the, the, the pay, the, the marketing um, because and it was all because it was focused on retained solutions.

Speaker 3: 20:26

So if you think about the, the value you can get from people, and then also what was really interesting was it sounds great that first 12 months to make three quarters of a mil, but actually, because I was there for three years, I could see the lifetime value of a customer as well. So we had some customers that, like we knew, or they knew that their service was so good that all they needed to do was get that client and then they would be a client for a good while. So you know there was um companies that ended up spending, you know, a big sum of money with them continuously on, you know, annually, and that's the thing they did contracts as well.

Speaker 1: 21:05

So you know they might help or be their, their rpo, their kind of extension to their talent sourcing for 12, 18 months at a time and what I also find really interesting is that you were using this, these mechanisms, systems, processes, to acquire the customer and then, quite often, part of the sell involved. Your the same solution effectively, didn't it?

Speaker 3: 21:36

yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3: 21:37

So what we started doing was, um, selling the retained talent side of stuff, but also the candidate attraction, which was essentially the same methods that I was using to attract these clients.

Speaker 3: 21:54

We were then using to find candidates for, often, junior to mid, sometimes senior level positions, and it works really well with multi-hire, especially if you've got the same maybe you've got multiple roles in one division or the same role, but in multiple locations.

Speaker 3: 22:10

We were creating like landing pages which were bespoke, which were using the same branding as the company Because of our talent sourcing team. We were looking like we were an extension of their business or maybe we were partnering with the like HR teams in these companies. We were partnering with the like HR teams in these companies, and then we were using paid advertising on LinkedIn, facebook, youtube, that sort of thing to find and attract and get those candidates into the talent pool as well, which was really interesting and not something that I'd ever seen people do before. So it was a really, really interesting experience because we were like learning, learning at the same time, and that's why one of the great things about doing both the business development and the marketing for that company and also working with clients is we were able to experiment with our, with what we were doing, and then use that to work with clients as well and sometimes even as a standalone solution yeah, yeah, quite often.

Speaker 3: 23:13

So the reason why, like when it came to um, covid and the pandemic, that we did really well as a team, as a business, because the digital stuff, the candidate attraction, still needed doing, obviously the, the divisions or the kind of businesses like we work with for a really big, well-known med tech company during covid who just needed talent, and so it was really the digital team and having that balance of different skill sets with different solutions that really kept the business going throughout that challenging period as well incredible, isn't?

Speaker 2: 23:52

it. Yeah, it's the results for me. I mean, that's one of the biggest things that stands out for me every time I have talked to you about marketing and the work you do is the laser focus on numbers and roi and I, when I, when I've talked to, I've worked with marketing people in recruitment businesses that I've worked in in the past, often there's just never been that focus on results yeah, performance marketing.

Speaker 1: 24:23

Is that what you call it?

Speaker 3: 24:24

yeah, I like to term it performance marketing. Um, some people call it revenue operations, and I've always been a no fluff marketer, and it's interesting because I've got a creative background. People think that I like stuff to look pretty, and I do, but if it doesn't generate results, I honestly don't see the point of doing it, and I think a lot of people do get um stuck in that well, it needs to look perfect or we haven't got our brand just right, so we can't do this just yet, and it really stops you from doing stuff, whereas you know, when I look back at the landing pages that we used to start with at um, talent works, like I. I couldn't get the design team to help me with it, so I just had to, like make it myself because I knew what I wanted, but it was. It wasn't great at all, but it still worked, it still did the job like, it still got the point across like done is better than perfect, and that's what I say to my wife about me.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Doesn't look pretty, but it gets the job done.

Speaker 3: 25:29

Is that what I need to do for it? That's a good marriage, is it?

Speaker 2: 25:32

I might use that. I might be wearing flip-flops, but I'll still take the bins out.

Speaker 1: 25:41

I don't do that as long as it's not Crocs.

Speaker 2: 25:43

No, I've got standards, oh, you guys are.

Speaker 1: 25:49

Crocs are great, I not Crocs no, no, I've got standards.

Speaker 3: 25:51

Oh, you guys are, crocs are great, I love Crocs, you're a gen.

Speaker 1: 25:52

I was gonna say you wear ankle socks too old. Um, so the the twist in this is that, uh, a few years ago, when I was starting to change direction from working for other people to working for myself and being asked to help people with retained, we went out for a drink.

Speaker 3: 26:19

Indeed.

Speaker 1: 26:20

Went out for a drink and we hadn't seen each other for ages.

Speaker 2: 26:23

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:25

And I told you a bit about what I'd been doing. And I told you a bit about what I'd been doing, and you told me a bit about what you'd been doing, and we kind of went, oh, hmm, this could be good.

Speaker 2: 26:39

And so you started to look at the retrained business and, oh my god Lou, the suspense is killing me and I know what happens no, but do you remember the first meeting was like I swear I can't remember who it was with.

Speaker 3: 26:58

But you were like I've, I've had to be, I've had to make it a company, because certain companies like I have to like not be just self-employed. So you were like so I'd quite like a website so that if someone searches for the company, like, that will come up. But you were like I just want a website, I don't want this, I don't want that. Because I'm thinking here, like you know, you're telling me what the premise is and I'm like that's pretty good, that's a pretty good idea. And then I'm I'm thinking, right, well, we just need to get the handles for social media, you know, as you do. And then we need a contact form. And Lou's like I just want a website yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:37

I just want people to know who I am if they want to get in touch with me. She wants to put a phone number. She wanted to put her mobile phone number on the website what's wrong with that?

Speaker 1: 27:50

so, um, in a nutshell, uh well, you and maybe the rest of the team have got something to do with it too. Now we've grown, but have taken our business from where I was doing I don't know when I first started 80, 100 grand a year to 1.2 million with digital marketing.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Yeah, and since then you've been getting involved with the people that we teach in retained a lot, and that's been happening more and more, hasn't it? So can you tell us a bit more about what you've been helping people with that are on that journey to transition from contingent to retained?

Speaker 3: 28:40

well it's. There's so many different things that I've been helping with and it really depends on where people are up to. I think when we think about the contingent retained, a lot of people don't understand or a bit more perplexed about how the messaging should be on their website. So quite often we'll just go through that and we'll just work out is what you're selling like the solution side of stuff? Is that being portrayed on your website and on your LinkedIn profile like have you got a good niche? Like you know working out the fundamentals of the strategy side of stuff? And then, when it comes to a lot of businesses and I feel like more and more they do have some marketing set up or they've got a really good website, they've got a great brand they kind of they've got that piece done. But then they're like right, well, what's next? Like how do I generate those leads? And that's really is my. My sweet spot is is working out that bit. Okay, we've, we've, we've defined the message and we've got a really good niche. Now we've got proof of concept. How can we take what we're doing and kind of supercharge and accelerate those results?

Speaker 3: 29:53

So we've been working on kind of outreach approaches. That's been a really big thing. The last like a couple of quarters. So it's kind of a blend of like I will say, my expertise is great. I'm like coaching and working with people, but it's like a two way approach because we get to work with people who are doing stuff and work together and we kind of collate what works. And so a massive thing for the outreach approaches has been speculative cvs, which a lot of people, when you say specs, they straight away think no, that's contingent, like we won't retain solutions.

Speaker 3: 30:33

We don't, we don't want to that was the first thing, sarah, I was taught first ever day ever, the first thing I was taught was, uh, how to spec a cv yeah, yeah, I mean that I would not have survived as a contingent recruiter, I will say, if I couldn't spec out a candidate. So, yeah, like you know, it's something that we're well versed with on a contingent basis, I'm like, but it does work for retained assignments. There's some slight tweaks. You need to make sure that you're picking a high caliber candidate. Um, you know the we've got some great templates or some great ways of positioning that as well, but also we talk through how okay, if someone bites, how do we transition that from a spec to one isolated interview to a retained?

Speaker 2: 31:23

so, yeah, do you know, we've just obviously me and lou just come back from from australia and when we were out in australia we met up with some of our mastermind members who obviously you've done some work with, and it's funny because I sat there listening to them talk about what they've been up to, what they've been doing, and I thought, if I shut my eyes, it's basically sarah it's funny, some other words and it got me thinking that it's so similar to what me and in a sense, of just really trying to teach from experience and having been there and done it and walked the path and made the mistakes that you know that they're so lucky to have someone like yourself doing exactly that, that's been there and just done it, and so actually, I know this doesn't work, because I've tried it and it didn't work, but I know this worked really well and you just do this, this, this and this, and this is what comes as a result of it. It's, it's and what.

Speaker 1: 32:13

What's awesome in the same way that you and I drawed, get the benefit of working with people that you know hands-on sleeves up that in this market now and continuously learning and seeing what's working now, you get exactly the same thing because you work so closely with everybody and you see now how things shift and change as the market shifts and changes, and what. Because it's constantly changing, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 32:38

so it doesn't stay the same no, and when I first started, like you know, years ago, let's say, um, seo was the best thing for me to focus my attention on, but I wouldn't suggest that now. If someone was starting from scratch now, I'd be like no outreach, spec approaches, primarily like email, cold email, that's the way to go, but that a few years ago, like I remember trying to get email working at talent works and couldn't for love, no money, but now like so it's weird, or it's strange how things go in cycles. So, even though, like seo might not be the best route to go down in the first instance right now, no doubt it'll change in a couple of years and we'll be back to creating uh, content that you, we can search for and you get tools as well now, which, when I was doing stuff like this, like I'd be doing it manually as well, and now, like, if we take the email aspect, there's so many tools that can help linkedin, and like automating.

Speaker 1: 33:41

Well, I was gonna say like what do you give us?

Speaker 1: 33:43

Because so many times? Um, you know, it's funny because when we do our mastermind events and and you know, because you, you're there, you're at them we almost always start with bd, almost always sessions start with bd, because that's normally top of everyone's priorities, and then almost I can't think of an exception to it not then moving into a marketing and digital marketing conversation, and I then can't think of an exception when it then doesn't transition into a tools and tech conversation, and we always cover every topic thoroughly before we get to the end, before we move on to the next one. Sometimes we even go back. But with that in mind, like if you were to give your like top tools of the moment and I know this changes and if you're listening to this, in a year's time it will be different. If in six months, even in three months, it will probably be different. But if you took a snapshot of, like, your favorite tools that you, you and your, your clients, you know the, our members are using, that working the best right now, what would they?

Speaker 2: 34:45

be small print is that we are tech agnostic. We're not sponsored.

Speaker 3: 34:49

Yeah, we're not sponsored yet no, we don't get anything from anybody so the first thing that I would uh, I would say if you were starting from scratch well, not from scratch say, you've got your messaging, you've got a niche, you've got your proof of concept, but you want a marketing strategy. At this current moment in time, where we're seeing the most results is outreach. Now, when I say outreach, that is a blend of email, linkedin and picking up the phone, I feel like I might be cheating on myself by saying that, but we know that that does generate results. So, um, outreach is a blend of those three. And if we're talking about tools, I do like a tool where I can blend all three of those.

Speaker 3: 35:38

I like stuff where I can work smarter, not harder. So I I do. I have been loving and I know a few of our members have been loving source well. So source well. I can email people and it looks like an actual email from a person. It's got some really good ai features as well, so I can like, populate the right things and make it look like it's um me although me, yeah, other people, but I can like it's still such a good blend of automation but personalization.

Speaker 3: 36:09

Because in this day and age, like automation is great, I would be the first person to say I love automation, but you can't. You can't automate everything like. I hate it when you you connect with someone on LinkedIn and then straight away you have this like massive message from them. It's so obvious, it's automated. So but at the same time, it's really good to use these things to save you time. So you need a blend, uh, you need a fine balance.

Speaker 3: 36:32

So what I do like about Sourcewell is you can do emails, you can do LinkedIn, you can also add in call tasks as well, and you can just personalize it and change it depending on the person and the campaign. So we've been really liking that. But then at the same time, we've got people who have their own crms whether that be loxo, ezekiel, bullhorn, anything where they can um broadcast, they can send emails out um, and then alongside that, they'll have like a linkedin automation tool like dripify, and that's been working really well people as well. But I would just always suggest to get those two things working in tandem and then make sure that you're picking up the phones and people who are most engaged with your content, be that they're replying, they're accepting connection requests, they're opening your emails.

Speaker 1: 37:24

Try and get those people on the phone I hope you don't mind if I share some of the things that happen when you start doing this kind of stuff. Uh, here is an email from a target client of ours. Uh, we were promoting a, uh, we were doing a promotion, a campaign, and uh, there's a line in this email that says, um, it's uh, well, I don't know what. Was there a message around it? Must have been a message around it. But it says, yeah, because you regularly open our emails creepy, I know, sorry. In brackets he says hi louise, it's not creepy, it's very efficient, impressive process. Talk on monday and we got a call booked in with that client because of the wording, the combination of the approach which was sent automated through our tools source rail, um. And he booked in a call because of the outreach that sarah and her team are doing.

Speaker 1: 38:30

Here's another one from richard hi louise, hope you're well. I must say I've been impressed with your outbound marketing, both email content, cadence and instagram ads. I'm just curious to know where you feel you've had the most success. So actually wants to know how we're doing our marketing, what notable improvements or inbound leads or other data it's gleaned. So we had a call with richard to share that and here's some stuff that happens, uh, in the mastermind group and these are people sarah's working closely with. You might've heard, if you've been listening to the podcast recently, that specking works. This is the title of this win. After changing up our research, automating a lot of it client contact details, validation and outreach we've booked four meetings in six days. Thank you for the Dripify session and the automation help, sarah Chester. Here's another one SpecOut wins C-Suite. Two candidates in finals from SpecOut at the C-Suite. Thank you for teaching me more how to use this method. And the biggest news of all, sarah, will you please tell everybody what is the biggest news at all?

Speaker 3: 39:42

So I have had the absolute pleasure to be working very closely with Search Mastery members on their marketing and through that we've realised or we've identified a need that maybe we should have a course on marketing for retained yeah, so I have been, uh, behind the scenes working on that, um, and also what's been great is some of our members have really been helping me build that as well and giving their feedback, so we know that all the stuff in there it works through my experience, but also through our search mastery members experience as well. So the first people that will gain access to that, to the course, when we launch, is obviously our search foundation members. Our members will get first dibs, but we're also going to do a wait list as well. So if you do want to know more about the marketing course when we launch, pop your name on the list and we will. Um, yeah, we'll let you know when it launches how exciting yeah I didn't tell you this.

Speaker 2: 40:52

There was someone um in australia that they booked a sales call with me about a year ago, right, yeah, and I thought it was a bit weird because they weren't actually a recruit recruits, they were more like a provider. Anyway, they ended up standing me up right and didn't turn up to it. And I saw them at an award ceremony, right, and I was like that's it, I'm gonna corner them and say I can't believe you stood me up so I cornered this guy and he said to me yeah, but it's not really relevant, your course.

Speaker 2: 41:19

What I really wanted to know is I just wanted to know how do you do what you do with marketing. It's genius that's so.

Speaker 3: 41:26

We've had a couple of calls like that, where like you know I've spoken to people and and that's why we ultimately decided actually, you know, we we have been teaching this sort of stuff to our members, but not in a a formal way until we, we kind of started with such mastery.

Speaker 1: 41:43

It made sense to build a course from that doing the waitlist, my friend, and all will be revealed exactly, but we already have already experienced the power of it already because I know it's not finished yet, but there are three modules that have been completed and the search mastery members, as you can see from just those few wins, are already using it and winning. They get access to it in beta mode if you're a mastermind member, but you need to already be retained to be a mastermind member. So we already know that even in beta mode with um, just the first three modules is phenomenally powerful for people and, like Jordan said, when we met up with the crew of them in Australia, that's what they were, that's what they were winning from. Basically, that's what was, that's what was moving the needle right now. So we're so excited to bring it to a wider audience and we're going to be carefully choosing those that are right and the right fit. So put your name on the waitlist. How are we organizing the waitlist? Where? If they're listening to this podcast, how can they?

Speaker 1: 42:55

um, there'll be a link in the description yeah, because you would have put it there, or one of your teams but yeah, you know we do.

Speaker 3: 43:06

We do want to ensure people get results, so we want to keep it tight knit and that's why we're only opening up to search foundation members to start with and then moving further afield. And it is critical really that you, uh, you want to work on a retained basis, because it's all focused around winning work through marketing through retained and then you've got all these leads and then you need to know how do you convert the leads. Oh, it's like a full circle, Jordan.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Yeah, and we know people for that.

Speaker 1: 43:37

We know people for that. Yes we do, yes, we do. We're pretty good at conversion. Uh, so that's it. You heard it here first, folks. That is it. That is how it has come into being. That's how it's being born. Um, get your name down. Do we have a rough time scale yet, or do we not talk about that, sarah?

Speaker 3: 43:59

I well, I want to. I want to go live, like now, like I think people are winning already, um, with the stuff in there. Yeah, and what has been great, the way that we've been building this course and, as we said before, like things change so much, like so I'm constantly updating it. Like you will get results from the three modules that are in there already, and then I'll just I'll be putting more sophisticated methods in there as well.

Speaker 3: 44:28

So I so yeah, I want to be getting people in from like next month. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: 44:34

nice oh, I love it okay, um, I think that's all we've got time for today yeah, at the end, though, can we make sure we end the call.

Speaker 2: 44:45

Did uh the video? Did charlie tell you what happened the other day?

Speaker 3: 44:49

oh yeah, with your webinar. I just got this group message going like your webinar.

Speaker 2: 44:53

You've not switched your webinar it was me, for anyone listening. I ran a webinar on linkedin and at the end forgot to end the webinar and then stood up at the end, forgot to end the webinar and then stood up at the end, walked out the room, into my little girl's room next door and apparently all you could do was me going. Come and give daddy a cuddle that's so cute oh my god, I love.

Speaker 1: 45:16

It well on that note thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your world, your story and your news with everybody, and we can't wait to have you back on sharing what's going on and the latest tips and tricks soon. And please let us know in the comments if they get to comment Like is this helpful for you? Are you interested? Are you interested in the wait list? And you know, keep us posted with your feedback and your thoughts. People, yes, please. Bye everybody. Thanks guys, thanks Lou, thanks Sarah, bye.

Speaker 1: 45:50

Well, that's another episode of Retrained 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 retrainedsearchcom, 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.

Speaker 1: 46:20

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.