Roundtable: Relationship-Driven Revenue – What’s Actually Working Right Now

Transcription:

Jeremy Jensen [00:00:00]:

If you’re a recruiting shop that’s $0 to $5 million, relationships is the way that you need to build it. Now, when you go from $20 million to $50 million in direct hire recruiting fees, in my opinion, you need to be the best.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:14]:

Hey guys, Kortney Harmon, host of FDE. We’re bringing you a special series of episodes called FDE Plus. Those are going to be highlights from our recent virtual conference where hundreds of you joined us for an incredible event focused on boosting revenue for 2024. Each of these sessions is packed with valuable insights, expert discussions, and actionable strategies to help you drive growth in your business. Whether you missed the live event or want to revisit each session, we’ve got you covered. We’re going to drop each of these 10 live events to wrap up our year and kick off the new year right. So let’s dive into today’s session and uncover the key takeaways that will propel your success in the coming year. Stay tuned and let’s dive in.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:09]:

Like I said, I am super excited that we’re closing the event out the way that it should be closed out, with real talk, because this is not going to be a typical panel. There’s no slides. It’s just conversation about what’s actually driving revenue in real firms with real people that have real clients and real candidates in today’s market. And if you’ve been paying attention for the last 2 days, You already know, maybe the market feels different. Maybe growth has slowed. Maybe it hasn’t. Buyers might seem more selective. Candidates might be engaging differently.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:41]:

Outreach isn’t maybe landing the way it used to. And AI may or may not be changing all of this the way it works on both sides of the desk, which means one thing to me. It means that you may not be able to be relying on the same playbook that you’ve used to anymore.

Katie Tripp [00:01:57]:

But maybe you can.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:58]:

So we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to dig in. But I, again, I don’t want this to be a conversation where we’re just talking amongst ourselves. I would love questions from the audience because you’re where they are. And that’s why I’m really excited about today. Each of you have been building, selling, recruiting, adapting in real time. So for those of you who know, you’ve been stuck with me for 2 days. I’m Kortney Harmon, but I am very excited to be joined by these 3 people.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:23]:

Joining us is Jeremy Jensen. He is the founder and CEO of Encore Search Partners, right, Jeremy? Did I say anything wrong?

Dolores Sauter [00:02:30]:

No.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:30]:

We’ll come back to you. And I believe he’s in Houston. I have Katie Trippe, which is now the president of Q Works Group, South Carolina.

Katie Tripp [00:02:40]:

Yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:40]:

Yay. And Dolores Sonter, uh, from Miller Resource Group. She is the vice president of Miller Resource Group. So you have 3 different roles within 3 different organizations. that you all have a different perspective, frontline recruiting perspective of what’s actually moving the needle today. So I’m super excited. Jeremy, do you wanna kick us off? Tell us a little bit more about Encore Search Partners. You give us the 30-second Reader’s Digest version of who you are, Jeremy.

Jeremy Jensen [00:03:08]:

Excellent. So founder and CEO of Encore Search Partners. We’re a 40-person direct hire recruitment firm here in Houston. We focus on professional and technical roles kind of at that $150K level and above. I started my first company in 2010. It was actually an email marketing and lead generation business. And then I started recruiting in 2013. So I’ve been doing it.

Jeremy Jensen [00:03:31]:

This will be our 13th year in business.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:34]:

I love that. I love that. And I am putting all of our LinkedIn profiles in the chat. So go connect with everybody. Dolores, you’re giggling at me. Of course, I need you to go next. Tell me all the goods. What is the 30-second Reader’s Digest version of Dolores?

Dolores Sauter [00:03:47]:

Well, I’m with Miller Resource Group, been here for a little over 9 years, but we’ve been in business since 1970, specializing in food and beverage manufacturing and industrial automation. So, we do a lot of managerial-level and above roles, all the way up into the C-suite. And so, that’s a little bit about Miller. And basically, I started as an AE running a desk for the first 4+ years of my career here, and then have been in leadership ever since. And that’s my little elevator pitch.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:17]:

And we don’t need to talk about training back in the day because Dolores was in my training classes back in the day. Really old Dolores. I know.

Katie Tripp [00:04:25]:

It’s cool.

Dolores Sauter [00:04:26]:

Today is my birthday, so I’m—

Jeremy Jensen [00:04:28]:

Happy birthday. Hey, my birthday was Sunday.

Katie Tripp [00:04:33]:

Was it?

Dolores Sauter [00:04:33]:

Happy birthday, people. March is awesome.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:37]:

It is, man. And then yesterday, Rob Resnick He is from Beacon. He actually had a birthday too, and he got to share his birthday cake. He dresses in a pickle costume, and it said— I don’t even remember what it said. You’re a real big deal, like a real big deal for your birthday. And he shared his birthday cake with us live. It was really fun. Wow, March is the place to be.

Dolores Sauter [00:04:59]:

It is.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:00]:

Katie, tell us about you and Q Works Group.

Katie Tripp [00:05:03]:

Absolutely. So I’m the president of the Q Works Group. I have been with the team since 2018. 2014, and that’s how long I’ve been recruiting. Prior to that, I was a VP of operations in glass manufacturing, so I came from industry into this space. Our team, we do both direct hire and contingent contract staffing. We work in everything from, I would say, individual contributor on the technical level up to the C-suite, and manufacturing automation is our core business.

Jeremy Jensen [00:05:35]:

Oh, we’ve got 2 competitors on the screen. Dolores and Katie.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:40]:

We’re good.

Katie Tripp [00:05:41]:

We’re good.

Dolores Sauter [00:05:42]:

We’re friends off screen too.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:45]:

Yeah. Love it. I love it. I am really excited. Jeremy, you’re already being called out that Robert wants to know your social media strategy and implementation. So we’ll get to that. I don’t want to jump straight into the goods already, but keep putting those conversations or questions in the chat.

Katie Tripp [00:06:01]:

Let’s start.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:02]:

What’s changed in the industry? If you look at this, what are you doing differently today to generate revenue that you weren’t maybe doing 12 to 18 months ago? Anybody wanna go first? Jeremy, you wanna go first?

Jeremy Jensen [00:06:13]:

Oh man. You know, I feel like we’re really trying to learn each and every week, right? I’m personally getting inundated by all of the, uh, cadenced email marketing automation generated by AI that’s fully integrated with Outreach and Apollo and data appending, and they’ve got Claude bots doing thousands of emails a day, right? So I’m the recipient of those. I’ve become a little bit tone deaf to it, to be quite honest. Now remember, my background in 2010 was in email marketing and lead generation. So I was doing email marketing when it was cool. That’s how I grew the business from $0 to $2 million in direct hire billings. The way that I grew from $2 million to $12 million in direct hire fees was through cold calling, right? So everyone else was kind of getting into emailing and we were doing cold calling. And then when you say, hey, what are you doing today? We’ve migrated away from being somewhat of a lead generation business development strategy and creating more of a demand generation strategy, right? How can we position ourselves as the foremost technical authority in our little sub-niche verticals? That way it’s our clients’ and prospects’ idea to work with us.

Jeremy Jensen [00:07:28]:

We don’t need to try to sell to them anymore. They want to work with the best in our space.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:33]:

I love that. Anybody, Katie, Dolores, anyone want to jump on that? What’s different in the last 12 to 18 months?

Katie Tripp [00:07:39]:

I would say we were very heavily invested in a single platform 12 to 18 months ago, spending much of our time on LinkedIn and spending a lot of money on LinkedIn. And we have diversified our strategy. We are actively involved in opportunities like this where we can get our name out into, into the market and other areas of social media. We’re interacting in different places than we did before. What it has brought us is, I mean, we had our first client lead generation say, we found you through a ChatGPT search the other day and not on this coast either, other end of the world from us. So whatever we’re doing as far as our SEO, whatever we’re doing as far as our engagement in online platforms is bringing opportunities to us versus going after them.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:28]:

Definitely different. Dolores, do you have anything to add while the dog serenades us?

Dolores Sauter [00:08:34]:

I mean, I would agree with everything that Jeremy and Katie have said already. I think that a lot of the principles that we’ve always kind of put at the core of our business are still the same, whether that’s being in person at trade shows and conferences, still using the phone, still doing multichannel outreach. But I think that one of the things that we’re trying to double down on in the current environment is leaning into authenticity because everybody and their uncle is running every email through ChatGPT, right? And so we’re like, stop. Okay. You, you have to cut through the noise by being you. And that’s the only way it’s going to work. So that’s kind of what we’re doubling down on right now.

Jeremy Jensen [00:09:15]:

Yeah. So it’s funny that you say that, Dolores, because I think it was Rob, you know, you talk about authenticity. Whenever you look at my LinkedIn content strategy over the last 12 months, I think I’m showcasing my personal relationship a little bit more, my children, some of the galas and nonprofits that I personally support, not just the company. And really humanizing my personal brand on LinkedIn. It’s not something that I’d historically done in the past, but I think that’s really what kind of separates me from the fucking chatbots, right? Just saying like, oh, this is a real human that like is a part of his community, that’s a husband and a father, etc., right? And so humanizing that aspect has been very, very important.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:59]:

Clark Wilcox talked about this yesterday in LinkedIn and He literally is like, I don’t put my kids out there, but I will tell you, I am more of a human now than I ever have been because there’s a need to be. It hasn’t been that way in the past, but I love it. I think it’s great. I do showcase my children and my things and my, my chickens and all the other stuff. A selfie of me and a chicken on LinkedIn somewhere. Don’t tell anybody. That could be used against me. But I think it’s great to be able to break through that noise.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:26]:

So is there anything that maybe has stopped working? Anything stopped working in the last 12 to 18 months?

Dolores Sauter [00:10:33]:

So I wouldn’t say stopped working. I’m still a huge advocate for phone outreach and cold calling. That needs to be part of your toolkit no matter what. Yes, we want to have more SEO, more inbound, more demand, you know, more repeat customers, all that stuff. But the phone is still there. Like Mike Weinberg said, it’s sexier than ever because fewer and fewer people are using it. But the spam filters have gotten really good, really good. For the first time in our company history, we’re having to look into alternate solutions to help our people’s numbers not come through as spam.

Dolores Sauter [00:11:08]:

Literally was testing out a new tool for the tech stack just this week. 2 of my people called my cell phone directly from our database and my phone didn’t even ring. Didn’t even ring. So how do we get through that? How do we get past that? And I don’t necessarily know the answer yet, but that’s one of the big newer challenges that we’re seeing.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:26]:

Anybody else running into that? Oh, my CEO and I were talking, his wife is a recruiter, and he said the same thing. He’s like, the old way of doing things was make 100 dials a day, MRI all the time.

Katie Tripp [00:11:37]:

And you’re running into that as well. We’ve had to go through and get our numbers listed as whitelisted on all of the platforms. And I’d say T-Mobile’s probably the hardest to get past. They have a rigorous process to get your company numbers listed. But it is something that you can do. We’ve also found that adding in our messaging whenever we’re scheduling, hey, I’ll be calling from this number in case you have an unknown caller blocking.

Dolores Sauter [00:12:02]:

Yes.

Katie Tripp [00:12:03]:

Seems to be working. And candidates are like, oh, that’s great. I would have missed your call had you not said that.

Dolores Sauter [00:12:09]:

I think a lot of it depends on your, your own individual settings on your phone and your carrier. We have our third-party tech support is doing all the whitelisting for us, but we’ve still been experimenting with rotating out numbers. We had somebody switch to a new number in December and already it’s gone back to spam already. And it’s only been like, you know, 3 months, which is nuts to me. And I agree. I think if they can save your number as a contact, obviously that’s ideal. But we have plenty of people who have scheduled calls with somebody. They’re sitting there waiting for it and the phone doesn’t even ring.

Dolores Sauter [00:12:42]:

You know what I mean? So it’s like they literally have to send a text and be like, hey, went straight to voicemail, got a busy signal, call me back. And so you’re just trying to work around all of that.

Jeremy Jensen [00:12:51]:

Excellent. So one thing that I’ll share, Kortney, is we’ve really had to upskill ourselves with quite a few different tech stacks, right? You know, as Dolores mentioned, a lot of stuff that they’re implementing. And so when you look at our Director of Systems and Technology, his name is Larry Sanders. He’s been with the organization since 2012. His role has really evolved, right? And one of the things that the company has done Is we’ve financially supported him to go back and get his bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and information technology. We’ve paid for professional accreditations and licenses, right? There have been SPIFs and spot bonuses if he was able to implement certain software within a very, very defined period of time. And so, by turning my director of systems and technology essentially into a revenue producer, Like a biller, that’s been transformative for our organization.

Kortney Harmon [00:13:46]:

Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, I even just talking to some people that, that systems person is now their operations person too, because the insights they have from the data that they’re collecting from all of these places, the roles within our industry, within our own 4 walls are changing rapidly with all the tech that’s coming.

Jeremy Jensen [00:14:04]:

Mm-hmm.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:06]:

All right, what about, is there anything that you maybe intentionally stopped doing? I know we talked about what you’re not— I guess it’s kind of repeat questions to what stopped working, but is there anything you stopped doing in the past 12 to 18 months?

Jeremy Jensen [00:14:18]:

I mean, I stopped drinking. Does that count?

Kortney Harmon [00:14:21]:

Congratulations.

Katie Tripp [00:14:22]:

Very proud of you.

Dolores Sauter [00:14:24]:

Yeah, seems counterintuitive in this environment. Congratulations.

Jeremy Jensen [00:14:28]:

My fiancée doesn’t drink, so, you know, that’s kind of like, uh, literally a buzzkill.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:34]:

Yeah.

Katie Tripp [00:14:35]:

That’s fair.

Kortney Harmon [00:14:35]:

I love it.

Katie Tripp [00:14:36]:

I will say we’ve stopped paying for tools for longer than we actually need them. So we are much more prudent about our expenditures related to sourcing tools and all of the different things that we’re utilizing. And it used to be that if we had like one place, we’re like, one place that pays for it. Yeah, that’s worth it. It’s worth the tool. It’s no longer that way. We’re also cognizant of how much time we’re spending to utilize the tool. Is it actually giving us time back or is it taking time away?

Kortney Harmon [00:15:08]:

And there’s a lot of tech that’s evolving even literally by release by release. So while today you may be using certain tech stack, by 6 months from now that might be different because whether it’s your ATS developing something or a sourcing tool is adding on something else, literally I’m in charge of our partners here. I can’t keep up with all the tech that everyone’s adding. I’m like, They were this, now they’re this. It’s just a lot. So, okay, that’s a question in the chat right now. Let’s talk tech stacks. I know you were not prepared for that because I did not give you those questions.

Kortney Harmon [00:15:39]:

Jeremy, you want to start us off with the tech stack? Give, give us a rundown of some things.

Jeremy Jensen [00:15:44]:

I mean, I don’t want to give away too much secrets, right? But you know, our ATS, we’re on Bullhorn for Salesforce, which is on Salesforce’s tech stack and it fully integrates into anything. That Salesforce has an API into, whether it’s a marketing automation and outreach tool or mass texting tool, drip marketing, omnichannel campaign management with regards to video, email, text. And so, you know, we’re obviously investing in things like that. Click-to-dial solutions, right, on voice over IP systems, you know, where, you know, you’d mentioned 100 calls a day. If my recruiters make 100 calls a day, Kortney, they’re getting fired. Right? 200 calls a day. I’m old school, baby.

Kortney Harmon [00:16:28]:

I love it.

Jeremy Jensen [00:16:29]:

Yeah. The AEs that have the client relationships, you know, obviously they’re making 300, 400 calls a week. It’s, it’s longer conversations. The people that are generating the candidate leads for our team, those are the high-volume callers and networkers, right? So when you say, what are we doing differently? We’ve migrated away from being generalists. And we’re becoming subject matter experts in specific niche verticals. We’re really leaning in on that. And then we’re spending about $500,000 a year on data and data insights. That’s what we’re spending a lot of money on.

Kortney Harmon [00:17:04]:

Interesting. Katie, you want to chime in to tech stack?

Katie Tripp [00:17:07]:

We have been doing a decent amount with our automation workflows, trying to help things in the background on the operational side. We currently use Venturi as our CRM ATS. It’s got decent integration, lots of open APIs available to it. I would say we have taken a step back on really building out any more than what we’ve got right now. That’s where we’re in a holding pattern trying to figure out what’s, what’s next and where do we need to invest and how should we spend our time and energy.

Kortney Harmon [00:17:40]:

Love it. Dolores?

Dolores Sauter [00:17:42]:

Uh, well, you know, everything’s kind of built around the core of Crelate as our database, and it’s great because it has an open API and integrates with a lot of things. And so we’re using that hand in hand with RingCentral as our VoIP, and obviously a bunch of Teams as well. And all of that, we have different project management software and things like that for the kind of like the pre-work, the data entry, the admin piece of it, right? We’re in a trial right now for CoRecruit, formerly Quill, which also integrates with Crelate as an AI note-taker, but also allows us to kind of save time on some of the documents and the emails and the follow-ups that we do pretty regularly. So we’re still looking into that. A big key has been kind of to Katie’s point, you know, we’ve been reevaluating our tech stack kind of multiple times over the past few years because everything keeps evolving, trying to keep it efficient. Not too much, not giving the team whiplash by constantly adding new things. And a big piece of it too is the visibility from leadership. Like, okay, so yeah, you’ve got all of this going on, but what’s the ROI? What’s actually happening? What’s our visibility of activity to, you know, trends to all of these things and trying to find the best way to have visibility of all of that.

Jeremy Jensen [00:18:53]:

So let me share one thing, Kortney. So I actually take a little bit of a different approach, I think, to Katie when she’s saying, hey, we’re in a holding pattern.

Kortney Harmon [00:19:00]:

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Jensen [00:19:01]:

I’m a big believer that you have to spend money to make money. And so we probably have more resources and solutions with regards to technology than we need, right? And, you know, some of them are okay, they barely pay for themselves, and some of them are home runs. But I feel like if I didn’t have those things that are just okay, I wouldn’t have been able to like learn what we actually needed. So I’m a big believer in like, you can’t go from A to Z. You gotta go from like A to C and then C to F and then G to et cetera, right?

Katie Tripp [00:19:35]:

Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:19:35]:

You’re kissing a lot of frogs, but I like it. But I think this goes along with Sean’s question. I’m gonna put it up here so you guys can see it. I promise to take it down. Most leaders struggle with the idea of investing in technology to drive meaningful growth in business. Have you always leaned into technology or was it something specific that helped you understand its value?

Dolores Sauter [00:19:53]:

First of all, our CEO, Gary Miller, has always kind of led by example and been willing to explore whatever the new thing was, right, and help us evolve. Because I think otherwise you become that dinosaur that gets stuck in their old ways, right? But I think we learned largely by trial and error that we have to involve our team in those choices. We made some switches that went over like a lead balloon and then had to redo it. And so getting a good chunk of your core people in and getting their opinion and their buy-in or their vote or their whatever. on whether or not to actually move forward in that investment. Obviously, final decision with leadership, but you’ve got to have their buy-in or else they’re not going to use it anyway and it’s a waste of money.

Katie Tripp [00:20:35]:

So I take the approach of, I believe in technology. Technology is incredibly important. Advancement’s important. Doing things differently is important. But technology for technology’s sake is not the right way to go. We need to be solving a problem. We need to be answering a question. We need to be moving something forward.

Katie Tripp [00:20:53]:

So I always take the approach of evaluating technologies. What problem are you solving or what process are we trying to improve or speed up or make better? If we can’t answer that question, why are we considering this technology? Is it because it’s shiny and pretty and has a great sales pitch? Okay, great. Those are really cool things to look at and they might be fun to play with, but that’s what you do when you’re at home. Like, that’s your private time stuff. That’s not something that you put on your business. So that’s kind of my approach, but I do embrace new technology for sure.

Jeremy Jensen [00:21:24]:

Oh, it’s interesting. And I think Katie just gave me a great light bulb, right? Because when we all think of Amazon, Amazon is a technology company, right? But when you look at the reason why we love Amazon as consumers is because there’s a tremendous amount of transparency, right? What are the reviews? What is the rating system? We know that it’s going to be fast. We know that it’s going to be accurate. We know that when we have a problem, their service department is going to refund me literally same day. And so you can’t just be technology for the sake of technology. You have to have those other core values that you uphold.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:02]:

All right.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:02]:

I’m going to move us into the next set of questions. We’re going to highlight essentially the whole point of this conference. It’s relationships matter. But that’s not new. As we talk about relationships, what does a relationship that actually drives revenue look like today versus what it used to look like? Anyone want to chime in?

Katie Tripp [00:22:20]:

I don’t think it’s different. Like, if I take a step back and I think about the relationships that were driving revenue 10 or 15 years ago that are still driving them today, it is a relationship. It is not a vendor relationship. It is a personal relationship. And it’s always been that way. Anywhere where I get the opportunity to consult, anywhere where I get the— somebody opens their doors and says, here’s what my real problems and challenges are, that’s where we build a relationship and are able to help and bring value.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:55]:

Jeremy, you were going to say something. I saw it.

Jeremy Jensen [00:22:57]:

No, no. Let’s hear Dolores.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:59]:

Dolores, you’re on the spot. Your turn.

Dolores Sauter [00:23:02]:

Honestly, I probably tend to agree with Katie to some degree. Like I said, we doubling down on authenticity. I think that the relationships are even more important. We always focus on trying to be a partner and a consultant, not a vendor. I pretty much agree. I don’t, I think it’s the same import, holds the same importance for us that it always has.

Jeremy Jensen [00:23:20]:

Yeah, I think relationships are important, right? On a micro level, right? If you’re hyper-focused in your geo market, right? Obviously relationships are key, right? You’re going to lunch with the clients. You’re getting that insider information on why the role is confidentially open, right? You get the real inside insight on why the predecessor was let go or why they moved on. You have the ability to influence comp ranges or salary bands, right? So, relationships, I think, is important to go from $0 to $5 million, right? That’s, that’s what I think, right? If you’re a recruiting shop that’s $0 to $5 million, relationships is the way that you need to build it. Now, when you go from $20 million to $50 million in direct hire recruiting fees, in my opinion, you need to be the best. I mean, it can’t be relationship anymore, right? You’ve got to have the trophies on the mantle and you’ve got to be a subject matter expert in your niche vertical to where it’s not even an option on giving the job order to the lady who dropped off cookies this afternoon. You want the best legal recruiting firm, you call the top legal recruiter in the industry. I mean, it’s like the real estate game. It’s relationship.

Jeremy Jensen [00:24:33]:

If I’m trying to sell a $600,000 house, what if I want to sell my $12 million house? I want to work with the number one realtor in my neighborhood.

Kortney Harmon [00:24:43]:

So has that changed any for you, Jeremy, in the last 12 months?

Jeremy Jensen [00:24:46]:

Our average fee, I mean, I go back to 2017, our average fee was $28,000. Now it’s $96,000 is our average direct hire recruiting fee, right? It’s a different league than it was back in 2018, 2019. That’s how we’re going to insulate ourselves from AI completely stealing our fucking job.

Kortney Harmon [00:25:07]:

You’re not wrong. I don’t disagree. So are you doing anything differently with those client conversations except bringing the receipts?

Jeremy Jensen [00:25:13]:

I mean, cockiness and arrogance, you can see, come very, very closely to the brand, right? But we get paid on performance, Kortney. No retainers, all results, baby.

Kortney Harmon [00:25:24]:

I love it. I love it. Anything else to add, ladies? Are you seeing a difference? We’re gonna flip to the candidate side. Candidate behavior has changed also. Um, obviously immediate gratification, there’s a different expectation. Obviously it depends on the industry that you serve and the audience that you’re talking to. So I will keep that in mind, but Are candidates harder to engage? We talk about, yeah, we maybe have a harder time getting through on the phone. Are they harder to engage? What are you doing differently because of it in the last 12 to 18 months?

Katie Tripp [00:25:57]:

That’s the authenticity factor for us. That’s, that’s where it seems to come through the most. I’ve had more candidates say, I responded to your message because you didn’t sound like a bot. Like, your message was real. It sounded authentic. And they call and they’re like, oh, you are a real person. This is amazing.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:15]:

They’re not pushing zero to get to a real human anymore.

Katie Tripp [00:26:18]:

So our messaging is very direct. It’s very tailored. We do use some level of templating, but not as much as we used to. Honestly, that’s probably changed for us is less templates.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:30]:

I get emails just like Jeremy was saying on this Claude code stuff. Someone was like, oh my gosh, you live in Bolivar, Ohio? My parents met there. I’m like, bullshit. There is no way that my little town of Freaking 50 people, less than 1,000 people that your parents met here. I know that’s not real.

Jeremy Jensen [00:26:48]:

And if you lead with a lie, you’ve lost all credibility.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:52]:

Bingo. Bingo. Dolores, I’m sorry, I went on a tangent. I got excited.

Dolores Sauter [00:26:57]:

No, I know. I was just— my main add was just we’re texting a lot more. We definitely don’t bulk text because I think that’s a— that’s it. But, uh, yeah, texting. I mean, it comes back into the thing of the fact that you need to still do multichannel, that every single piece of that still has validity and you have to meet people where they’re at. You’re dealing with 3, 4 different generations and how they want to be spoken to. And so many more of them, it’s the touchless delivery. It’s like, so it’s text message.

Kortney Harmon [00:27:25]:

That’s what it is, right?

Dolores Sauter [00:27:26]:

So we’re doing a lot more of that earlier on in our process than we did before.

Kortney Harmon [00:27:31]:

Don’t start delivering candidates by drones like Amazon does in the near future.

Jeremy Jensen [00:27:35]:

One of the things that I’ve started to do, and I apologize, Remember back in the old days, guys, whenever we like were super secretive with who our clients were, right?

Dolores Sauter [00:27:44]:

Yeah.

Katie Tripp [00:27:45]:

Uh, yeah.

Jeremy Jensen [00:27:45]:

Uh, we disclose client names quite often in initial outreach messages, right? It just showcases that it’s not fake news or a bot, you know. Hey, have you heard about XYZ’s new $17 million venture capital funding round? If you haven’t, I would love an opportunity to share details.

Dolores Sauter [00:28:05]:

Interesting.

Jeremy Jensen [00:28:06]:

I don’t need to lead with what job they’re recruiting for. Narrative positioning is one thing that we do really well.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:12]:

I like that. Jeremy, are you guys texting your candidates too?

Jeremy Jensen [00:28:15]:

We’re sending hundreds of thousands of texts a month. Absolutely. Yeah, we’ve got software solutions that fully integrate into our ATS that are driven by workflow rules, data insights, triggers, things of that nature.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:27]:

I love it. And honestly, it’s where you’re meeting. One of my favorite sessions last year that one of the conferences was how each generation functions and what they like to see and how they like to see it. And I’ve never been so seen in my life, probably. It’s okay. Anything else? Anything else? What’s actually getting responses right now? Like anything else off the wall that’s getting responses with your candidates that maybe not used to?

Jeremy Jensen [00:28:51]:

I got it. Real-time information. Calling the folks at Morgan Stanley and saying, hey, I know you guys had your commission eliminated on 401 platforms on anything sub- $250K. I’m not sure how that’s going to affect your commission, but if it’s a significant impact, call me back. Data-driven insights. Like, we chase a lot of smoke because if there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Kortney Harmon [00:29:15]:

That’s great. I love that. There’s a question. Violet has a question. Not to go back to texting, but I’m going to. Anybody have any details of what your response rate to text messages are? Anybody know any insights on this?

Katie Tripp [00:29:27]:

We’re using it more for one-to-one than we are for bulk. Jeremy, do you have any idea?

Jeremy Jensen [00:29:33]:

Yeah, I mean, as Katie said, one-to-one, you’re probably getting a 95% read rate and a 60 to 70% response rate. Whenever it comes to bulk or automated messages driven by data insights, right, like when people notate that they’re open to work, we’ve got triggers that can trigger that, right? You know, you’re seeing maybe 16% response rates. And so to me, that’s still way better than email, which right now is sub-1% on cold email.

Katie Tripp [00:30:00]:

Not the same.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:01]:

Okay. So obviously we’re reaching out to candidates that equals sourcing. Let’s talk sourcing for a minute. So there’s, there is more noise than ever with sourcing, more tools, more automation, more outreach. What’s actually working when it comes to sourcing and engaging talent right now?

Katie Tripp [00:30:18]:

Cold— Nothing and everything.

Jeremy Jensen [00:30:19]:

That was the greatest answer of all time.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:24]:

You know, but I need more detail, Katie. Love you, but I need more detail.

Jeremy Jensen [00:30:28]:

I’ll answer it scientifically.

Kortney Harmon [00:30:30]:

Okay.

Jeremy Jensen [00:30:30]:

There’s no one channel that’s outperforming the other. You have to take an omnichannel, fully integrated approach. Somebody might reply to your email just because they got your voicemail.

Dolores Sauter [00:30:41]:

Absolutely.

Katie Tripp [00:30:42]:

Absolutely.

Dolores Sauter [00:30:43]:

I also think a big—

Katie Tripp [00:30:44]:

yours was better stated than mine.

Jeremy Jensen [00:30:46]:

I’m a wordsmith, Katie. Sorry. No, I think there’s a good look, so I had to be a good talker.

Dolores Sauter [00:30:53]:

I think there’s a lot of buzz around, um, You know, a platform that rhymes with Schminkton and how, you know, everyone—

Jeremy Jensen [00:31:04]:

Can you not talk mess about Schminkton?

Katie Tripp [00:31:07]:

She’s got it over nibbled.

Dolores Sauter [00:31:11]:

No, watch that. But no, just the fact that, like, everyone’s just trying to— it’s funny, there’s so many people there, there’s so much dependence there, and now we’re all realizing the need to move away from there. And so it’s like we’re rediscovering all of the other, all of the other avenues and leaning on those as much as we possibly can.

Jeremy Jensen [00:31:30]:

We’re finding ourselves after coming out of an 11-year relationship and the game has changed and we don’t want to get on apps. We got to find ourselves. That’s what’s different.

Kortney Harmon [00:31:43]:

Yeah. Okay. So that kind of goes into my next question. What are people overrelying on?

Jeremy Jensen [00:31:48]:

I mean, I’ll be honest with you. I mean, I think people are over-relying on relationships. You know, right now, great senior recruiters have the ability to break away from firms and go start their own business. I mean, it’s so easy now to get a website developed, start an LLC, auto-generate fee agreements, fully integrate QuickBooks to whatever ATS they’re using, JuiceBox, whatever. Right? So if you’re relying on hiring recruiters that have great relationships, you are very exposed to losing revenue from your firm. So what we do is we separate sales from recruiting, right? Salespeople need the recruiters and the recruiters need the salespeople. It’s a team approach. Not everybody is working a full desk.

Jeremy Jensen [00:32:39]:

In fact, almost nobody at our organization is.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:42]:

Amazing.

Katie Tripp [00:32:43]:

We have split desks as well. But I want to do— I want to make a point of clarification. Relationships versus good candidate experience. Because I think having a good candidate experience, having that, that level of engagement with your candidates and your clients does end up generating new leads and long-term referrals and more opportunities as those people move into their roles in leadership. And we have seen more referral placements because of the candidate experience in probably the last 24 months.

Jeremy Jensen [00:33:19]:

Absolutely. Very well said.

Dolores Sauter [00:33:21]:

I think that the AI job posting, job application, AI scraping application, it’s insane right now. And I feel like it’s the whole system as a whole of job posting is broken. Candidates are out there. They don’t really care as much about the relationship. If they’re looking for a job, they just want somebody to call them back. They’re like, oh my God, you’re a person. You’re not a bot. Like I got a response.

Dolores Sauter [00:33:43]:

out of the 500 things I applied for. So I don’t know what the answer is or how exactly that’s shaping things, but if you’re relying on sending in resumes to job posts on LinkedIn, like you’re gonna be looking for a job for a long time.

Jeremy Jensen [00:33:55]:

Absolutely. And so what I’ll say is 3 things need to be present. Um, trust, rapport, and credibility, right? I don’t think anybody is gonna do business with you unless you have all 3 present, right? Uh, so, you know, you guys, Dolores, 1970. That’s a lot of years. I think you guys are credible resources in your space, right? And so what you need from your recruiters is to build trust and rapport. In this post and pray method or all these AI email blasts, you’re going to lose a lot of credibility and trust if you’re doing it the wrong way, right? How many times do we get messages where it’s like, hi, first name, and it’s like, shit, they just didn’t even map it right.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:34]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Jensen [00:34:35]:

You have lost all credibility with that recipient.

Dolores Sauter [00:34:38]:

Right.

Katie Tripp [00:34:38]:

Yeah. Back to the not everybody texts and all of those kind of things in the platforms and the way that we’re reaching people, we also have to teach our recruiters and we have to be able to communicate cross-generationally because we are dealing with a very broad group of potential applicants and candidates for the role that don’t all communicate the same way and don’t all have the same expectations.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:04]:

And oftentimes we have a younger generation that’s running our recruiting teams. So we’re going to an executive level that’s much older, and those 2 things may be missing completely.

Dolores Sauter [00:35:14]:

Yes.

Katie Tripp [00:35:14]:

You must email.

Kortney Harmon [00:35:16]:

Exactly. And back to the LinkedIn thing, Chris Allaire was on one of our podcasts and he mentioned, I mean, you can go look on any LinkedIn job posting now that there’s 7,000 applications within the first 24 hours of any job. It’s astronomical. Like, that might be inflated, but like, look at any job. Like, it’s crazy right now, the amount of responses that are happening so quickly.

Dolores Sauter [00:35:38]:

And honestly, I know that majority of those companies are not in any way prepared to filter or find anything through that. So it just becomes this wall of noise, right? So both sides are— that’s why I’m saying it’s broken, right? Because there’s just— it’s far too much for either side. So Either we need to come up with a new solution or we gotta avoid that.

Katie Tripp [00:36:01]:

We also aren’t ever gonna be able to get rid of the human element because people can fake their resumes. They can fake their interviews. They cannot be a real person. They can have AI prompting them through the entire interview. So at the end of the day, you need some level of BS meter that’s screening and vetting the candidates moving into the process in order to be able to Maintain the integrity of the industry.

Dolores Sauter [00:36:29]:

Have you heard that some hiring authorities have built into their interview a chance where they make the candidate move their head side to side? Because if they’re AI, you can’t see the back of their head.

Katie Tripp [00:36:39]:

Yeah, they flatten. Yes.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:43]:

As everybody. A question just came through my email. They want to know, what’s your favorite sourcing tool? You don’t have to disclose that if you don’t want to, but everybody wants to know a tool. Everyone wants to know the magic bullet. If you don’t want to say it, that’s fine. Anybody have a favorite sourcing tool or what they’re doing in their industry?

Jeremy Jensen [00:36:59]:

My favorite is still cold calling.

Dolores Sauter [00:37:01]:

I mean, my, our favorite is still in-person events industry because that’s a big thing. Like you were saying, specialists in your niche, we have the same thing. Every single one of our AEs has their own dig and they join associations and they try to immerse themselves in these human groups. You know, I think that’s the best place.

Katie Tripp [00:37:20]:

My favorite is whatever works.

Kortney Harmon [00:37:21]:

For the day, minute, whenever somebody answers.

Jeremy Jensen [00:37:25]:

Well, no, that’s a good point, Katie, because our different practice areas, there’s different strategies that work better. So you recruit— we recruit lawyers very differently than wealth advisors, very differently than investment bankers, very differently than private equity portfolio C-level executives, right? So it’s, it’s whatever works, like Katie said.

Dolores Sauter [00:37:46]:

And you can’t just Use the same method for every single role in your, in your—

Katie Tripp [00:37:50]:

Or the same type of message.

Jeremy Jensen [00:37:51]:

Yeah. And so I think that what we need to have as executives is just an open mind, right? Because the stuff that works in 2026 may not be the same stuff that worked 5 years ago.

Dolores Sauter [00:38:02]:

Yep. Or works next month.

Kortney Harmon [00:38:04]:

Yeah. Another question in the chat. It says, have any of you added another revenue stream, value add to your clients outside of making placements? If so, what is it? And if not, why?

Katie Tripp [00:38:15]:

Yeah. So we have another revenue stream. We do executive consulting, leadership development. So we have another branch called Leadership Squared, which helps to develop the leaders that we’re placing, make sure that they are culturally adept, make sure that the team that they’re leading and joining are all communicating on the same wavelength.

Dolores Sauter [00:38:39]:

I have mixed feelings about it. We’ve kind of dabbled in some alternate revenue streams. I think there’s always opportunity to do some consultant work. We have some other assessments and tools that we’ve used and leaned into as well. We had a specialist who came in to do a lot more of like the economic insights and things like that. I think all of those are interesting and I think you have to be open to potentially explore them and see if it’s the right fit for you. I think for us, It’s been a good learning experience, but sometimes those alternate revenue streams can take your eye off the core of your business and then you have other problems. So that would be the only thing that I would kind of caution.

Kortney Harmon [00:39:19]:

Jeremy?

Jeremy Jensen [00:39:19]:

So yes, we have 3 different monetization models. You know, obviously we have contingency recruitment and then we have a flat monthly fee managed service to handle all of your recruitment needs. Uh, and then we offer a dedicated recruiter model. So, in our industry, sometimes boutique clients are really fighting for our candidates. And the ones that historically win are just like the big 8,000-pound gorilla, right? And so, in order to get a dedicated recruiter, you just have to pay their salary times 2. So, we have different models. I know that was Tony Priani that asked that question. And Tony, I’m in the process of commercializing a new business as well.

Jeremy Jensen [00:40:00]:

Feel free to reach out and I’ll be happy to tell you specifically what area it’s in.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:04]:

I bet Tony feels seen right now.

Katie Tripp [00:40:06]:

Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:07]:

Just read it and not put his name up there.

Katie Tripp [00:40:09]:

Tony P.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:11]:

I love it. I love it. Okay. My man, he says. Okay, let’s talk. This is, I mean, we already kind of highlighted this activity versus impact, right? There’s a big shift happening right now for more activity, right? Well, it used to be 100 calls. Now we’re at 200. There’s also been an argument of more intentional activity.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:30]:

We’ve already talked about that. Where are you seeing wasted effort in recruiting firms right now?

Katie Tripp [00:40:35]:

Admin.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:36]:

What?

Katie Tripp [00:40:37]:

Admin.

Jeremy Jensen [00:40:39]:

I agree. Research, admin. Yeah, we have a VA in Mexico that gets paid $6 an hour that does a lot of that stuff for us, right? Eventually it’s going to be AI that does it.

Katie Tripp [00:40:51]:

We’re utilizing AI there.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:52]:

I love it. Anything else? Anything else that’s wasted activity that we might have used to have done?

Jeremy Jensen [00:40:58]:

I know it doesn’t answer your question, but you’d mentioned something about going from 100 to 200 calls. Now, make no mistake about it, the reason why is because answer rates are much lower, right? Lead conversion rates are much lower. And so the way that we make up for it is just by doubling the output, right? And so we don’t shy away from doing the hard work in order to get the results that we want. We believe in focus and discipline and not getting distracted, having our eyes on the prize. And so for me, if I can pay $100,000 for a specific database in this little industry, that’s a no-brainer that I’ve got 20 recruiters that are using that data that increase their connection rates.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:44]:

So correct me if I say this wrong.

Jeremy Jensen [00:41:47]:

No research. We don’t do research anymore. We pay for the most accurate data in our industry.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:53]:

And do you feel that your teams are making more calls? What is your connection rate? Maybe what was it to what it is now? Do you feel like they’re having to make those 200 calls to equal the 100 that it used to take?

Jeremy Jensen [00:42:03]:

Absolutely. Yeah. So on 1,000 calls a week, they get 60 conversations. 60 conversations. Right. Yeah, obviously you’re getting screened out, you’re getting sent to voicemail. 60 conversations, we’ve got a 1 out of 12 conversion rate, which is our submittal ratio. So 5 submittals a week on 1,000 calls.

Jeremy Jensen [00:42:23]:

There’s a lot of people in our industry that may not be excited about those metrics. Me, that’s 100% on target.

Kortney Harmon [00:42:30]:

Okay. Anyone else?

Katie Tripp [00:42:32]:

Similar submittal metrics, but generally do it with about 100 calls.

Jeremy Jensen [00:42:37]:

But it might be active candidates, Katie. I mean, I think it’s very different. We go in super cold.

Katie Tripp [00:42:42]:

Yeah.

Dolores Sauter [00:42:42]:

I mean, we’re still, we’re at about a 10% connection rate. So that’s, I mean, that’s still what we’re seeing. So we’re really probably averaging 250, 300 calls, but that’s also not taking into account all the video and Teams and all of that. That’s also a part of the scenario now that wasn’t as much in the past.

Katie Tripp [00:43:01]:

That’s true.

Kortney Harmon [00:43:02]:

I talked to an executive search firm and they’re like, oh, we’re going back to call blocks. We haven’t done call blocks in years. Like, we didn’t call them.

Dolores Sauter [00:43:08]:

We do call hours. I’m like, you call blocks. It’s called blocks.

Kortney Harmon [00:43:12]:

Yeah. I’m like, you got away from power hours or what? Like, that’s a thing?

Jeremy Jensen [00:43:18]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We might go back to sending emails to schedule things too.

Katie Tripp [00:43:24]:

Okay.

Kortney Harmon [00:43:25]:

So obviously we’re losing some admin time. We’re losing some other, no research time. What are your teams filling their time with now that they get some hours back? And what is that hours? Any idea on data of how much time they’re getting back from not doing those things anymore?

Dolores Sauter [00:43:38]:

I think that’s still a little hard for us to measure. We’re still in the process of finding quite the right solution when it comes to implementation of some of those things and connecting with the right people, you know, is taking a little bit more than it used to. So I’m not really sure yet what time’s being won back.

Jeremy Jensen [00:43:53]:

Yeah, so what we’re investing in is our subject matter expertise in our sub-verticals, right? So I’ll give you an example. If I know that Roberts Markell Law Firm’s average bill rate in their IP practice area is $375 per hour, an associate, we need to make sure that that data is in our ATS and that if we get a candidate that’s bill rate is $250, not $375, we need to be able to extrapolate which clients will accept a $250 bill rate on a portable book of business, right? And so really it’s the data accuracy and the data insights that help us identify who is the ideal firm for a specific candidate that we’re about to MPC. So it’s really more like data-driven insights is what we’re investing in. Yeah.

Katie Tripp [00:44:40]:

So for us, the time that we’re getting back, we’re investing in network building. That’s all of my team recruiters and business development are tasked with, with that. If you’ve got that extra time, you need to be engaging with your market. You need to be building, building your pipeline, building your network.

Kortney Harmon [00:44:56]:

All right. We’re going to go a little bit more into AI. We talked a little bit about that, but AI, Obviously is changing how we all operate. Well, that’s the whole premise of this. Where is AI actually, besides research, besides admin, where is it driving results on the client side of your businesses? And maybe where’s it creating noise?

Katie Tripp [00:45:17]:

Well, AI is clearly generating leads to some extent for us with inbound. If people are, are finding us through a ChatGPT search, that’s clearly Generating leads.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:28]:

We had people registered for this event that came strictly through ChatGPT. I thought that was pretty interesting. We noticed that this week.

Dolores Sauter [00:45:36]:

I think it’s a lot easier to find competitors and kind of narrow down exactly who your targets are and why, or even to be honest, attendees for a conference. You know what I mean? Like all of those things are so much faster and easier through AI.

Jeremy Jensen [00:45:52]:

Yeah, I think one of the things that people are using AI for is to extrapolate data, right? You know, who are the top 10 control systems integrators in Phoenix, Arizona, specifically for building automation systems? Okay, they’re just going to give you 10 names, right? Well, one of the things that people are really missing is take the data that you already have in order to feed the LLM, right? Like, Put it in there and say like, hey, where are all my reliability engineers, right? What companies do they work for in Plaquemines, Louisiana, 50-mile radius, right? AI will be able to give you really sophisticated results on that. So don’t just rely on its native database, feed it with the data that’s actually accurate inside of your business.

Katie Tripp [00:46:42]:

Great idea.

Kortney Harmon [00:46:43]:

Anything else? Has anyone started cloud code or using cloud cowork or any of those fancy fun things?

Jeremy Jensen [00:46:50]:

We use managed service companies in order to do it. It’s something that we explored. Can we bring it in-house and develop it, or can I just pay User Gems $85,000 a year to do it for us, right? So we use systems, but again, I heard Mr. Wonderful say this on a podcast. He said, 0 to $1 million, impossible. $1 million to $10 million, improbable. $10 million to $100 million, inevitable. So once you actually have the net income to deploy back into your business, you can get the most premium solutions in the market.

Jeremy Jensen [00:47:27]:

And so what we’ve done, Kortney, is we’ve built our firm on the best branding, the best tech, the best automation, the best data insights. Now I’m finally at the point where I can go get a $400K biller from Miller Resource Group, right? That is in the areas that we want to migrate into. And with our resources, they can bill $800K. That’s where we’re at in our evolution.

Kortney Harmon [00:47:53]:

Love it. Anyone else have anything to add on the AI? How they’re using it, what they’re doing, how their teams have been successful? Anything else? No? I’ll call you back here. 30 days from now, and I’m sure that’ll change.

Jeremy Jensen [00:48:05]:

Invest in the systems, guys. It’s expensive. Guess what? We charge big direct hire recruiting fees. Stop being cheap.

Katie Tripp [00:48:13]:

Yeah, not wrong.

Kortney Harmon [00:48:14]:

Where are we bridging the gap? So we’re obviously seeing the biggest disconnect between what clients want and what a candidate expects right now. And I don’t know if you agree or disagree with that, but I think this is where the conversation gets real. How are we bridging the gap? Between those 2.

Dolores Sauter [00:48:31]:

I mean, to Jeremy’s point, business intelligence, data insights, you know, we’ve employed a couple of different tools for compensation reporting. It’s like, hey, this is what we’re seeing, but you don’t have to take my word for it. You know, that’s helpful either in the beginning or later on. Yeah. To say like, hey, this is what we’re coming up against, but this seems about on par, you know, are you willing to do this or do we need to reevaluate what you’re actually looking at?

Jeremy Jensen [00:48:54]:

Yeah. Using data to back up your opinions as an account executive. Absolutely. 100%.

Katie Tripp [00:49:00]:

Or I’ve used the technique of bringing the 100% profile, getting that candidate on the phone, or multiple candidates that meet that profile, getting their comp and presenting them and saying, hey, they’re interested, but here’s where they’re at. Is that what we’re going with, or where are we adjusting?

Jeremy Jensen [00:49:16]:

Well, every hiring manager wants to backfill the person that left at the same comp. And it’s like, what they don’t realize is that $135K senior process engineer left to go be the technology manager, right? He got $175K. So if you wanted to keep him, you’d have to pay $175K, bro. So like, but having the trust and rapport with your client to where they actually believe the shit that you’re saying, right? That’s important.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:44]:

Just, question just came across my email with the research. Are you dedicating that to a certain role within your firms to do the research? Are you hiring for that? Or is it expected on your AEs to do it?

Jeremy Jensen [00:49:55]:

So we pay for databases that provide the research for us, right? So think about resources like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, things of that nature.

Kortney Harmon [00:50:04]:

Okay. So essentially both. Yeah, probably.

Jeremy Jensen [00:50:08]:

Industrial info resources, right?

Katie Tripp [00:50:12]:

Oh, sorry. Combination for us. Some of the research we have farmed out to less expensive International support. Other stuff is done in-house.

Dolores Sauter [00:50:23]:

We actually still have a search operations team. And so they do some of our research and the AEs do some of it as well.

Kortney Harmon [00:50:31]:

Okay. If I’m running a firm right now, what is one thing that you would tell me to go change immediately to change my performance of my teams?

Jeremy Jensen [00:50:38]:

Let me just share this real quick. I know we’re coming close on the hour. You don’t need to change everything overnight. What we did was we just raised the bar with the new hire, and then this person could either come up or they could get fired. If the people that came up, this was the new bar, and then the next batch of recruits, we just raised the bar again, and these people could either come up or they could get fired. So like, don’t put all your eggs in the baskets of the people that are already there. Constantly push yourself to become a better version of yourself, not even each and every quarter, but like each and every week. Right.

Jeremy Jensen [00:51:14]:

So like creating a performance culture instead of a family culture.

Dolores Sauter [00:51:19]:

Right. Clear expectations. You know, I feel like it’s a lot of times, especially when you’ve been doing it for a long time, people just assume you got to make placements, you got to, you know, whatever. But it’s like you got to set clear expectations for your people because it makes it so much easier to manage to that and hold accountable. And it’s a lot, a lot less emotional, right?

Jeremy Jensen [00:51:37]:

Absolutely.

Dolores Sauter [00:51:38]:

But make sure you stick to it because otherwise—

Jeremy Jensen [00:51:39]:

Hey, I understand that your dog passed away last week, man. Trust me, dude, I’ve been there, man. But zero submittals. All right, we got to make that up this week, dude. What are we going to do? How can I help you make it up?

Katie Tripp [00:51:52]:

Yeah. So agreed. Standards, set the standards, hold the standards. And for us, accountability with metrics, transparency. Your metrics are your metrics, but they’re visible to the whole team.

Kortney Harmon [00:52:03]:

How many of you have a TV in your guys’ office that shows?

Jeremy Jensen [00:52:06]:

3 TVs.

Kortney Harmon [00:52:07]:

3. Okay. All right. Jeremy likes to go big or go home. We’re learning.

Jeremy Jensen [00:52:11]:

Yeah, they’re really big TVs too.

Dolores Sauter [00:52:13]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Jensen [00:52:13]:

Yeah.

Dolores Sauter [00:52:14]:

Our team is hybrid and everything is visible to them within our database and everyone can see all the things. So we’re constantly using it and they can all see it, but we don’t have it on our TVs.

Kortney Harmon [00:52:24]:

That’s fair. I love it. I mean, I, I got into recruiting because I had database knowledge and then I realized I was a Division 1 athlete that I could make money off of this. I’m like, okay, I want to do this. So I think that’s where we really thrive and we get good at this is because The people that are in this industry are competitive and it needs to be front and center. Otherwise we lose our competitiveness and we get comfortable and we get participation awards. We’re not doing that in this industry.

Dolores Sauter [00:52:52]:

Also compensation structures. And I don’t mean to go down a rabbit hole because I think we’re getting to the end of it, right? But think about the people you’re hiring and the fact that the old comp model of 3 times their cost and a quota and the whole thing, right? These people want the dopamine hit. They want the reward for the work that they’ve done. And if they have to wait a year, 2 years, whatever it is to see any of that, you’re going to lose them. And so you have to adjust. I know we’re still figuring it out, but we are adjusting. So you got to do something a little bit different.

Jeremy Jensen [00:53:23]:

Wholeheartedly agree with that. Let me just share one little nugget that Dolores gave me. So remember I told you we’re a performance culture, right? So we run it like a sports team. We don’t run it like a traditional corporation. And just because you’ve been the quarterback for the last 7 years doesn’t mean you’re our quarterback. If some rookie comes in, throws the ball farther, and is a mobile quarterback and gives me a higher probability to score, they’re gonna get the golden job orders, you know what I’m saying?

Katie Tripp [00:53:54]:

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Jensen [00:53:54]:

So like, we are really a very much reward the people that are really executing at a high level. And we don’t pay on time and grade, I think, like a lot of other firms do.

Kortney Harmon [00:54:06]:

I think we probably could have a whole nother conversation on compensation and performance structure. Well, I’ll hold you guys to that. The last question I want to ask, and by the way, if anybody’s still alive out there and they have any more questions, we’re running to the end here. So feel free to throw your questions in, but I want to know what is one piece of advice in recruiting right now that you actually disagree with?

Dolores Sauter [00:54:27]:

Oh dear.

Jeremy Jensen [00:54:28]:

Cold calling is dead. I think there are a lot of people think that that’s true. Flagrantly untrue.

Kortney Harmon [00:54:35]:

Yeah, very good point.

Katie Tripp [00:54:37]:

Social media posting for visibility alone is stupid.

Jeremy Jensen [00:54:42]:

Wait, that you’re saying that’s a— you don’t believe that, or you do believe that?

Katie Tripp [00:54:46]:

I disagree with it wholeheartedly. There are people that are like, we’ve just got to be in front of them, we’ve just got to be in front of them, you’ve just got to post 7 times a 15, you know, every 15 minutes and do it. The algorithms will work.

Dolores Sauter [00:54:59]:

No, they won’t.

Katie Tripp [00:55:00]:

It’s noise.

Jeremy Jensen [00:55:01]:

I agree with you, Katie. Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:04]:

Fair.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:04]:

I can’t keep up with my social media, so I can understand like how you do your job and all those things.

Dolores Sauter [00:55:08]:

I don’t know. Biggest thing I can think of is the recruiters that stop calling people at their work because they’re afraid that the 0.05% are gonna get mad at them for some reason, cuz big brother’s watching. Uh, you gotta, you gotta not change your process for like the infinitesimal people that don’t understand. So don’t do that.

Katie Tripp [00:55:28]:

I love it. I love it. Okay.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:31]:

Anything else that you want to share that we have not shared that— oh, Jeremy, Jeremy’s eyebrows right now.

Jeremy Jensen [00:55:38]:

I mean, the main thing that I’ll say is like, the riches are in the niches, guys. Like, if you started a recruiting firm and you said, I only recruit CPAs that are moms that left the workforce and they’re coming back into the workforce after a hiatus. If that’s your niche, you will make a lot of money because all the companies that want to hire those ladies and all those candidates that are that demographic will want to work with you. So like, don’t try to be everything to everyone. The riches are in the niches.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:14]:

Like, ladies, anything else to add?

Dolores Sauter [00:56:16]:

No, no, I think that’s a perfect note to go out on.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:19]:

That’s a perfect note to go out on. Guys, thank you so much. This is such a good conversation and it’s honestly one that we could probably keep going for another hour. But hopefully our audience got some takeaways from this. Revenue is right now. It isn’t about necessarily doing more, but it’s doing it consistently. It’s doing the right things at the right time with the right pieces. So we’re learning that.

Kortney Harmon [00:56:42]:

And we’re learning that it’s really a little bit more effort than it’s been in the past to get the same results. So I hope that everybody got something from Jeremy, Katie, and Dolores. Thank you for being real. Thank you for sharing what’s actually working, giving some people something that they can go do immediately or refocus on. And actually, thank you for everyone who’s listening. And this will be also turned into a podcast. So this will go to our Full Desk Experience. We will give you all audio clips and video clips to share with your audiences as well.

Kortney Harmon [00:57:12]:

This is exactly what FDE+, Full Desk Experience+, is all about. Real conversations, real operators, real strategies, and where recruiting’s going next. So guys, thank you so much for joining us. I greatly appreciate every single one of you, and I will give you your time back. Have a wonderful day.

Kortney Harmon [00:57:30]:

We hope you found today’s session insightful and inspiring. Remember to stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we’ll be sharing all of this amazing content of our virtual conference. If you miss any part of it, don’t forget to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss anything upcoming. And if you like this valuable content, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your network and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Together, we’re building a community of growth thinkers. And learning. Until next time.