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. So welcome everybody that's listening. I think there's a few more of you now than when we started.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Three or four of them.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Three or four more, or three or four originally. No, it's a nice audience now and we're really pleased to have you with us. And so welcome to the Retain Search show. So welcome to the Retain Search show and welcome to our very special guests, Sean and Thomas from the Lock Group. Hello Sean.

Speaker 3: 0:51

Hi, good morning.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Hi Tom.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Hey Lou.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Hey Jordan. Nice to have you here and, of course, I'm joined by Jordan as usual, sure. Well, I just wanted to say very quickly I don't know why, right, but I probably have 20 calls a week with prospective customers and I so vividly remember speaking to you guys on our first call I remember where I was.

Speaker 2: 1:17

I was in the gym. I remember the table I was sat at, I remember the conversation. Yeah, it's just that doesn't happen very often. Me and Lou speak to so many people. Often it's like remember, dan, that you spoke to last week and we're like it's really hard to remember. It's really hard to remember you obviously were memorable.

Speaker 1: 1:37

What was it that was memorable?

Speaker 4: 1:41

Was it a painful day at the gym? Was it a pain, memory or a good?

Speaker 2: 1:44

memory. It wasn't, it wasn't. I remember coming off thinking it was the best.

Speaker 3: 1:49

It was the jerkins, wasn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:50

yeah, it was the jillies. I just remember coming off thinking I knew you guys were gonna kill it yeah and I think it was how decisive you were, like you knew where you wanted to be, you knew what you needed to do to get there. It was just kind of like facilitating the journey, and that happened very often, right?

Speaker 1: 2:10

so, yeah, sorry uh, yeah, I, I absolutely love you guys. It's absolute joy to work with you and I think our listeners are about to find out why. Uh, would you mind introducing yourselves and telling us and our audience a bit about you and your business?

Speaker 3: 2:27

Happy to and thanks again for having us. Well, I'm Sean Locke. I'm the managing partner. I'm the founder of the Locke Group. I've been at this now 30 years almost, and the Locke Group's now been around about 20 of those years.

Speaker 1: 2:41

You don't look old enough, Sean.

Speaker 3: 2:43

But I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 2:44

I said you don't look old enough.

Speaker 3: 2:46

Oh, thank you, Thank you, and this is my real hair. And, yeah, we've been at this now 20 years and we're here in New York. I'll let Tom jump in as well.

Speaker 4: 2:58

This is also my real hair. Look at it while it's still around, so. I've been working with Sean on the locker for 10 years and Sean's business partner for a few of those. And yeah, I'm over here in New Jersey, west of the city.

Speaker 1: 3:15

I've got a family and but my nearly all of my professional partners have been recruiting a new little baby yeah, we've got a two-month-old we just had us check up and a 20-month-old uh, who adores him?

Speaker 2: 3:32

she plays doctor to him every day and gives him. That's why the hair is not going to be about for a long time yeah, and genetics, and genetics yeah and um, tell us what do.

Speaker 1: 3:43

What does your business focus on? Yeah, we're a financial sector focused search firm, which means for us.

Speaker 3: 3:51

We focus on front office investment and talent.

Speaker 1: 3:56

OK, OK, cool. And why did we meet? What was going on with you? What was happening in the business before we got talking?

Speaker 4: 4:07

I'll take that one, sean, if that works. Um, shortly after, this is part of my history. But shortly after I joined, sean and I were talking much more seriously. We worked on a contingent basis. It was very frustrating. Um, we wanted to put in high quality work, we wanted to be partners with our clients and, as you know very well, it doesn't really fit the contingent model.

Speaker 4: 4:34

It's more of a scale business it's it's high volume, arguably lower quality. It just didn't fit us. And, at the same time, we wanted to grow the business. You know, we wanted to, wanted to, to grow the revenue, grow the grow the company and whatnot, and so, but I think it was really driven by the desire to work in partnership with our clients and we knew we had the ability to provide a higher quality consulting service. So we started to just fumble our way through it, um, and and, with not much context or perspective offer retained service and and, uh, it was quite painful. It actually probably happened over like five years that we were just piecing together how it should be done. Um, but it was this goal of working on a part more of a partnership basis that that, uh, was the motivation and our thinking alike on that.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Same for you, Sean.

Speaker 3: 5:32

Yeah, and I think you know thinking about what wasn't, what didn't fit for us and why you know we were frustrated with the continued model, so you know it also. You have to understand what we were about, which was? You know we were a team of, you know, subject matter experts that operated to executing.

Speaker 3: 6:05

You know when, when you're operating that way and you're not getting the partnership you know, and the consultative you know approach, it was definitely a frustration for us. So, you know, fast forward, I I caught one of your webinars, you know, at a really good time for us. And then you know, tom and I were already discussing this routine journey that we wanted to tighten up and get the team trained on and you know, ultimately we obviously we started that.

Speaker 1: 6:36

It was perfect. Yeah, we did and we loved it. And there was you guys and a few of your team members you guys and a few of your team members and what was it like then going through that journey, after you'd kind of started piecing things together and having a go at Retained? What was the journey like then, after that, once you joined the program and you started to go through it?

Speaker 4: 7:04

The journey with retrained yeah so I'll give you like the some perspective we had uh, I won't name names, but we had one old shrek contract it was probably like 15 or 20 years old as our our basis for what retains not coaching, no mentors, um. But we had this contract and we actually had one or two big wins on retained partnerships, but we had no way of gauging how our pitch. Was it really of standard?

Speaker 3: 7:38

in the retained.

Speaker 4: 7:40

And we also had no way of gauging whether or not the service that we provided on a retained basis was up to standard as well. They were successful. Our clients were happy, but we still, even though we had a few wins and once showed the ability to work on a partnership basis, we still had no way of gauging or approving. So when we met you and went through the program that gave us the perspective, you and Jordan were able to say it's how pitch works. These are the standards. Here's how you handle objections. Here's what your client or customer is thinking and how it benefits them Likewise in execution.

Speaker 4: 8:25

So the execution training was helpful for us and helpful for the staff. So it just gave us the grounding to sharpen what we already wanted to do.

Speaker 3: 8:39

Yeah, yeah and just to piggyback on not just the grounding is 100% right, but obviously you know the confidence to handle objections and pitch more frequently and pitch more clearly and you know have a plan and how we approach. You know a proper conversation, or diagnostic as you put it, and so you know it really helped kind of structure some of the things that we wanted to do but we just weren't doing it consistently.

Speaker 1: 9:11

And so what kind of changes did you make then, going through that process of refining what you were doing using the learnings? The first thing that comes to mind is actually just evaluating new business opportunities.

Speaker 4: 9:28

Lou, you were great in getting me to rethink what we should take on and what we should pass on and what makes a great opportunity. The hardest change for us to make is turning down that old contingent business. We're not 100% retained, yet we're on the pathway there, so we still take contingent searches in some situations, in some forms, and how to evaluate opportunities and select them was like the first key in the chain there. That definitely helped.

Speaker 1: 10:13

And what impacts has it had so far? I mean, we're still on the journey and we'll talk about the next stage and where you guys are going, which I love, which I love but what impacts has it had, then, making these changes and building confidence around the model.

Speaker 3: 10:32

Well, at least from my perspective, you know I could certainly say that. You know we. You know we're much happier with the partnerships that we have. Right, we're working with our clients that respect what we do. They understand the value that we bring, and so that's led for me, having spent so much time in the contingent world, it's night and day and it's the way I've always wanted to partner. So that's you know how I feel. You know we've really been impacted both on a business and personal level.

Speaker 4: 11:23

I would take like a big black marker and underline the happy word that you said and then also underline the scale word later.

Speaker 4: 11:36

Honestly, the happiness part is so important I don't know if the rest of the world works this way, but we say here in the US that life is your work and people talk about their jobs very openly. We're we're very dedicated to our work and so you want to be happy, can't just be happy at home and you need to be happy at work, and it was quite frustrating to work on a contingent basis where the whole staff is just much happier being valued by our clients that's so nice, that's giving me goosebumps.

Speaker 1: 12:06

It's so nice.

Speaker 4: 12:08

Yeah, the satisfaction was just much, much, much, much higher um. And then from the scale part, from a competitive standpoint, we're a boutique. It was six person staff um. I have nothing against the contingent model. I see how it works and I see how it can be valuable, especially to large customers. We're not going to all of a sudden scale up to become a global or public contingent search firm with multiple divisions and compete against them. It's just, it's not going to work for us. And so the way that we're going to scale is we're going to scale on a retained model and so we have that roadmap. So the training helped us sharpen our approach. Now we've got the roadmap, we're happy on that road. So you know. So we're taking the journey and we're happy doing it and it's it's the right way for us to scale the business that's so good.

Speaker 1: 13:03

What were you going to say, jord?

Speaker 2: 13:04

that's how I used to find as well that certain events happen in life that make you look back and reflect on where you've come from and realise how much better it is on a routine basis, like, for example, having two young children. I remember going through that type of thing, or I wasn't well for a few months and I looked back and thought, could?

Speaker 2: 13:25

I imagine doing this and working contingently, like thinking I've got to be in the office till 8 pm, 9 pm, and I because if I don't, the other agencies are going to beat me to it and get candidates and resumes across to my jobs and certain things happen and make me look back and think why did, how did I ever make it work?

Speaker 1: 13:44

yeah, I know. Yeah, I know, um, are you enjoying this so far? Don't miss a single episode. Hit the subscribe button right now so you can be part of the conversation that's shaping the future of recruitment. So we dive really deep into the strategies, the stories and the truth about retained search. So if you want to hear more about it or you know someone else that needs to hear this, then share it with them. Right, let's get back to the good stuff. And so what, um? Are there things that you look back on now that you kind of wish you'd known? Are there things that you've kind of learned along? Yeah, sean's laughing.

Speaker 3: 14:30

Well, I'm laughing because Tom and I talk about this you know often, and it was probably 2018 or 19 when you know we had secured our first retained project and we definitely could have leveraged the results better. You know these were very visible, very well-known, you know asset managers and we, you know, successfully, you know, filled the mandate. But leveraging that experience, probably even improving upon the experience for both the client and ourselves. You know we've gone through the training with you and Jordan. You know, back then, I think we probably fast forward to where we want to be. You know, back then, I think, uh, we, we probably fast forward to where we want to be. You know, uh, today, but obviously no regrets no, no, no, like I love that.

Speaker 1: 15:15

I always love that. Uh, steve Jobs speech, um, where he addresses Stanford University and he talks about joining the dots and he says it's really easy to you can only join the dots looking back. You can't. You can't join them looking forward. So it's all contributed to being where you are now, and that's all part of the story, which I love, and all the things that you've learned along the way. And had you not had such a tough time with Contingent, you wouldn't have the beauty of the partnerships and the service that you're now allowed to. You know able to deliver to your clients. What are you excited about, then? What's the future for you guys? Well, from my perspective.

Speaker 3: 15:55

You know we're excited about obviously continuing, obviously, the retained journey that we're on and you know we're focused on, you know, continuing to become the elite boutique in the US market where you know we're sought after by top clients and top employers. We want to also make sure that you know we still are a great place to work for. You know the team and we've got a great team and we want to continue to grow and we want to make sure that you know the Lock Group is a place where people want to come and work.

Speaker 1: 16:29

I love working with you two. Like Jordan said, you're so decisive. What I really love the most, though and it reminds me, there's a few people that I've worked with Paul's one of them, paul Press, is one of them where you take action, you don't say you're going to do things and oh're going to do that, yeah, yeah, yeah and and just lip service, you know, to the team and this is going to happen and this is going to happen. You say, right, we're going to do this. And then you do it like tomorrow and it's done, and like we're going in this direction. And I have absolutely no doubt about you know, not just where you're going to go and the ability for you to get there, but of the confidence and the and the and the support and the encouragement that you know you'll give to not just your whole team but your clients along the way, like it's just great love it.

Speaker 4: 17:21

Thank you, thanks, lou. Uh, don't, don't audit our rocks right now, but we're working towards that.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Yeah, well, we've all got those, haven't we? Yeah, it's a joy working with you in the mastery group and great to be able to bring you into the room with all the other people in the mastermind group to start to learn from those guys too. So, tom, what's the future for you? What have you got on that you're excited about? You've got coming up.

Speaker 4: 17:50

Sean hit on it with what we want to be there are a number of really successful financial sector boutiques here, but we really want to be the one that they come to us. They seek us out based on our subject matter expertise and the partnership model, and we want people to want to come work for us, and so that's the other half of it, but I mean otherwise. I'm really excited by our market opportunity.

Speaker 4: 18:14

As you know, we're financial sector, but it's not broad financials. It's really our niche is in investment management and then the alternative investments and for anyone who cares about that, the US is a great market and we have expertise in these really important but also trendy pockets of it. Things like digital infrastructure. You might hear about building data centers and fiber and connecting the digital economy and powering it.

Speaker 3: 18:47

You know the Lockerb has expertise there in the investment industry and these other markets.

Speaker 4: 18:52

The asset backed credit market is booming and we have a fantastic track record and retained relationships, and so we can help our clients in these key growth markets, and so I'm excited to get after that this year. I know we're going to have good conversations, I know it'll be well received and that's going to help us grow yeah, that's so cool.

Speaker 1: 19:15

So if you could give any advice to those people that are listening, what? What would that be? Um, I guess especially those that a lot of the people listening to us today are recruiters that are either curious about the retain model or they want to do it, but they're not sure and they're a bit nervous or scared of it, or it's just kind of new for them. Do you have any advice for all those recruits who start listening to us?

Speaker 3: 19:49

Absolutely. I mean I'll start with, they should seek you out and get trained.

Speaker 3: 19:56

But part two is that don't settle Like you know, we, you know, if you're providing a high quality service and you know and you're confident in your ability to deliver, then, you know, dig your heels in, don't concede to working in a model that you know doesn't get yield really good results. And that's, you know, often the contingent model it's not always, but it often is and I think you know I've certainly made the mistake where I've taken on a contingent search. The process isn't great and that could reflect on my, could reflect on my brand, my reputation and so on. So you know, I think I've gotten a lot better about that. Still have some work to do there. But yeah, I would say, you know, don't settle, be confident that your work is high quality and therefore, you know, make sure you're respected and valued in that way you're gonna do it and do it properly.

Speaker 4: 20:52

I would uh now that I'm a dad jordan, I know you know this, and lou, I know you know this. I would just say you can do it. Uh, you can do it and view some confidence. Um, don't settle, I mean. The other way, I'd say, is value yourself. That includes how much you know, how you get paid for your time.

Speaker 3: 21:11

But I would say value yourself.

Speaker 4: 21:14

Don't cave on that contingent mandate. You know demand to the retained partnership and to work at the level that you deserve and that you can produce that so you can provide a high touch service. Demand that and don't be afraid to say no. Come back six months later, come back 12 months later or go find a better partner and don't be paid less for your time. Be paid more for your time.

Speaker 4: 21:44

Unless you're already at scale and contingent, and unless you're competitive there, you know they retain business as a higher fee business and I think you should really be paid the full value of what you can provide, and so it's worth it to you know you have limited time we all do all the same amount. It's worth it to say I am going to put myself into the highest value projects and get paid for my time. You only have so much of it, but otherwise just you can do it. Stick with it, yeah I like that.

Speaker 2: 22:17

No, the other side of that coin is what's that? I think the customer deserves it too. Yeah, customers live the highest value surface as well, and in all the years I've done this, I have never delivered a retained project for a customer and then say, yeah, we want to go back to working contingent, yeah, so true, and I and I I've never had anybody that that learns how to do retains and then goes yeah, no, I don't, I don't want to do that, I'd rather work contingentlyently.

Speaker 1: 22:47

So, and I think you're right, tom, like that's normally the biggest barrier, that people are worried that they can't. So I think that's a great message.

Speaker 4: 22:57

We definitely struggled with that for years and I wish we hadn't probably.

Speaker 2: 23:01

Yeah, yeah. I think you sometimes say I'm maybe playing myself down, but I always say to our members like I was a bang average contingent recruiter, right, like if I can do this. Like there's people who come on and are billing like a million dollars a year contingently.

Speaker 1: 23:18

Yeah, yeah, if I can do it. It's like, yeah, trust me, you can definitely do it.

Speaker 3: 23:22

Yeah exactly yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:29

It's funny, funny isn't. It is, yeah, but but something. But yeah, a lot of people need a hand, you know, a hand on the journey, really like well, how would you know? You know, none of us have had like the grounding from a shrek, or we haven't, you know, we haven't been there and seen under the bonnet. So how on earth would anybody know? And, sadly, that's not what we get taught when we're, you know, being born into recruitment obviously you guys really were the compass for us.

Speaker 4: 23:53

You really were the compass. Like you know, the analogy is we're standing in the middle of the woods and we don't know which way to turn and you know we have that arrow with you and, like you said, we'll just go after we've got that. So it's fantastic to continue to work with you, to keep working with you. It's like dominoes, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 24:11

Like. You get the knowledge and then you build the confidence, and the confidence allows you to do well and win. And then winning allows you to say no to the clients that don't value you and it just snowballs, yeah, and then you start to see what's possible.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Yeah, and then you know you sit in a room with the people that we do, um, you know, at the next level, and think, oh my god, like there's even more, there's even further. You know, I can be doing that kind of work and we can use that kind of data to open that kind of relationship, and and then it never stops I mean, rightly or or wrongly, like there's no kind of final destination. I don't think. I think we can just always just keep getting better, to deliver a better, stronger partnership with, with clients and help them in a multidimensional way instead of just a oh, you want some CDs, here you go.

Speaker 1: 25:05

Hopefully one of these is going to be right and that journey doesn't end. So, yeah, it's a joy, it's such a pleasure working with you both. I'm so pleased that you agreed to come and share your journey with other people and I know that, um you being so um, great and inspirational, but also really human, about your journeys and sharing with us the wonderful journey that you've been on so far and the exciting journey that you have ahead, people might want to speak to you about it and reach out. Would that be OK, of?

Speaker 4: 25:39

course, 100% yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:42

Please do.

Speaker 1: 25:43

And how can they get hold of you? What's the best way? Well, we're in.

Speaker 3: 25:47

New York, so we're always happy to meet up in the city. That's the easiest thing. They can find us, of course, on LinkedIn. They can email Cool.

Speaker 2: 25:56

Whatever is easier Perfect.

Speaker 4: 25:58

We'll be on the conference circuit with you guys again soon. So if they come to one of yours, they'll meet us there.

Speaker 1: 26:07

Yes, of course course. You'll be in richmond in september that's the plan yeah nice, yeah awesome how did you find otherwise?

Speaker 4: 26:15

otherwise new york and midtown uh, new york and midtown we'll be in our midtown

Speaker 1: 26:20

uniforms tell us what it was like to um to join us in uh in london. What was that like for you boys? It was fantastic.

Speaker 4: 26:32

And not to be rude, but I appreciated the content and I also appreciated seeing the inside of English pubs for the first time.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Again, so I'll just get that out.

Speaker 4: 26:40

I'll just get that out, because Richmond was such a good setting Like up on the hill by the river. Beautiful, isn't it? The hotel was great, but then you, you run a tight ship, you two. So getting down into the content and getting gears around the table to, uh, just, you know, no formalities, just hash out what we're all dealing with, yeah, and advise each other and then have our takeaways. We flew right back to New York after Richmond and got right to it, so it's very energizing.

Speaker 3: 27:15

And I'll just piggyback. I mean just having the access to the peers. You don't get that often here, or at least not naturally, so it's really nice to have conversations with you know people that are going through some of the same things that you're going through and bouncing the ideas, and we've already implemented some of them and it was such a great experience. So definitely looking forward to going back.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Yeah, me too. I loved it. Well, I really encourage those of you listening that are inspired by Sean and Tom's journey and are interested in that or the next steps. Please reach out. You're such nice guys and I know that you'll be hugely helpful to anybody that wants to talk with you. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you so much Thank you, we're very lucky.

Speaker 4: 28:08

Yes, you guys rock, you guys rock. It's been exceptional.

Speaker 1: 28:14

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. 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: 28:43

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.