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. Yes, thank you for joining us. You very much, tj. I was just saying before you joined um, we're really grateful for tj joining us today and and sharing um and sharing his story, because it's an interesting and unusual and inspiring one. So we were really excited to have our listeners, uh, find out a little bit more about it. So welcome to those of you listening. Uh, I don't know what it's called anymore. We're changing the name of the podcast, aren't we?

Speaker 2: 0:54

yeah, well, I mean, it's easy for us to act like we have any element of control over these things. We are just directed and guided by our team yeah, by our incredible team.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Uh, behind the scenes, shout out to kirsty and charlie review of the new name um, yeah, go on. What is the new name? I think?

Speaker 2: 1:17

it's the retained search show.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Yes, howard by the train search there we go, there we go so um searching officially, tj, you're our first guest on our new show, so welcome to the show and thanks for joining us. Um, okay, cool, I'm gonna dive in, uh, because I want to find out how things have been going for you, tj. But first of all, you were just telling me there's a bit of hurricanes and things going on and I haven't seen it. I'm a bit down at the moment. Is it Beryl?

Speaker 2: 1:54

It's Beryl. I've been keeping a close eye on our Beryl.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Have you why You're not doing a trip over there? We're not doing the States until next year, are we? You're not doing a trip over there? We're not due in the States until next year are we?

Speaker 2: 2:04

no, we're not. I don't know where I saw it, but they always fascinate me, these hurricane things like this time of year as well. Like I remember, years ago I was on a Caribbean cruise and we had to go and hide around the corner in Mexico because there was a hurricane coming oh, hiding around the corner helps does it. It's not a bad place to hide, right. Oh well, we've got to stay on the cruise for another week oh, so right yeah oh, very good.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Whereabouts are you, tj? Where, where are you?

Speaker 3: 2:32

so I'm in the in the states, obviously, but in in georgia, the state of georgia, outside the city of atlanta. So a lot of people are familiar with atlanta, I'm sure, but, yeah, a little town called marietta that is featured in Hallmark movies and things like that. They'll be. Marietta will be decorated for Christmas time in like June because of some movie being filmed.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I love those movies. I love them. They make me happy. In like September, whenmas really should start right and um. It's going from the caribbean to houston.

Speaker 3: 3:09

Apparently, houston live in houston so it's uh, so there's, uh, let's see. So I have a team member who's down in jamaica, made it through when it crossed over the caribbean, and then it's going up into the gulf into tex, texas, and I have team members that are in Houston, um, although they're they're used to it in that part of Texas, unfortunately, but um, I'm sure they'll be fine. It's, it's weakened quite a bit by now, but it's, it's early, uh, for.

Speaker 2: 3:37

I think it was categorized as a level five. Was it at one point?

Speaker 3: 3:41

and it was like first time on record that a hurricane has been categorized as that strong this early in the year right, yeah, it's early that hurricane period, but much less one that strong, so but it's been very warm, uh, lately, so I'm not surprised, you know. Um, so anyway, yep, but it's all well, everybody's doing fine so far, it seems, so that's good good.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Um, before we dive into finding out why you're here, tj, I wanted to do what we normally do, just briefly and share some of the good stuff that's been going on, because I've been told recently that by a listener of the podcast that they quite like hearing good news and positivity and there's a lot of it going around. Uh in our little group at the moment. Isn't there jordan?

Speaker 2: 4:27

yeah, harriet it makes me happy. It's like she just came to me about four weeks ago. I was like, yeah, I could probably do with some new searches and it was like bd, my old bank. Five new searches, one in the last two weeks and completed on three of us and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Then she goes on to say um sorry, I'm jumping in jord.

Speaker 2: 4:49

Don't worry. Well, they've used market data to help two clients enhance their compensation packages, enabling one to secure their candidate of choice above one of their competitors. They've secured foundership status with the uk gsa. In association with the vision to serve our members and the industry by encouraging the sharing of knowledge in the field. A vision to serve our members and the industry by encouraging the sharing of knowledge in the field of gensets and CHP through the entire independent standby power and energy sectors.

Speaker 2: 5:13

They're now a finalist for the Women in Green Business Awards and Employer of the Year. They initially entered for Small Business of the Year. However, the organisers contacted them and advised they were being moved into this category. They're one of five companies to be finalized over 900 entries the awards and, after the less than ideal start to the year, um, positive things have been happening behind the scenes. The reason for the post is that sometimes it's hard to keep your head up and see your progress. But if you would have told me on the 22nd of october 21, the day I signed up for the course, I'd be writing this post as a fully retained recruiter, small business owner, with the wonderful um ariana being by her side, and all of the above achievements, I wouldn't have believed you at all yeah, I don't think um.

Speaker 1: 6:04

People do believe what they manage to achieve, do they?

Speaker 2: 6:06

now a mastermind member of ours right and the mastermind she is.

Speaker 1: 6:09

She is indeed. And the next one we only got in this morning. Uh, thanks, claire. This was, uh, katie. Thanks claire. Retrained search has been the best investment I've ever made and look forward to catching up soon. So nice, very, very good. Uh, another one here. Who's this one? Jordan?

Speaker 2: 6:29

Mark said he's won five new searches since the start of the final April. He set himself a target to win 12 this year. So very happy with five in the first three months, and rightly so, mark yeah, and all retained, of course.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Uh, there's another one here, first client one hi, all super stoked, stoked to share. That's got to be australia, that has got to be a super stoked to share that. I won our first real retained client and I can't seem to find examples for a first commencement thing. So sometimes people go so quick they can't find what, uh, they need fast enough, which is good, uh and rain is in california.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Oh so, just using a bit of Australian language. And then new agreement I will just sign a new client with big growth plans in the UK and the US. Oh yeah, this is in the mastermind group. Everything up to 44,999 is contingent, because that's pretty low level Positions between 45 and 80K engaged, which is a model that I've been building with ross for the last quarter, and it's taken off. And then everything above 80k is a full retained search and they've just released the first two positions which have both fallen into the engaged search category, which is very nice. Jordan, do you know this?

Speaker 2: 7:42

one hello. It's ryan. So ryan's out in tokyo, delivered and agreed on a short list of candidates with my clients. This week took a bit longer than expected as we flexed the parameters along the way. First I walked him through our work and, following the script, the look on my client's face when I told him the search is now complete was priceless. Confidently he leaned back in his chair and said yeah, that's enough. This list has gotten richer and richer oh, that's giving me goosebumps trust the process it's funny um, ryan came to me after he'd won his first retainer.

Speaker 2: 8:13

he kind of said now I've got it, and he went flying into delivery and he kind of came a few weeks later going yeah shit, I should have followed more of the process that you teach and I can see how certain certain things that wouldn't have happened and like searches two and three, just followed it piece by piece, reaping the benefits.

Speaker 1: 8:34

yeah well, done right I love it and finally just won my first retainer, first pitch. One wouldn't say the pitch was brilliant, but we got on well and I convinced her somehow. Now, in a complete panic about what to do next, here's another one that's just raced ahead. I need to get the terms changed. Create an invoice. There's so many documents, you know. Help me with the next step. So that happens quite a lot when people come in.

Speaker 2: 9:00

I mean, they go next to each other really well, because the first comment on that post in the community was Ryan, oh really.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Telling them what to do next Delivery.

Speaker 2: 9:12

just follow the process.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Don't make the same mistakes all right, so now we get to um the good bit and finding out all about what you're doing here. Uh, I need to just change my view there. We go find out all about what you're doing here, cj, so it's been so interesting to see your journey so far and I think it's very interesting and inspiring for people to hear, so please could you introduce yourself to our audience and tell people a bit about your background and how you came to meet us and to be working with us?

Speaker 3: 9:54

Yeah, happy to. So I was in the HR realm for several years. I was an HR executive. Most recently I was a chief HR officer and it was a good career. But I was really ready to go off and do my own thing and decided to pursue a recruiting firm to invest in and buy into. And so I came across a firm called Concrete Careers which is in the concrete industry, as you could assume probably. So we've recruited across the US parts of Canada currently. That's where we focus now. But as a firm it's been around almost 50 years and really good legacy and felt like a worthwhile investment to make. When I bought into the business there was two recruiters on the team and they had not done. They had just cracked into the six figures into revenue the year before I bought it. They had been bigger than that before but they had sort of wound down after almost 50 years of being in business. You know you can imagine the founder was a little bit later stage career anyway, and so came in and got involved.

Speaker 3: 11:01

I committed to myself to try to keep it status quo for the most part. To start with, I wanted to learn what they were doing it was working well before I put too much of my own sort of opinion into it and then, a few months in, affirmed what I already knew that some level of retained either monthly retainer or ad hoc retainers was a better way to go. But I was not a recruiter by trade, I was an HR guy, not a recruiter, and so I was trying to figure out how I was going to make that pivot. Potentially and thankfully I don't know if it's because I said it out loud and my iPhone heard me so it started putting advertisements in front of me.

Speaker 2: 11:40

But anyway, somehow or another.

Speaker 3: 11:41

Retrained, came across my feed on LinkedIn and you guys were just very compelling and seemed like a good story. I was intrigued by the fact that you weren't US based, to be honest, and I know there's a lot of competition where you guys are. So I figured if you were standing above the crowd there in the UK that's probably worth talking to. And so I reached out and had a great conversation with Jordan and a little bit of the rest is history. I got signed up pretty quickly, I think, for myself to jump in and got a cohort and shout out to Keisha, one of our cohort team members who was there to really bounce things off quite a bit along the way. And honestly, I was about halfway through the course seeing some of the success we were having and getting retainers, interest in retainers and retainers sold. You know, a couple of times I didn't follow the process fully, felt like I might know better and they fell down. But the ones I did follow the process, they worked just fine. So anyway, so I ended up signing up for my team members to go through the course as well. So I mentioned we had, you know, two recruiters when I bought the company a year ago, just crossed over a year at the beginning of July. We now have 12 recruiters plus a business development person. So we've grown quite a bit, and part of the confidence in growing like that is because of the retainers we've been landing.

Speaker 3: 13:01

As we've shifted to doing retainers mostly rather than contingent, I was concerned that the sales flow would slow down a lot. But it's not slowed down a lot, it's slowed down a little. It's more, I would say, more purposeful in the sales process. But we've still got plenty of work to do. So we need the people to come on board and help do the work. So anyway, that's kind of been the journey, the last little bit, a little bit about me before I bought into the concrete careers. But again, I wasn't a recruiter by trade. So you know, I was kind of stepping into it on faith, hoping I would figure it all out.

Speaker 1: 13:38

Wow, I mean, it's just fantastic and we're loving your journey and loving working with you and the team. And so tell me when, if you will, TJ, when you first kind of dived in and you got into the business and you started looking at it, you said what was it about? What was happening that made you come to the realization that retained was the way you wanted to go? What was that sort of journey for you?

Speaker 3: 14:09

Well, I will say that I knew the kind of close ratio and success rate that my recruiting teams that worked under me had had, including our outsourced retained teams, in my prior life. But here, within the contingent model, we weren't doing bad. I think as things go, we were doing around, you know, 30 percent, I guess fill rate, which is, you know, to me wasn't great, didn't feel great, but as a term of learning.

Speaker 3: 14:39

And actually even since I've taught in Jordan, it was a little higher then and it started to fall down a little bit just because of the volume we were taking on. We just didn't have the time to give the attention to the searches anyway, and so I just kind of went back to you know what worked for me whenever I was, you know, a CHRO and I was like, well, we had dedicated teams that had the time to focus on it and had the communication. A lot of my recruiters were saying, hey, we need to have a better way to qualify the business that we're getting. But the reality is, on the contingent side it's, there's only so much you can do to qualify a role Like you don't really know if it's going to work out or if the, if something's out of the client's control on some level. Right, the, an internal person pops up and they didn't know about that was on the East coast and they're going to move to the West coast or whatever I mean you can't.

Speaker 3: 15:25

You can't predict that kind of stuff, Right? So so all of that, I just knew I had to find some way. And again, thinking back to my time as an HR executive, I said you know, the teams I had the most success with were my internal team that are basically retained because you're paying them every month to be there, and then our outsourced retained groups that we worked with and we had some ad hoc mostly at the executive level ad hoc retained firms, but those are the ones we got the most success with. The contingent firms it was more. It usually was to make the managers feel better that there was somebody else involved to help do more searching or whatever, but usually we didn't get much results from from that model. So anyway, so just kind of had an awakening in that sense and was thankful to to have that.

Speaker 3: 16:09

So that's where I knew we needed to pivot because I couldn't I couldn't bring on, you know, another. I think we'd had 150 roles. We had touched in like almost a year's time and we built that many of them, which was not bad for good revenue or whatever. I mean we'd grown compared to what we were doing before. But I mean I was thinking to myself, man, if we just did double that right Not even a tremendous percentage, we did 50, yeah, instead of 25 or 30 and what a difference that would make.

Speaker 1: 16:39

So anyway, and and tell me then, tj, you're a really experienced guy, you know you're, you're very modest and um, playing down your prior experience before uh, joining the firm, uh, but but you've seen a lot, you know, and you and you've you've worked with good external partners and this is a. This is an experienced firm. They're 50 years old, you say, and so why do you think they hadn't already addressed that issue of you know 70 percent of their time being non-productive, why hadn't they already kind of moved to retained already? Do you think?

Speaker 3: 17:20

Well, I think one thing that makes the retrained search model different is it helps to remove an element of the fear of being tied to a search indefinitely and being committed to a search indefinitely. That's the thing I understood from the team that was here at the time. They were like look, we tried a couple retainers and client wasn't responsive. We felt like we were on the hook with that search for a long time right and we couldn't move on from the search.

Speaker 3: 17:46

Right. But I will say another thing. We sort of changed in how we operated, even on the contingent side here or we had changed before I stepped into the retained model was we're going to do our best to be committed to the client and the search until the bitter end. Right, until we know it's just dead. Right, because some searches on the contingent side a recruiter might say it's a bad search or whatever. But the reality is again, having been on that side of the desk, you're not sending me the candidates that fit the bill, right. So it might feel like it's dead to you, but to me it's very much alive and I need the role filled. But you're sending me candidates that aren't worth considering. And so you know which came first idea, the chicken or the egg kind of a thing. And so that's why they had not made that pivot, because they felt overly committed to the searches.

Speaker 3: 18:39

But again, for us, we had already changed our mindset to be committed, so we were committed more than the clients were as far as like the relationship there, but I think that's why a lot of our clients and our respective clients haven't had an issue converting to the retained model, because they know that we've been there. We've continued to to be involved in the search, even when it's taken longer than it should and it's probably why the team is so important as well.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Right, because we often say don't, we do. The consultants, the people who do best with this, are the ones that want to provide a great service, that want customers, that want to build partnership, that want to solve problems, the ones that are happy to walk away when the going gets tough.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Probably not right for them yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd much rather have be be too far that way than than try and keep somebody interested and committed when um and and then main mainly, like you say, the problem. The problem, the barrier is different for different people depending on what their experience is. If they've had that experience and they're frightened of being over committed, then we remove that barrier in the way that you've experienced TJ. But some people it's that they've never tried it before and they're just scared of what might happen, and everybody's a bit different, and I'm so glad that that was the, you know, one of the big barriers that it removed for you.

Speaker 1: 19:53

And so, um, what? What's kind of happened since then? You, you've um, you've been using the program um, you've been, I've seen you in a few of the coaching calls, you've been brilliant, um, and just just doing what you've been told. Really, that's what we always say the people that do the best are the people that just do, just just follow it. You know, step by step, what have you seen happen then with you and your interactions with clients, with the, you know the team and the business? How has it changed as you've started to use these methods?

Speaker 3: 20:28

Oh man. Well, I will tell you first and foremost, especially when I followed the process, when I had the scripting there kind of for me to use and you know you make it sound conversational but still very much on each point that needs to be covered to make sure that I don't skip something. Inevitably, when I would skip something it felt like it got bumpier. I'm having to kind of go back and cover again what I should have already covered and it's not as, not as fluid. But when I follow the process, honestly, when I get to the end of it, in the conversations I have with people, it's not been unusual that they sort of repeat back to me their understanding of why right, that shows you kind of the in my opinion, the highest level of understanding. They're saying oh yeah, I get it, because if you have a commitment from us and we can feel like you're committed to us and we're committed to you and it's like right.

Speaker 3: 21:17

And the biggest thing you mentioned, the good recruiters are focused on the client's pain. The biggest thing I would tell you is they know there's a sincerity there that we are trying to make sure they get what they need. It's not let me go find the role, that you have 10 roles, let me grab the one that works good for us, kind of thing. We're seeking to be committed to them, to help them with all the pain that they have and yeah, um, and to make sure they get the role filled. The thing I say to them is like I'm as committed to you to get a result on this as you are yourself committed to getting a result right as opposed to if I'm a contingent recruiter.

Speaker 3: 21:55

I can walk away, throw a couple of resumes over the fence and if you like my candidates, great. If you don't, I'll go toss them to the other person across the street, you know, and see what they think. So that's been the biggest thing I think I've seen to the problem of the process. And then the other piece is around the proposal part, the. You know, the initial meeting, the pitch can feel a little bit similar to a contingent pitch, except for a different verbiage. But that follow-up meeting, even if I'm talking to the same person, the same stakeholder a couple of days later to talk about the proposal, it's a much more serious conversation. Like they're taking it seriously. They can tell I'm taking it seriously, right, and that's the point. When the sale gets made, like if I try to sell it at the pitch, that's just the time. They're kind of they've handed the menu and they're looking at what they want to have for dinner, kind of thing, right, and it's the, the proposal. But I come back and say, okay, are we ready?

Speaker 2: 22:49

yeah, I like that they made the choice right.

Speaker 3: 22:53

That discipline I've really seen not following that. Allow a couple days, have the next proposal conversation Again it'll fall down. But if I have that delay and they come back and they can tell that it's not a flash in the pan, it's a very intentional thing. They're much more willing to jump into the process. But also they're committed to it. They've mentally to have that second meeting. They're mentally committed and they're kind of asking okay, when do we have the, when do we have the briefing meeting? Then it's like, okay, well, so they want to try to schedule as soon as they can. Well, I do need to make sure the team is involved, so I need to make sure their calendars are free, but anyway, but that second proposal meeting, it starts to go from me pushing the idea to them, starting to pull it from me right, yeah, that's so nice and you know you mentioned earlier on that there was there was a slight reticence from the team because they were afraid that they were going to be taking stuff on that that they were then lumbered with.

Speaker 1: 23:49

You know they were, they were then stuck with and it was going to go on and that's kind of been their experience with retainers when they've dabbled in it before. How has is doing this helped with that? What's alleviated that?

Speaker 3: 24:04

I would say there's two things that have been really critical that came out of the training is one is the conversation with the clients that there is a targeted set end date to the search right, but not a literal calendar date, but the point being like we're not going to just search in perpetuity, like we are going to cover the market and get to a point we tell you this is, this is what's available to you, let's now make a decision and to pull into the short list.

Speaker 3: 24:32

Then the clients like that, that idea, because they don't want to have a role open and I know from my own experience you don't want to have a role open and I know from my own experience you don't want to roll open just indefinitely Because, honestly, it gets to a point where if you have a role open for, let's say, six months and you're not the CEO let's say you're a VP of operations at some point the CEO somebody like me is going to come to you and say hey, do you really need that?

Speaker 3: 24:50

role role we've been operating with that right, and so the people that are that need the role they want to fill in a short time, and so the conversation we've had with clients is like it's sort of you go slow to go fast, you know, slowing it down, having that weekly touch base to talk about the role, versus just emails going back and forth, yeah, really helps things to feel much calmer, but they can react to everything at one time and so they're really comparing people to each other versus.

Speaker 3: 25:19

You know, I like this guy that I saw three weeks ago what was his name again, or this lady, you know anyway. So the team haven't seen that that change has been really helpful. The other thing is we tried back in March, before I made the decision, to pivot to this the other thing the recruiters had asked for. They said, hey, what if we went to 10 to 15 roles each that were working? So we have like enough roles. We could feel pretty sure we're gonna get a role filled. I said, okay, let's try it, and we paused our hiring process for our adding recruiters on, allow them the opportunity to recruit that many roles, and it just went horribly. We, we had, we had a blank month.

Speaker 3: 25:57

We've been doing six figure months for three months in a row and then had a blank month like no, no fills after making that change, and so it showed you that spreading yourselves too thin is completely ineffective. So the other thing with the pertains it allows you to do it, but you should do it really probably anyway was to go down to two to four roles each, and that's it. So they have the time to dig into it and really find the right people for the client, because again it can feel like a dead search until you find that right candidate.

Speaker 3: 26:24

And then the client suddenly they want to jump in and hire that person. So anyway, but the retained thing has made it much more likely that you find not just one, but three or four of those people they want to consider, right.

Speaker 2: 26:37

So anyway, hopefully your journey is a little different. I suppose probably a lot of the people listening to this podcast I often see one of the biggest barriers initially for business owners is just to have the courage to make what is a fundamental change. If I was a 20, you know a business owner, a search business owner that had the business for 20 years and was considering making this change, what would your advice be to that person, having been through it?

Speaker 3: 27:11

I know it's scary to make a change, but I will tell you, if you follow the process and you don't give up on the business development activities, you still have the business development going, but you follow the process and commit to having the conversations around the retained search. But it can't be in your mind. It can't be because it's good for you, right, it is good for you. But I promise you from the client perspective haven't been there it's better for the client, it truly is, and so if you go in with that mindset, they will make the change and you might see a little bit of a blip as far as activity, right, but it's the how to be a rainmaker idea. You have less activity, but they're higher value work that you get to work on. So your revenue stream should be higher than it has been and the quality of life for your team should be much higher as well. So and here's the thing too I'll tell you for us I don't know how other people operate their business, but for us we were allowing people, before I bought the firm, allowing people to pay post hire over between 90 days to a year, like a payment plan for that.

Speaker 3: 28:17

So we moved our cash flow from. You know, for the time you start a search it could be maybe 15 months by the time you get that final payment. We moved our cash flow from that far out up to basically you get that first installment 60 days before the search is completed, typically right. It's a huge difference in cash flow. That's the biggest barrier to any business to be successful is managing cash flow.

Speaker 2: 28:40

So I'll tell you right now if you're a legacy business owner.

Speaker 3: 28:42

Your cash flow problems don't go away, but it helps a lot. And keep doing your contingent searches. You're working on, you know you're going to get filled in three, four months or whatever. You land a few retainers. You suddenly have, you know, $6,000 to $10,000 dropping into the bank account two or three times for the month and then three or four times the next month. I mean you'll get to a point pretty quickly In 90 days, 120 days. You're going to ask yourself why in the world would I keep pursuing these other ways of doing business.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Um, because the cash flow is so much faster and so much more reliable it's so nice to hear you say that, tj, because I think a lot of people feel like it's got to be one or the other and they've almost got to go to cold turkey, and some people do. And you know, that's, that's fine. Jordan did that and uh, I mean, yeah, my journey was similar. Straight away I thought, yeah, I'm not going to do that anymore.

Speaker 2: 29:32

But I was so over contingent that I you know I was so ready for it, with noting like I worked for a firm. Yeah, I think it's easier for someone who works for a firm who's got a salary to say I'm never doing. It might have been had I been trying to pay salaries yeah, yeah, yeah it is.

Speaker 1: 29:49

But it's good for you to say that you, you can just carry on working the contingent stuff because you can. You know you don't have to. Just some people say you know there's stuff that other people, other trainers or other people say you know you've got to go all retained or not at all, and it's just not true. It isn't true. You can juggle the two, but like you say TJ, it isn't true. You can, you can, um, juggle the two, but like you say tj. I see overwhelmingly people then go well, why would I want to keep putting effort into that when I put effort into this and I end up with something that's more enjoyable all around and higher value?

Speaker 3: 30:25

yeah, right and I'm personally, as as a um for my past life as an HR leader, encouraging people from what I would call a change management standpoint is this okay to have phased approaches? So phase one for me sort of was we were fully contingent and let's make some changes to get cash flow a little faster by changing the payment plan model, that sort of thing. Phase two is to start bringing in some retained search plan model, that sort of thing. Phase two is to start bringing in some retained search and my aim is to be having conversations with clients and prospects that really probably I would say almost certainly for 2025 forward will be fully retained. But I'm allowing a little bit of time for some of the, the work that started sort of in the pipeline to be closed out. Have some of those conversations maybe divorce a couple of clients that we can't make the transition, but but have them know kind of ahead of time that this is where we're headed.

Speaker 3: 31:16

Like when I get to this point, we're going to change and so if you are willing to change with us, we'll wish you well and we'll move on. No hard feelings, but that's. I think that's okay. I think it's okay. Arguably, as a business owner, you should be pretty intentional about when you pull levers like that and make those kind of changes.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Yeah, so for people listening, you know we've seen your journey and we've been seeing this kind of puzzle kind of falling into place for you and you're still on the journey, right, it never ends. Actually, there isn't ever a final destination and you know it will continue to evolve and improve and develop and grow and you'll continue to learn and improve and there's always, there's always more stuff to learn. But to where you are now, like what, what's happened? What kind of stuff has happened? What kind of work have you been? Have you been winning and what has that meant for the team? Like what what's? It's only been a short journey as well're talking like a few months really so far, aren't we?

Speaker 3: 32:18

yeah, I just had my uh graduation with clara a few years ago, I think it was.

Speaker 2: 32:22

So I'm graduating your team tomorrow, right tj?

Speaker 1: 32:26

yeah, my team graduates tomorrow yeah, so that I mean it's a 20s concept to those of you listening that the course, the original, the initial program, is eight weeks long.

Speaker 3: 32:35

So this is the journey over eight weeks, so what's happened in those eight weeks that you can share with with the audience we've, uh, so, put in perspective, we have a briefing call today and a briefing call tomorrow, which means that there are four retainers that have been one. Both are new clients, although one is sort of a sister company of another client of ours, and so we had a conversation with this client, converted one of their searches that we had been working on for like two and a half months, converted it to retained. So it was a current client, retained, changeover. And then their citra company talked to their hr leader we're not doing a retained search for them. And then the other retainer came from being involved in an association meeting. They saw me speaking to another business owner about a role that we were doing, retained. They said I need to talk to you about how you can help us and talk to them. And now that's a retained search.

Speaker 3: 33:35

And so, honestly, like the last month, month and a half, every conversation has been retained. First, like the conversation I'm having is retained. Why retained is helpful? Again, they're on the appropriate level, like if it was a you know, 45 000 a year job, I'm probably going to use a, maybe a staffing partner to handle that one us, I mean maybe, maybe not depends on the how many of the roles they need and that sort of thing. But anyway, um, and through doing that, we've, you know, we've uh, sold I think I put in the thing over 130,000 and retainers last like month and we've had, you know, including today and tomorrow, you know, 30, almost 40,000 and initial installments invoiced.

Speaker 1: 34:22

And we're just getting started. I mean, it's only a few weeks in.

Speaker 3: 34:25

Yeah, I mean so, and I've got the business development person that's converted over that.

Speaker 1: 34:30

he's he's like this is's uh.

Speaker 3: 34:33

He's like this is it, he's like he's pushing me to convert everything to retain. I'm like, well, I'm trying to be, you know, purposeful about it, but anyway, but that's the him going through the course again you know he's he's been through a lot of trainings in his lifetime, and just the the quality of training, but also the how clearly better this is than a lot of the other options out there.

Speaker 3: 34:56

Um, just like follow the process, and he's also another person who could feel like he'd go off in the in the woods and convince a bear not to attack him or something like that. You know, and and the thing is, we, we can he and I both can talk a good game and and you know, we have no problem holding our own, but we're both sort of submitting to the process and following what the script says because it works and we just we know we can't outsmart the process. You guys have really had clarified it down to as streamlined as it can be in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Yeah, that's so good, it's really lovely, and, uh, lots of people say the same thing, uh, that you just don't need to over complicate it and it is actually really straightforward, and you just do what you're told. And then this is what happens, uh, and so some people are going to think, oh, I'm not going to be able to do it, or, you know, I'm not sure you, that's got to be difficult. But the most difficult thing is not overcomplicating it. Really, in a way, it is actually just keeping it simple. I think we as hustlers and as, yeah, salespeople, want to. We want to make things more elaborate than they need to be, and when you don't't, it's even more effective. So it is actually quite straightforward to follow.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Um, I love, I love the journey that that you're on, that you um, and and love being a part of it with you and working with your team. We'd love seeing, uh, your team, your bd guy now, like it was such a joy, uh, such a joy to coach you. And also, I'd love it to coach your team and see the energy that they all have. Even the delivery guys are like right, I'm not going to run the regular at this time. I'm going to give it a go, because I want to show my support to the sales guys and I really like that as well, and they're also committed to you know. To now they've seen, and I think it probably took the first initial few you know clients that you converted for them to go, ah right, okay, it doesn't need to be like that, like it used to be. This is what it can be like now, because they were quite skeptical to begin with, weren't they?

Speaker 3: 37:02

they were a little bit reticent to begin with yeah, yeah, and even the for them, the as the quality of life begins to shift. Again, it's early days still, right, we're still having to clean up some stuff we've already been working on, but as the quality of life begins to shift, of working on, you know, three, four roles at one time, versus eight, 10, it's just totally different, right, how sort of methodical it is. Talking to the client, the relationship you have with the client feels so different for them, so they're becoming believers quickly because it just it feels different than the other other way of doing things. And and they asked me, I said well, why do I need some of the scripting? Why do I need to know it? These are the recruiters who are.

Speaker 3: 37:42

I don't know how many firms are set up like mine, where you have recruiters who only focus on delivery and don't really do any BD. Yeah, but it's because, if the conversation comes up with the client, I need you to be able to reaffirm why. I need you to understand why, if you're talking to somebody over dinner, I need your first conversation with them to be why retain makes sense.

Speaker 3: 38:02

If you don't know the scripting, you may not have the words to say and you might fall back to your whatever you've done the last 25 years, you'd be amazed how often your delivery people will become your best sales people.

Speaker 2: 38:14

Yes, yeah, yeah, they're the recruiters.

Speaker 3: 38:17

They're the ones that people are saying oh, you're a recruiter, let me talk to you about this? They're not talking to the oh, you're a recruiting firm business development person, right? Or you're a recruiting firm owner. You know, like it's the recruiters themselves that usually are, people ask, hey, can you help me find a job, or hey, can you help me find a person, right. So they need to be primed to be able to have the conversation the right way. Start with anyway.

Speaker 2: 38:37

So not just the volume, though from a delivery standpoint. I remember when I first kind of moved to retain and for me it was just the control over time like actually, if I had my dad's 50th birthday party on a wednesday night at 7 p 7pm and a client called me at 5 with a vacancy, I didn't think I need to stay because other agencies are going to beat me to those resumes. If I don't stay, I think, no problem, that's great. I'll work on that tomorrow morning. Happy birthday, dad. Go and have a nice dinner. Yeah, people say the grass isn't always greener, but my experience is it's a whole load greener.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Oh yeah, and it's interesting from your perspective, tj, having come from the other side already with the benefit of being able to look back and think you know, where did I have the best experience? It was with the folks that I was retaining, not the contingent model. So having that that is confidence as well for you probably helps, I think sometimes. You know, I was only coaching last week and having to remind the students who hadn't been on the other side of the fence, who were frustrated with clients not coming back to them or candidates pulling out, or you know, coming back to them or candidates pulling out, or you know, getting a duplication of cds and all the shit that happens. Right, when you, when you're working without financial commitment, to say, right, this is your experience, right, this is what it feels like from your side.

Speaker 1: 40:15

What do you think it feels like being on the other side of that? How does it? What do you think it feels? What do you think the client is feeling? Are they having a good time, do you think? Because it's really easy for recruiters to forget, they just blame the client. Well, it's their fault, you know, and don't actually think. Well, it's not their fault. They just entered into what they thought was a recruitment process that was the right thing to do. It's just an education of being able to explain to them why that is producing the kind of results that they're getting, and it's easy to forget that, as a recruiter, that they're not having a good time either.

Speaker 3: 40:53

Something as simple as and I've talked to my team about this something as simple as remembering what level of leader you're interacting with, right, so let's say, for purpose of the conversation, it's a vice president of a company. Probably not, probably not an unusual level that you'd be interacting with If, as a recruiter, you send them five resumes via email and separate emails and you send them three follow-ups that week, you call them and you text them. Right, you've pinged a vice president eight to 10 times. I'll tell you right now, like you have internal teams that are reaching out to you, that level of leader, the amount of teams, messages or chats or WhatsApp or whatever you want to say emails, phone calls, meetings they're on conference calls they're overwhelmed right.

Speaker 3: 41:44

If you're coming across their desk, that often you're more of a nuisance than you are a help. I don't care how good your candidates are, it's just true.

Speaker 2: 41:54

And so, if nothing?

Speaker 3: 41:55

else in this program, taking on the intentionality of the weekly touch base that's what we're talking about and get away from this sort of sprint to get candidates out in front first, because that only serves you. It doesn't serve the client well at all.

Speaker 1: 42:12

But you have to do that right If you're contingent, because if you don't do that then someone else might send it first. So you, it's totally like a catch 22 situation. It's it's you can't not do that, you can't not do that, you can't not do that. You, you would never make any money if you didn't, if you didn't on the contingent model.

Speaker 3: 42:29

So it does force that behavior so let air go, yeah yeah, yeah like, like, that's a better way to do it, but you're worried that you would lose out on the and so lose out on the candidates, and and it's like, okay, that shows you. All by itself, you can tell almost automatically that the interaction model is better. Right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like, okay, well, that's true. Then this has to also be true, right, that you have to go and change your engagement with that client so you can not have that pressure to send in the candidates before some other recruiter does. Because, again, I'll tell you right now what I described as just one recruiter that person has three recruiters in the mix. I promise you they are not enjoying their experience. They might feel like they have to go through that to get the role filled, but they are not enjoying their experience?

Speaker 1: 43:18

No, and the thing is there's loads of things that we could talk about it all day and all the reasons why it makes more sense, right, but what people find difficult and we hear it on a daily basis in the coaching sessions, where people haven't followed the script and they're trying and attempting to explain all this just by just explaining it all, like living it and just going well, because of this and because of this and because of this and because of this, and it's like, oh my god, it's impossible to put it into some semblance of order and if you're a client listening to that, you just wouldn't be able to digest it.

Speaker 2: 43:54

Sorry, my back is bouncing what happened to me, where people do that to me, right, and it doesn't make sense to me and I get it all yeah, exactly the customer that doesn't understand it all, they've got no chance it's just too much, it's too much.

Speaker 1: 44:08

And then they just think you're just trying to, you know, flog them, like just trying to get some money up front, and just you know, put some money on the board or your sales figures or whatever, and then you've lost it before you've even you've even started. And so the tricky bit really is is being able to articulate it in that really simple, easy to understand, logical way, where they just go oh yeah, well, okay, yeah, that sounds much better. Why don't we just do that, you know?

Speaker 3: 44:34

I'll give you a perfect example. Um uh, I've also invested in an hr consulting firm right.

Speaker 1: 44:41

I've done hr for 20 years. I know HR like the back of my hand right.

Speaker 3: 44:45

But I had a prospective client ask me well, you know, what would the HR person do for me if I hired somebody or if you? You provided it through your firm? Either way, and 20 years of like reasons why HR is helpful is in my brain. To try to get it out without scripting of some sort to that prospect.

Speaker 3: 45:08

I mean, it's like I don't know what I just told you it didn't make any sense at all, and it's not because of lack of understanding or knowledge or whatever. It's just I did not have kind of prepared for the question. It's a new thing for me, but I didn't have the scripting prepared to how to crisply answer that question, right, um, even something like that. You guys have provided that on this side, and so the difference is tremendous. There's just nothing else, just knowing how to respond, how you're going to respond, knowing what you're speaking from. And the other thing is oftentimes, I think you'll find yourself just human nature if you don't follow the scripting that's there. The reason for retained is probably going to sound fairly selfish, but the scripting for the retrained search is why retrained is helpful for them. Right, that's what it focuses on. It's just human nature is. We tend to be self-centered, you know. So the scripting helps you move it away from self onto why it's beneficial to them. And so I'm going to need to develop that for the hr.

Speaker 1: 46:07

Yeah well, you've got a framework now you've got a framework you can use to develop for whatever, uh, whatever service you want to offer, right, yeah, I mean I. I mean it wouldn't go in with the same company, right, I'm already I'm slipping into coaching mode, can we put it? It'd be two separate, two separate companies, is it?

Speaker 3: 46:25

It is, although I'm trying to figure out how that marriage kind of fits.

Speaker 1: 46:29

I'd probably like to see if we can actually bring that into your, because they're going to be similar clients, right?

Speaker 3: 46:38

Yes, they will Sometimes they'll be the same Right.

Speaker 1: 46:41

I'd like to see a version of it with, like a combined yeah, that's a good idea A combined, so maybe you could bring that to the pitch coaching sessions and let me have a little look at it with you, because I'd quite like to see if we can incorporate that together. I think it will go really nicely.

Speaker 3: 46:58

That's a really good idea. That's something I've been thinking about. What do I lead with? What do I?

Speaker 2: 47:02

yeah so great point yeah, yeah, I'd like to do that with you and come to the handling session with me, and I'm going to say so. If I hire a HR person or work with you, TJ, what's that going to bring to my business? And let's see how you handle that objection, right yeah?

Speaker 3: 47:25

Definitely need a at the next meeting. So like it didn't you know, but it was like that was that's not it, that's not the answer I'm going to give the next time I answer that question.

Speaker 1: 47:29

I think it's quite nice to be able to practice, isn't it before you? You know, before you go and see your clients, and you were really good, you were really good at coming to those sessions. Do you think it helps being able to do that?

Speaker 3: 47:42

Oh, absolutely. I mean, what's funny is, I think, my cohort we felt almost more nervous in the coaching than we felt like with clients, right, and I think that's because, thinking back on it, you knew what we were supposed to be saying.

Speaker 3: 48:01

The client has no opinion right, and so you know what we're supposed to be saying. And so you know what we're supposed to be saying and so we're going off script or whatever, like you're able to call us on it and and. But the benefit of it is you get kind of past the nerves, but also you get you get held to saying how it's supposed to be said. Um, and that practice, when you get it with the client, you can start to sound more natural. But you sound natural, delivering all of the information that's needed in the sequence that's needed to be delivered.

Speaker 2: 48:29

Right.

Speaker 3: 48:30

I even asked you, lou and one of the coaching sessions. I was like well, it feels a bit repetitive, repetitive here, the next slide. It felt like I was repeating myself. You were like yes, because that message needs to be delivered again. Yeah, to help it be solidified in their mind.

Speaker 3: 48:44

It's like oh, that was obviously because you designed the course, but that was on purpose and so even that, like for now, now when I see it, I'm like, yep, I'm repeating it so they understand, like it's re-emphasizing the idea in their minds. So anyway, it's hugely helpful. The coaching sessions are like a must have, in my opinion. Somebody's going through it without a cohort, especially the coaching with you guys and the coaching the collab calls that sort of thing Super huge and the cohorts if people aren't going through it with a cohort. The cohort was incredible because we're in the same journey, we're connected with each other. We even stayed in touch after the fact, you know, with text or calls, say, hey, this didn't go well. Can you tell me what you would have done differently here?

Speaker 1: 49:26

Nice, I love that. I love that. Well, I'm excited to see the next stage of the journey Bring the next stage of the evolution of maybe bringing these two firms together as partners or divisions. I mean, I've got a couple of ideas myself and I'd love to love to help you with that and keep us posted with your journey. Yeah, thank you, thank you. I can't thank you enough, tj, for sharing your journey with our audience as well. I hope those of you listening are feeling energized and inspired by by TJ's journey I said yeah well, it's been brilliant.

Speaker 3: 50:07

It's been worth way more than every penny.

Speaker 2: 50:11

So we're still here.

Speaker 3: 50:13

T's every step of the way still here not going anywhere yeah, I'm thrilled appreciate that for sure well, that's another episode of retrain search the podcast in the bag.

Speaker 1: 50:25

Thanks for listening to our wild tales, linkedin controversies and our top tips on how to sell and deliver Retained Search 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. 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 Retrained Search the podcast.