The Retained Search Show

Achieving Exceptional Results with Structured and Human-Centered Approaches

Retrained Search Episode 27

Our summer was a whirlwind of holidays, family illnesses, and even sporting triumphs, with Louise celebrating her tennis team’s string of victories. 

Plus, we’re thrilled to introduce our new team member and share the rigorous interview process that led us to this exciting addition.

We’re also diving into how business growth and leadership structures can be game-changers. Discover how the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) has revolutionised our operations and those of our mastermind members by breaking down long-term goals into manageable tasks and facilitating regular Level 10 meetings. 

We share our personal experiences with EOS and discuss its impact on clarity, efficiency, and team buy-in. 

Tune in for a wealth of insights and inspiring stories from the world of recruitment.

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Speaker 1:

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

Speaker 2:

Hello Louise, how are you?

Speaker 1:

Hello, lovely listeners, I'm okay. As you know I've had a little bit of a sad week this week so far, but I'm happy to be back because you might be listening to this and not realise that we've had a little break from the podcast for a few weeks whilst we've been busy.

Speaker 2:

It feels like months. It feels like months.

Speaker 1:

It does feel like months. It does. I'm going to pretend like we haven't just um spent 10 minutes going. What do we talk about on the podcast? What have we been doing for like four weeks? How do we do the podcast thing? So welcome back, uh, to those of you that have been uh listening avidly, and I know that we've had some messages to say, waiting for the next episode. So we're dead pleased, um to be back. We've done so much this summer. We've both been on holiday. I've had a holiday, you've had a holiday?

Speaker 2:

yeah, mine was.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I'm such a drama queen go on so, yeah, I was, I was um, so my your law. Now I've got a young daughter and she's been um. She was ill, nothing major, just like really bad infection picked up from nursery. I think we're entering that stage. And then I picked it up and I probably should have took a bit of time off work, but I didn't. I was foolish and I thought I'd go away next week. I'll just kind of fight through it. I was too ill. The air stewardesses wouldn't let me on the plane Louise, unfortunately, I know so I had to go and have a little day in A&E, get some strong antibiotics, then fly out the same night. My nan wasn't very impressed.

Speaker 1:

She said it's always you, jordan. Ouch, that's harsh, it is always me you did battle through. You were so busy that last week before you went on holiday as well, because I was on holiday and you were picking up the slack as well as being ill.

Speaker 2:

And we'll come on to this, but we had a new starter as well.

Speaker 1:

We did have a new starter.

Speaker 2:

It was all go go, go go. But it certainly made the holiday more enjoyable when I did get out there with my antibiotics.

Speaker 1:

With your antibiotics. I'm so glad you're okay and you had a bit of a holiday, all good. I'm so glad you're okay. All good bit of a holiday, all good what have you had?

Speaker 2:

going on.

Speaker 1:

Lou, you've been busy yeah, I had a really great two week holiday in Portugal but Harry was really ill while we were away, really really poorly, so that wasn't ideal. He was a bit like you, suffered a little bit through that. And then we've had some sad news this week because we've had to put our beloved thomas the cat down and I can't tell you how much it's, how much it's affected me. I said on the other day like I feel a bit daft because you know, crazy cat ladies and but really he's just been a part of the family for so long and been through a lot and I feel felt such a connection to him and there's something that we could do. And his kidneys have kidney disease and they don't do kidney transplants in cats, it turns out, and even if I could have afforded to have the surgery they don't do them.

Speaker 2:

So I genuinely thought you were going to say even if I could have given him one of mine.

Speaker 1:

I genuinely thought you were going to say, even if I could have given him one of mine, given him one of mine, yeah, that would have not probably worked quite so well. No, sad, isn't it? Yeah, and I've been playing a lot of tennis, I've been swimming in the river, so I've been doing nice things too, and that's been fun.

Speaker 2:

My tennis season ended last night.

Speaker 1:

You're doing a damn sight better than me. I'm absolutely crap still.

Speaker 2:

We've won the Warrington League. We've won the Liverpool League. We've won the Liverpool Fair Long Cup. We won the mixed season last night. By the way, it's not me, I'm just carried by everybody else. I just thought there was a skill in picking the right team.

Speaker 1:

No, I know how good you are at tennis. We've played tennis a few times and you're insanely good. And we've done lots of work as well, haven't we? We've been doing loads.

Speaker 2:

You started joining the team, so yeah, he did, he did, he did um. We decided on his job title today, didn't we, I think?

Speaker 1:

customer solutions, executive consultant, consultant, consultant so for a lot of you he's going to be the first person that you speak to, if you ever want to chat to us, and he'll help you. They'll put you in the right direction, he'll give you some guidance, he'll send you some stuff, material and uh or if the right person is speaking to me whatever the journey might be he'll, he'll make that happen and he's fantastic and he's so lovely.

Speaker 1:

He's such a nice guy. I feel so privileged that he's chosen to work with us yeah, he's um already such a great part of the team. He absolutely is. Yeah, I'm really delighted because it was a bit of a maybe we can tell that story, because it was a bit of a turbulent journey, that interview process in the yeah, I mean yeah, so we, we um, didn't get to decide the interview process.

Speaker 2:

We were recommended an interview process and there was. The first one was a group interview like 10 people but then we made a hire from it, didn't we? And we made a high. It was very close call. We didn't really know who to hire um, so we didn't know who to hire.

Speaker 1:

We couldn't decide it was such a class there was really we could have hired either of them.

Speaker 2:

They're both brilliant we fell one step of the fence and, um yeah, candidate one turned up day one and 10 minutes into the call I was having with said individual, I thought are they drunk? Oh God, yeah, I think there's a good chance they might be drunk, yeah, so I insisted on getting on Zoom so I could do further detective work. And the same person said I'm just going to shut the window. I said, oh, okay, no problem, and then proceeded to miss the window.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God. And at that point I was like yeah, definitely yeah, definitely drunk yeah 100. So thankfully everything happens for a reason, and that meant we found the wonderful yes, yes, it was obviously meant to be, and we're really really lucky and we have made some nice moves on the plan for our Mastermind events and our in-person attendances in meeting people, haven't we?

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, the next one the next day. I mean our Mastermind group. They meet a couple of times each year. The next one has now been confirmed, and that's in december, right lois, that's in december in london.

Speaker 1:

That's been confirmed for a while. We're actually not in london. Strictly, it's richmond which I'm told right on the real nice area darling.

Speaker 2:

Very beautiful, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

does look beautiful, yeah really does and then the next one after that we meet. I'm gonna be honest, richmond looks beautiful.

Speaker 2:

I'm a little more excited about the next one march, march.

Speaker 1:

We're gonna be in la baby. I can't wait. Oh my god, yes excited. We don't know whether it's gonna be. I'm taking advice on exactly where it's gonna be, like the hollywood area that I don't know where, but claire's on it. So we're gonna be in la in march. So all of those of you in who? Found some trip there and are doing a bit of retained work already and want to do more so and we are going to be back in australia right.

Speaker 1:

I'm so pleased about that. I'm saying I'm going to be there for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

You're going to be there for a little bit less, but not much less.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, um, we're going to do a mini mastermind event and we're going to do loads of meeting people. We're going to do an event on our own, aren't we again?

Speaker 2:

I think so with the wonderful.

Speaker 1:

Es.

Speaker 2:

Brilliant Es Khan and Lucy at Humoscope. Yeah, it's really exciting. So there's been a lot going on.

Speaker 1:

I know, yeah, we have been really busy, really really busy, and soon we'll be back to school. You know, for the kids, not us, we're already back.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's kind of a bit like that for me, though, isn't it? Because becca, my wife's a primary school teacher. So, yes, at the moment my life is a little easier because she eases even more of the burden with the baby at the moment whilst she's off um, that all goes back to normal in a weekend me too.

Speaker 1:

I've got to start. I've already ordered this new blazer and all his clothes. He's grown out. He's like Hulk. At the moment, everything he's got is like buttons are popping off because he's 13. It's just, they have a massive growth. I swear he's grown like a foot.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's just bait.

Speaker 1:

Like Gia's, like that my little girl, like you buy her an outfit and she nice Nike trainers and he's like squeeze them on. And I'm like, oh my god, they're so expensive and they don't fit. Already he must have been wearing them about two months yeah, we've been using it.

Speaker 2:

Have you heard of vintage? Yes, I don't know, so I feel like vintage is basically a community of frustrated parents. That's how I feel at the moment. It's like we buy something nice for the baby and sell it after a week yeah and that's frustrating. But then we go and find somebody else that bought something nice for their baby and is selling it after a week yeah, that's quite good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's quite good. I'm like I'm not gonna get on that keeps us sane.

Speaker 1:

So in the meantime, um, our incredible members have also been extremely busy, uh, and having some lovely, lovely things happen to them as a result. Uh, so this one makes me laugh. My proposal it's uh, tracy, she says new project one. My proposal I put in or didn't in, brackets long story for collab call and lesson of how to really screw up and then bring it round. I've had terms signed today and this is a new client for me on retained very happy to have rescued it, so she rescued her own project. I don't think I had to help her rescue that it's not.

Speaker 2:

It's not all. It's not always straightforward, right? Like I remember, I think Tracy came on that call and said what did you say to me? I feel like I've walked into a bramble bush.

Speaker 1:

Oh, did she.

Speaker 2:

I think what she said, it's just a couple of tweaks and she's done a great job in today.

Speaker 1:

I did see it the other day and I know it's going really well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, really well.

Speaker 1:

And this is a nice one too. First, roll out of the presentation of the pitch deck by Tom Hylow. A quick one on my side a sector candidate into business on Monday, the 29th. They asked the CV. On Tuesday nothing suitable arranged an intro meeting so opened up the opportunity with the spec. Happened on the 7th user retrained pitch deck. It says straight after there was a tough engineering role. They were struggling with term, sent retainer verbally agreed last Friday, had the briefing today. I mean's great, nice work. That is just perfect and all he's done. It's just done exactly what we told him to do. Tara is a very, very excited hi guys, I've got something very exciting to share. We've won our most senior search yet against another agency. We almost lost it and would lose absolutely brilliant coaching and advice sessions. I realized I had not diagnosed the pain properly and therefore not picked up the pain to get commitment and after following three meetings and a lot of support from loath that is true we've got it back on track and the team are absolutely over the moon.

Speaker 2:

I want to say you're not half bad a love, you're not half bad.

Speaker 1:

We um. Without you, I wouldn't have known to get this process back on track and convert it to a win. I'm so excited for everything in place that I've learned in delivering this and, most importantly, leveraging the search to win more business. And then she says six foot five, louise archer, win that search trust fund, which, if you know, you know uh, if you were in palmer with us then you'll know what on earth she's talking about.

Speaker 2:

I just don't get the six foot five bit. I mean, I'm six foot five.

Speaker 1:

I'm not six foot five. You're not six foot five. Maybe she's referencing me.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to take credit. I'm going to say she's referencing me, but basically we turned a no, it was an outright no.

Speaker 1:

No, we're not going to retain you. No, we, we're going to go with our contingent agency on it after she pitched and we turned a no into a full-on, fully retained yes. So don't worry, if you screw it up even We'll just help you turn it around.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, this one's Ryan. He said woohoo, I think he's got that from you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like woohoo.

Speaker 2:

You're the only woohoo that I know. Two shortlist invoices issued this week. One of them took three months to deliver. Ryan's been, he's based in tokyo and he's been killing it, but there was just a few things that we tightened up in his delivery. Um, the first one took three months to deliver and, after tightening up the briefing meeting agenda, adhering to the delivery timeline, the second one took four weeks so a third of the time.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's quite a feeling watching a candidate worksheet go from white to red and green. Yeah, we all like that. To be able to forecast the revenue once these placements land is a bit surreal. I still, I must admit Now to use the BD from a search guide to capitalise on these searches and generate the next one. Jordan thanks for all of your support in the collab goals oh.

Speaker 1:

Jordan, you're good Michael.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I like this one. Michael says um, another win, I want to retain it. From a repeat client that was adamantly against retained search in the past uh, he's very excited. I was able to get the founder ceo on board and after that they were so excited to work with us. Wasn't the person I needed to convince and once I figured that out, I knew exactly what to do, thanks to search foundations training. If this goes well, we're already discussing two more searches, all fully retained. And oh, also, little side note increase my fee from 20 to 30 percent with a little hands up emoji, not yeah it's so good.

Speaker 2:

I often say to our members, like it's never a no, it's just a not now. Yeah, sometimes the time just isn't right for the customer.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes they need to feel that pain a little bit more yeah, sometimes, yeah, they're really adamant against, and sometimes the people that are most adamantly against it end up being your best customers. It just takes a little bit more time and education. Yeah, this is a really lovely one, matthew.

Speaker 2:

Yeah he said, not sure if I ever remembered him. I absolutely do remember him. Um, I joined back in november, didn't set up on his own until april and had a few months off, just working part-time. Just had my first pitch which led to my first win 162 000 project. This is like one guy working on his own no office, no overhead, laptop, phone, 30 fees, 180k minimum salaries for three hires.

Speaker 2:

I also made a spec placement two weeks ago which was due to the course which was a nice 76,500 current ROI, just under 4,000%, and that's after like a couple of months of the training. Not bad, nice work.

Speaker 1:

Michael.

Speaker 2:

Matthew.

Speaker 1:

Mathias, thanks for checking in. He says I'm keeping busy. Hi louise, keeping busy. I just managed to get signed up yesterday and we're saying with a new client my first full retainer with a new client since doing the search foundation course. I'm so pleased with myself. More to follow many, that's nice many more he's in.

Speaker 2:

He's in asia as well. No, I think he's like hong kong, maybe is he I think it's hong kong yeah all over the place and a lovely testimonial from joanna.

Speaker 1:

This isn't it yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

She said. When you meet and have this is the testimonial joanna and have a fortunate opportunity to work with her, you will feel like you can't work with any other recruiter anymore. You'll probably want her to be around your career journey until you retire, the reason being Joanna is structured, communicative and so very human. In my recruitment journey she's given me the most relevant information and contacts to set me up for success. Her integrity is strong. She makes sure that my personal fit to the company is prioritized to the minute detail. She has kept me in the loop of the process and has not once left me unclear about the behind the scenes of recruitment. Most importantly, she's established a level of trust in our relationship that allowed me to be transparent about my needs and beyond that, her positive tone and lively nature has made a stressful process like recruitment feel seamless and exciting, and joanna said it shows how the candidate loved the retainer process it gives you the space and time to look after people and do a proper job.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I found that too well done there's a few more.

Speaker 1:

Well done, joanna, joe, uh, hello. Landed back in oz at 5 am. This this was after the Palmer in person Pitched on one this afternoon of a team search for COO. Yay, I couldn't find it. If I missed it, does anyone have a template for the FAQ? Confirmation engagement oh, terms shared with a minimum fee inclusion. Thanks to you all again.

Speaker 2:

That was something Jo discussed with us all in Palmer, wasn't it? That minimum fee piece?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and she's put it in. She's just going further and further up the level of seniority. Every search she does now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, hoz, he said. I owe thanking Claire, robin, louise and Jordan for their support input. And golden nuggets Just landed a retainer with a contingency client and I can invoice them today. Great news 10K commencement fee Every little help during those dry summer months.

Speaker 1:

Certainly does, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Guy Nardo over in.

Speaker 1:

Sydney.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we met Guy in May when we were out, didn't we? Still so much to learn, but having a game plan and a clear strategy made it so possible. Have the second one pitched and finalising Monday.

Speaker 1:

You're so capable. So many of those of you that are listening are capable. You're capable of this, and so were all these people. They just weren't doing it and they just needed a little bit of confidence, a little bit more knowledge, and then you're away. This is another one pitch to Sydney.

Speaker 2:

Same guy again. This is that second pitch looking at Sydney feedback. Very positive Decision made by Closer Business Friday Keep your post at 38k fee, nice.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, greg who, oh my goodness, took an age to decide to join us, didn't he? I mean, I'm not joking. Winner Got to say we must have spoken soon. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think I greg in 2004 I think you probably did.

Speaker 1:

Bless you, greg, if you're listening. Um, and he was so nervous of, yeah, because there is so much crap out there. I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of courses out there and a lot of people tell us, oh my god, why didn't you tell me this? It was this gorge.

Speaker 1:

And we're like, well, we tried, we tried to but, because there's so much crap out there, people do find it hard to know what's good and what's just snake oil, and Greg was definitely one of those that's invested in other courses and been disappointed. So he was very, very cautious. We didn't put pressure. We never do. We never put pressure on anybody to say this is what it is, and if you want to join, great, and if you don't, that's cool too. And he just kept coming back and asking more questions and I really think I want to do it. But what about this? And now eventually he says hi, louise, thank you. So far, all good. I've been watching. I've seen module one and through module two, part one, by whilst drinking coffee, not big, so I suggested. He said what's the best way of watching it? I was like pour yourself a beer, greg, and just sit back and watch it.

Speaker 1:

He's like really I said yeah, the first time you watch it, just relax and enjoy it. But he's chosen to drink coffee instead, which is much more healthy for your liver, and I will soon be sharing my successes with you. I am so happy I joined the group. Have a great day, so he's already feeling positive about the decision that he made. All right, you crikey.

Speaker 2:

They've been busy and everyone says the sun is quiet, but it is not when you're with us well, I think what you want a lot of the time people join us during our summer months because they've got more time, they've got more headspace, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when things go a little quiet. It's a good time to invest in the energy in it. So what have you been helping people with since you've been back, george?

Speaker 2:

A lot of pitching.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Been out to sign at the market starting to pick up yeah, definitely Really positive. A lot of it is making it feel like their own, Making it feel natural and not salesy.

Speaker 1:

And get their own groove with it, like make the tweaks and shape it so it is their own.

Speaker 2:

We often say don't we Go, on, you go.

Speaker 1:

No, no, go on.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say. We often say to people that we give scripts and structure, but they're like the training wheels on the bike, yeah, yeah. And after six months. You're like the training wheels on the bike. Yeah, yeah, and after six months.

Speaker 1:

You're like exactly, yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 2:

What about you?

Speaker 1:

um, I've been doing a lot with uh implementing eos, basically putting business plans in, putting business plans in and structure, which is, of course, exactly what we did in our business uh, with some help uh from eos and that model and god, it's just a breath of fresh air for some of the people in the mastermind that don't have that structure to actually move the business forward. A lot of the people that I work with in the mastermind are business owners, business leaders and contributors as well, and they've got so many. They're wearing so many different hats. They're wearing the leadership and they've got so many. They're wearing so many different hats. They're wearing the leadership hat, they're wearing the billing hat, they're wearing an ops and finance management hat and often more beyond that, and it's so they can't do everything. They just cannot do everything and they can't make improvements to every area of the business all the time, and they know that they want to, but a lot of the time that is just overwhelming and it's it's too much and it's um very difficult to move a business forward in that state.

Speaker 1:

So often, one of the things we do first in the mastermind is just take a step back and work out why are we doing this in the first place, like where is it you're actually going with it? Are we building this cell? Are we are we? Are we building a lifestyle business and what's the objective here? And then work, work out what the plan is and where we're going, and then break it down into manageable pieces, the, as you know, because we do it the 10 year, the three year, the one year, and then the 90 day sprints, and then we break that 90 day sprint into priorities and and what we call rocks, but goals it's timely, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

because we? We there's something called a level 10 meeting which we have once a week, and it just keeps us on track and keeps us accountable and gives us visibility of everything that we've got going on. And we had a great one this morning, didn't we, the team? And like I just don't know where we'd be without, without that structure in our business I have absolutely no idea.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I was so daunted by the prospect of running a business, particularly as it started to kind of move forward without me, and I could see the demand for what, what I was doing, and I I knew that I wasn't going to be doing a service if I didn't acquire some knowledge of how to actually run it. And we, when we kind of then grew and we all got together, we were all the same like shit. We know we need to do something, but we're not quite sure how or what to do first. Or you know we're on to something good, but what? How do we, you know, make?

Speaker 1:

this happen and having that structure and that pathway and the mechanics of that has means, like I was on my call with Rebecca Shannon for those of you that don't know, she's incredible um this morning and telling her yeah, I've just done a level 10 and I was like no, hang on a minute, I haven't just done a level 10 team, have done another 10. I just happen to be on the level 10 because they are running the business, they're deciding what happens and flushing the issues out and solving them in a really structured, great pattern and rhythm that everyone feels comfortable with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's rare you get a system like that, and eos has certainly been that in our business, where I think every member of our team buys into it. Yeah, there's not one element of it that people go, oh, that pisses me off, I don't like doing that each week.

Speaker 1:

Right, we all see the value in it and that's what happens with the mastermind members too like it's a real breath of fresh air and give some clarity of what needs to be done now, how it's going to be done. You know, one of the pieces of work I did yesterday with one of them was they'd done a lot of the work around it and set the goals, but then there was no names against the rocks.

Speaker 1:

Like well this is not all going to be you, mate. We're going to spread this out, we're going to get the team on board and everybody's going to, and it's really nice.

Speaker 2:

So that's what I've been doing.

Speaker 1:

It's a real joy for any of you listening, and that's eos is a book called traction. Yeah, it's a book called traction by a guy called gino wickman. It's a very, very famous and some of you listening might know it well and I get messages saying I know eos, I love it too. Uh, it's a very famous operating model and it's very me and gino are actually quite tight.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he once liked one of my linkedin posts yeah the.

Speaker 1:

Thing yeah, he's a good friend, it's like a bromance.

Speaker 2:

He just doesn't realize he's probably listening.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, gino yeah, thanks, gina, appreciate it yeah and I always wanted to talk a little bit about linkedin as well, because we tend to sometimes touch on stuff that's been going on there, it being such a prevalent place in our industry, because something happened recently that I was really shocked by. I was doing my content, meeting with Charlie, who helps us work out what information we're going to share with our audiences, when, how, what's appropriate, what's useful, what's helpful, and so she really helps kind of focus the thoughts on making sure we share good stuff really, and she suggested that we talk about something that had happened to kirsty, one of our team, who's actually our marketing manager, now been with us, what she? We've been together about a year maybe, nearly now, yeah, probably approaching a year now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good.

Speaker 1:

She is so, so good and so talented. Absolutely awesome. Like just smashes it out of the park every single day. She's just on it.

Speaker 1:

She's bright, she's intuitive, she's so tenacious, but kind and lovely and fabulous having a team you're an absolute rock star and she has been sharing stuff on linkedin, as we all have started to do, so that we're more visible and you, all of you can see and hear from all of the members of the team, not just me and george and she started getting hate messages, and it's not just one, she's been getting a few from people and it's because she's based in South Africa, all talking about her being in South Africa. And how dare she, how she shouldn't she, she shouldn't be sharing what she's sharing, and is she a scam?

Speaker 1:

I think was one of them that they don't believe what she's saying and it's awful. It's awful, that kind of judgment and they have absolutely. No, I mean more fool them, you know More fool them if they think that that Kirsty isn't what she says. She is, because we know different. She's absolutely fucking awesome, unbelievable. But I still think that in this day and age and on that platform and such a professional environment, uh, it really shocked me that people do that yeah, but you know what lou I think.

Speaker 2:

Whatever platform you use, wherever you go in the world I apologize for my language but you will encounter dickheads and um.

Speaker 1:

I just pity those people so anybody that wants to reach out to kirsty and share some love, uh, then please do, because she deserves all the love in the world to make up for those horrible people that are passing judgment that's my little one. If you're one of the dickheads, I will find you yeah, yeah, fuck off basically, um, and then, to finish on a more positive note, uh, we've got a bit of mindset, we've got some mindset thoughts, haven't we? Yeah, we have. But one.

Speaker 2:

My, my one is really to anyone out there who is a leader or an owner of a business and has a team. I had an amazing call with a recruiter last week who leads a division for an organization. I'm not going to tell you where in the world this person is or anything, because I don't give it away. Billing over a million dollars a year, continually very good, sees a huge opportunity in his space to do return work Huge opportunity but doesn't know how and just wants someone to show him how. Went to his leadership team, said I found this course for what he needs. I gave him the price it's a drop in the ocean, like it really is. He gave him the price. It's a drop in the ocean, like it really is. He told them the price of the course and they said yeah, there's no budget for that. Now his employer are a firm that you would know.

Speaker 1:

A big, big firm, Very, very big firm, Like a big big firm Doing extremely well my entire life and I spoke to him today and he said I just feel really deflated. I feel really let down.

Speaker 2:

I feel really disappointed. We've worked so hard. We're on such a great journey together.

Speaker 1:

And he's only asking for support to get better as well, isn't it? It's not selfish. He's going to give that back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, do you know? Listen, I don't mind mentioning it right. Um, he's billing over a million and he needs around five grand yeah, it's so sad, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

it's really frustrating saying that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would just say I would say to you all have that mindset, think about the impact that these decisions have on morale, on motivation. I don't want any of you to be sitting there in three months thinking why did I lose my best fellow? What went wrong? Where did it go wrong?

Speaker 1:

I thought it was going so well you know, speaking from a management perspective, having been in situations where it's important to make the play feel fair for everybody, and I can see that you know if you did that for everybody, you know it wouldn't be commercially viable and so on. But not everybody is billing a million and a half and so you can't apply a blanket brush to everybody and if you do, you lose people. I'm I absolutely know, having been a high performer, that if you don't make exceptions for them and treat them in the way they ought to be rewarded for the exception that they provide, which is the exceptional billings and commitment, then that's going to falter at some point.

Speaker 2:

And if you've got a consultant that wants to retain business and has the confidence to go out there and have these conversations with customers, they will not be in short supply of offers of other firms that would love them to come and do it for them.

Speaker 1:

And if you can bill a million and a half contingently, you can absolutely nail retained search.

Speaker 2:

And that isn't a threat either, by the way.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

It isn't a threat. I'm not saying, oh, you're going to lose all your best people. All I'm saying is that's the other side of the coin that I often see people don't think about.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think it's fair enough if you know they want training but they're not actually giving anything to the business, not performing or yeah, yeah I know, understand that you need to maybe use internal resources and time and energy to get them to a stage where it becomes commercially viable. But in that situation where someone's giving so much, you've got to give a little too.

Speaker 1:

You've got to give a little too. And so many people tell us that when they do the program they learn something new and they learn these techniques. It just gives them a whole new, like a whole new world starts to open up for them and they get like re-energized. People say all the time, like things, like it's a breath of fresh air. I feel re-energized. I was feeling jaded. Now I feel like reborn. You know, you get those kind of. That's the sentiment that they get. That just grows as they go through yeah, exactly so I'm chuckling away.

Speaker 2:

Becca was in the office. My wife was in the office of the night, like I did a printer going. I was thinking she's still doing like school work even though she's off. I just realized what she was doing. It's jay's birthday party next week, so any of you listening you will be able to see it. But he's put an imaginary party hat on my one-year-old daughter and printed off pictures of it oh, have her beautiful face cut out beautifully with a little party hat on all right um.

Speaker 1:

So we'll leave it there for today. We're back in the saddle and rolling and we'll see you again in two weeks time yeah, thank you, lou thank you, george, see you well.

Speaker 1:

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:

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.

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