The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

Recruiters, did you know there are two kinds of BD: strategic and tactical.

You need both, they’re very different and most recruiters only do tactical.

This show is on this subject but let me quickly explain the difference between the two.

TACTICAL BD Is either, “giz a job” or “I’ve got this great candidate…” by message or phone. In other words vacancy scraping or candidate speccing.

You need this because when done properly it can make money in the short term.

But there are 5 drawbacks with tactical BD: -

❶ It rarely wins high value clients who value their agencies.

❷ It’s a treadmill you have to stay on – hunt vacancy, fill vacancy, repeat.

❸ It only works well when demand outstrips supply.

❹ Few people are really good at it. Most recruiters hate and avoid it.

❺ If you make contact when there are no vacancies you get nothing.

STRATEGIC BD Focuses on building relationships with buyers who prefer your flavour of recruitment.

It works with high value clients regardless of the state of the market and whether there are live vacancies or not.

Also, when organised properly, one strategic BDer can feed a medium sized company.

Process and tools make it relatively easy to do.

On the downside it’s a lot longer conversion process so the results take longer to show.

Why bother then?

BECAUSE YOU WIN MORE HIGH-VALUE CLIENTS WHO FEED YOUR ORGANISATION WITH VACANCIES INSTEAD OF HAVING TO CHASE THEM ALL THE TIME! 

Websites are like food processors, everybody has one, but few of us really know how to use them fully. Yet, learning just a few tricks can deliver some great results.

In this episode of the #MARShow we’re delighted to welcome Rob Garner, a seasoned expert in optimizing websites.

We'll be sharing free or low-cost changes that can bring in more candidates and boost your BD effectiveness.

There’ll be a mix of changes you can make yourself but, if you have a web developer, we'll also share more technical changes you can ask them to implement for you.

Watch the show to learn from Rob how to: -

✅ Boost your credibility making your job as a salesperson easier.

✅ Make your team more prominent (people buy from people).

✅ Attract more candidates and potential clients to the site.

✅ Increased interactions with clients & candidates.

✅ Understand what’s working and what needs improving on your site.

✅ An introduction to all the easy-to-use Google tools.

So, if you feel you could be getting more from your website then please join us and learn how to make it work hard for you.

Like any tool, your website is only effective if it’s used properly. Join us and find out how.

Whether you’re a solo recruiter with ambition or have hit that 3 or 4 employee mark and got stuck, you may be wondering how you can scale up.

Scaling a recruitment business is soooooo much more than just adding staff and turnover. If that’s all you do, there’s a very good chance your company will lose its shape as it grows.

That means one or more of the following: -

❌ staff motivation and happiness levels drop

❌ client satisfaction falls and competition share grows

❌ profit doesn’t grow at the same pace as turnover

❌ a feeling that you’re not entirely in control

The effect of these symptoms can be higher staff turnover; slower growth, more work, more stress but less rewards. You can even lose clients!

The bottom line is you can’t create a butterfly by making a caterpillar fatter. It needs to transform and so does your business.

In this #MARShow we explain the 5 key things you need to change to make your business properly scalable.

Listen to this show if you want to break the link between how much you work and how much you earn. 

Having seen many highly profitable recruitment companies the majority have one really big thing in common.

They have stable, empowered, motivated and highly equipped teams.

“Get outta here Sherlock”, I hear you cry. Obvious, yes, but since most recruitment companies aren’t highly profitable, it’s clearly hard to do.

There are several factors involved, such as: -

1. 360 vs Layered fulfilment team
2. Management style 
3. The mission, values and culture of your company 
4. How you qualify and hire people 
5. Reward and development of the team

In this episode of the hashtag#MARShow my guest will be Ruth Forster, founder and MD of Wagstaff Recruitment.

Like me she has worked in stable and unstable teams (her current team is very stable), so we have plenty to discuss.

OK, I accept that a stable team is not the only factor in building a highly profitable team, but it’s certainly the foundation on which to do so.

On a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (Key) tell us how important you think a stable team is.

If you’re a solopreneur recruiter or own a small recruitment firm and want to break the link between the hours you work and what you earn then this show is important.

Virtual teams are a great way to grow your business without committing to permanent staff, plus you can now hire people anywhere on the planet.

But this approach does come with some risks, which is why we are covering it in today's  Mike Ames Recruitment Show.

Our guest is Ward Hampton who successfully runs a virtual team.

He’s an English search consultant, lives in Peru, services clients in North America, EMEA & Asia-Pacific and employs zero staff.

However, he has a team of 5 people spread across the globe.

We will ask him the following questions: -

❶ Why did he choose to run a virtual team and what are the benefits?

❷ Who’s in his team and what do they do?

❸ Where does he find his people from?

❹ How does he manage the team?

❺ What lessons has he learned along the way?

Bottom line here is, virtual teams can help you grow quickly, but it needs to be done in the right way.

Do that and you can easily break the link between hours and money. In other words you can scale up. 

For some years now, the only people who did cold calls were the ones that liked doing it or were forced into it.

The market was good, active clients were feeding in new vacancies, email marketing was working OK and LinkedIn was also very productive.

But two things have happened to change that: -

❶ the market tightened up

❷ AI started generating a lot more content (including cold intro emails)

In other words, there’s more sales activity but less work to win – something has to change.

And, ladies and gentlemen, that change is to pick up the phone more.

Now, some companies out there have based their growth strategies on calling prospects, so no change for those guys.

But many other recruiters have either not done very much calling or have done it badly.

2024 means more calling people you want to work with. “But surely this is cold-calling and you hate cold calling Mike”, you may be thinking. I do but everything is not what it seems – who said they have to be cold calls?

Well, on this #MARShow Kirsty and I are joined by famed recruitment trainer Kate O'Neill (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateoneill-recruitment-coaching/) to talk about making outreach calls to prospective clients.

✅ How you can make a cold call into a warm call (much more productive)

✅ How to get sales people to make more outreach calls

✅ The structure of an outreach call

✅ Getting round gatekeepers

✅ Getting the recipient to give you time to speak

And much more too. 

Simple question for you: do you like outreach calling? 

We all want to improve our profitability and one way to do this is build offshore people into your team, but how do you do this successfully?

Well, that’s the topic of our next Mike Ames Recruitment Show: offshoring for beginners.

It’s also for those who’ve tried it, and it didn’t work out.

On this, we’ll be exploring the reasons offshore projects often fail, so you can avoid them yourself.

Like most things, there’s a way to approach using offshore people that will significantly increase your chances of success.

So, we’ve invited Ketan Gajjar, (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketangajjar/) founder and MD of RPO Arena to share the secrets of a successful outsource project.

This is what we cover: -

❶ Why offshoring often fails to work.

❷ Tasks and roles you can move offshore and the results you can expect.

❸ The commercial arrangements.

❹ How to measure and manage offshore people.

❺ Taking the first steps.

With harder times expected, now is a great time to embrace offshore and see how it can support your business.

When done properly, you not only get great results for less cost, but getting experienced people is considerably easier than finding equivalent people in the UK. 

360 recruiters have been the mainstay of the industry for years, but things are changing now because as a model it’s unreliable.

How can this be? I hear you cry.

Well, 80%+ of the recruitment companies out there have less than 10 staff, growth is clearly a problem.

Good 360s are hard to find, hard to make yourself and hard to keep.

And if they go, they’re going to take a big chunk of your revenue with them. This creates yoyo companies that grow and shrink as people come and go.

Plus, they say they’re 360s in the interview, but only later do you discover that they are weak in BD or client care (not 360s at all).

The alternative is called a Layered Model. Forget the old 180, 270, 360 malarkey and get into layers instead.

In next week’s edition of the #MARShow we are going to delve into: -

✅ In most cases why the 360 model is broken

✅ What a Layered Model looks like

✅ How this affects your comms structure

✅ How you convert from pure 360 to a blend of 360 and Layered

Sure, we’ve had some very big successes with layering larger companies (doubling or even trebling their net profit) but it’s ideal if you want to start or grow a small business too.

If you’re fed up of hiring 360s who aren’t really, and losing people then seeing your revenues dip – this show is for you.

LAYERED = more profit and less stress. What’s not to like?

CHALLENGE: if anybody who believes in the 360 model wants to join us on the show to debate it with me, just DM me.

Every now and then you meet somebody who achieves great things but think themselves ordinary. Wendy Merricks is one such person.

This is her story.

A story that just culminated in the successful sale of her business to an investment company.

Wendy has more recruitment experience than anybody I know, including me!

She worked for Software Knowledge, my first Recruitment company, in the 90s and was not only a brilliant recruiter and businesswoman but was also great fun too.

After the sale of SK to Modis she left to build her own business, Jumar, and what a success that turned out to be!

We’ll be discussing her career, what has made her so successful and the key lessons she has learnt along the way.

 I guess we’ll also talk about the sale of her business too. Lot’s to learn there!

You may be particularly interested in the way she developed from being a recruiter to becoming a businessperson – a transition we all have to make to be successful.

She’s a brilliant guest and I’m so looking forward to having her on the show. What a great way to start the year!

So, if you’re looking for inspiration, ideas or just a few simple tips, this is a must listen!

Not having a noticeable fear of failure and 35 years doing the same thing, teaches you an awful lot.

Well, it’s time to share the best bits. 

Quite frankly, I’ve learnt more by working closely with over 100 recruitment company owners than I did building and selling my own two recruitment firms.

One thing I have learnt is that recruitment is easy but business is hard.

By that I mean it’s full of attractive cul-de-sacs.

These are decisions you make believing they are 100% the best way forward, only to find yourself in a dead-end, and having to back out and try again.

These false-starts cost you time and money and too many of them can damage your credibility with your team.

I should know, I think I have made them all, some more than once.

So in our final #MARShow of 2023 I will be looking back over 35 years in recruitment and sharing the lessons I’ve learnt.

Such things as: -

✅ How to be a sticky employer

✅ What to do when you’re overwhelmed, confused and out of your depth

✅ How I very nearly went bankrupt and how to avoid it

✅ What created our stellar growth – zero to £40m in a decade.

✅ How to thrive in a flat market like this one (I‘ve worked through 3 of them).

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, so this show is 100% about the future not the past.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt in business❓

Youtube link - https://youtu.be/LJAVkA4fM-s

Picture this. You’re discussing terms with a new prospect. They want as much as possible for as little as possible. You want retained and a good fee.

Even though you’re damned good at what you do, that often isn’t enough to win the deal on your terms. Bummer!

Well, our guest on the Mike Ames Recruitment Show has a blemish-free record of getting what she wants, using one simple tactic.

Michelle Theuma is a solopreneur recruiter who is good at what she does, and only wants to be paid her worth.

Win-win and no more.

She isn’t the least bit arrogant, doesn’t hold her clients hostage and never throws her toys out of the pram, but she does present what she can do in a very persuasive way.

And she’s on the show to tell us all how she does it.

There’s more to this than threatening to hold your breath until you pass out, if the client doesn’t give you want you want (BTW, that’s a metaphor).

Years of trial and error have given Michelle an approach that works – now it’s your turn to give it a go. 

12 months ago, The recruitment world changed utterly and forever – CHATGPT launched and incited an arms race.

Where it will all end up is still to be seen, but in just one year, the world has witnessed a surge in AI-driven services, particularly in recruitment.

ATS & CRM systems have integrated AI into many of their services.

(or at least their marketing says they have)

Thousands of custom SaaS platforms have been released for annual or monthly subscriptions.

Question is, which are worth it?

During 2023 many recruiters have leveraged these tools to accelerate tasks, enhance efficiency, elevate standards, and increase profitability.

Others have barely scratched the surface.

In our next Mike Ames Recruitment Show, Pete will be joining us to dive deep into the trends we've seen around AI implementation by recruiters and where he thinks the next big thing will come from.

Click through to find out more and register.

But come or not, is there a shiny bit of recruitment AI Tech that you use and want to champion? Let me know below.

hashtag#AIRevolution hashtag#RecruitmentInnovation hashtag#ChatGPTAnniversary hashtag#RecruitmentAI

Did you know that all of us have a way we prefer to buy things, and if suppliers sell to us in that way, they will be more successful?

It’s called our Buying Style.

Knowing how to spot, and then sell to a person’s buying style, is a bit like cheating, and will give you a massive competitor advantage.

It makes sense when you think about it.

We’re all motivated differently, so trying to persuade us to do something in a standard way is bound to deliver different results with different people.

That’s because we need to be approached according to our buying style.

Get this right and you are much more likely to get what you want. Basic persuasion skills really.

In this week’s Mike Ames Recruitment Show, Kirsty and I will be explaining: -

֍ what the 5 buying styles are

֍ how you work out a buyer’s style

֍ how you sell to a buyer based upon their buying style

All of us have a primary buying style and most of us have a secondary style too. Plus, our styles may change according to what we are buying.

Added bonus: you can use it to persuade your kids to clear up their mess before bedtime!

Want to be more successful when you’re pitching then this is the show for you. 

BTW, my primary style is CHARISMATIC and secondary is THINKER – quite an unusual pairing.

Over 80% of recruiters never bill more than £1m a year, so those who do must have a secret growth sauce. Like to know what it is?

Our next guest on the #MARShow is Roheel Ahmad, founder and MD of Forsyth Barnes.

Started 8 years ago, they are now an international perm business with a turnover of £20m.

Roheel will be talking about his journey and the things he does differently. We’ll be looking at how his staff attraction and retention system enabled his growth and means he’s only lost 2 people in 8 years.

We’ll also be exploring how he set up offices in the USA and is planning on doing the same in the Middle East.

This is a must for anybody looking to trade abroad, especially in America. And he’ll be sharing how his BD engine is tracking 50% growth for 2023.

I’m particularly excited about this section because I believe that 2024 will be the year of BD.

I’m personally very excited about having Roheel as our guest, he’s switched on, tuned in and very much on top.

Everybody has to write job ads from time to time, some more than others, but could they be better? Well, the stakes are high because we know great ads attract better candidates.

We also know that everybody’s attention span has diminished so it’s increasingly hard to attract attention.

Question: has your attention span diminished over the last few years?

In truth, the words you use have a massive effect on the stickiness of anything you write.

The same goes for blogs, long-form LinkedIn posts and even candidate profiles, but especially job adverts.

My question is: could we be better at writing them? I suspect the answer is “yes” (well, I know it is for me).

To help, we’ve invited Anna Iveson, an expert in writing ads, onto the show.

Her tips and advice can be applied to most online copy, but we are focusing in on adverts.

֍ How to grab attention

֍ Building interest in the role

֍ Increasing the chances of people responding to your ads

In these challenging times, the power of the written word is only going to increase!

Growing your revenues is easy, right? Hire more people and they will do more business. But there’s a problem.

82% of recruitment companies have less than 10 staff and half of those are solopreneurs.

In other words, if growth was as easy as hiring people, a lot more recruitment firms would have more than 10 staff.

There are several reasons for this, but the biggest is they outgrow their management strength.

Service levels can drop, staff motivation plummets, and your reputation takes a bashing.

But the worst side-effect is a drop in profits – crazy right? More turnover but less profit, but it happens way too often.

One way to avoid this is put more effort into increasing your revenues but keeping your costs the same.

In other words, become more productive and that’s what this #MARShow is focusing on.

7 ways you can lift your revenues but keep your costs the same.

And remember, 80% of the additional revenue goes straight to the bottom line.

One of my clients tripled his profits and reduced his headcount by 20% following these strategies!

That’s a lot of extra profit there guys.

To get a reminder of when we go live just click the ATTEND button.

Why not spend the next three months focusing on profit instead of chasing turnover and see what happens!

If you presented your offering to 100 people all at once, approximately 5 would be open to a pitch, 50 would blank you, and 45 would be like, “maybe but not now”.

These are called the “Forgotten 45%”, and they hold potentially 9 times the revenue you get from those ready to buy right now.

YES, A POTENTIAL 900% LEAP IN YOUR REVENUES!

Maybe they don’t want to engage because it’s not the right time for them, or they need to know more about you, or even that they already have suppliers that do what you do. 

Who knows, but what I do know is that each quarter some of the “Forgotten 45%” could drop into the “Fruitful 5%”, so what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that in a world fixated with making money by the end of the month, most salespeople invest zero effort into the "Forgottens", and so miss out on a rich seam of business.

“Want to buy from me? No, OK, I’m off to the next then”. That’s a rookie error, right there.

In this Mike Ames Recruitment Show, we’ll be looking at how you can work with the Forgotten 45%, so that more of them become clients. 

We start by explaining why most companies don’t tap this rich source of revenue.

Then we show you how to identify who they are, how to convert them into clients in record time, and how to spot the timewasters who need to be ignored. 

It’s a simple system that anybody can implement; you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

Imagine the boost in revenue that could provide! 

Everybody is looking for a silver bullet that will speed up winning high value clients. There is one, but most people ignore it.

Or, they know what it is, but dismiss it out of hand for a range of reasons (none of them are valid).

In this #MARShow we will be covering this very powerful BD tool – webinars.

See what I mean – your instant reaction was “not for me”.

But just bear me out on this.

Think about the benefits of webinars: -

✅ Free to run

✅ The guests provide all the content – you just ask the questions

✅ Easy to get attendees, and unlike podcasts you know who they are

✅ Created a powerful asset you can reuse

✅ We all know the tech now – Zoom

✅ You can outsource the whole thing – you just ask the questions

✅ The easiest way to start a conversation with decision makers

So in this episode we’re going to share how you run them, how you get attendees, how you choose the subjects and get the guests.

I’m also going to explain how you use them to start conversations with hard-to-reach decision makers.

We’ll be covering the whole shebang, so please don’t be so hasty to dismiss webinars without knowing the full story.

Have you ever signed up for a webinar? 

Statistically you only place 1 in 5 contingent roles you work. For retained its closer to 98% and here’s how you convert to be retained.

But first a warning.

If you’ve been used to working contingent or even exclusive roles, making the jump to retained carries risks with it.

In this week’s #MARShow we have a double whammy.

Backdoor Barry Cullen will explain the costly pitfalls many people can fall into when they convert from contingent/exclusive to retained.

As Barry said to me, “people think they can use the same Tc and Cs for retained and they can’t. There are a whole load of extra terms they need for their own protection”.

Barry will go thru them with us, and explain the difference between exclusive and retained.

Also, for those who haven’t made the switch to retained yet, I’ll explain how to in three easy steps: -

❶ Build your retained product (and sales collateral)

❷ Know which roles to go for

❸ Learn how to convince hirers to buy your retained product

Think about this. Lets be kind and say you convert 1 in 3 contingent/exclusive roles in to fees.

By switching across to retained it goes up to nearly 1 in 1.

That means your NFI will increase by 200%.

Since your costs remain the same, most of that additional income drops straight to the bottom line.

BTW I’ll be explaining the very latest in recruitment productisation – the next step on from “good-better-best”. 

Winning clients hasn’t been a big problem recently, but it will be if the recession bites hard.

Vacancy scraping and speccing candidates won’t be as effective, so what can you do?

That’s the theme of this week’s Mike Ames Recruitment Show – a proven system to win new clients in a recession.

Here’s a run down of what we cover: -

✅ Why vacancy scraping and candidate speccing won’t be as effective

✅ Why inbound referrals will drop

✅ A simple 5-part strategy for winning new clients in a recession

✅ Why you need to start building it, NOW

✅ A few tactics you can use to deliver some great results.

If you are overwhelmed with vacancies now, this probably seems like a waste of time. But believe me, when the recession comes, it’s going to be hard to keep the money coming in and re-engineer how you win new clients.