The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

I love talking to successful people especially if they've achieved things I have not.

As they say, "If you're the most successful person in the room… … you're in the wrong room" because you'll be the teacher, not the pupil.

On thi #MARShow we are privileged to have Justin McGuire founder and CEO of MCG Talent.

It's worth just tuning in to hear Justin's journey from a marketing agency specialist to an agency owner with licences in the UAE, KSA, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

He shares his story with us but that's not why we're asking him onto the show

Justin has done two things I believe many people aspire to do: -

✅ Build a business in four foreign countries.

✅ Convert from a 360 to a Layered Recruitment model (with astounding effects)

We ask him how he achieved these feats, the pitfalls he made along the way, and the things he would do differently a second time.

So, much to learn and so much to take away and use immediately.

Some of you may have seen Justin on LinkedIn, he is an open, engaging, and very knowledgeable speaker and we're looking forward to interviewing him.

What question would you like to ask Justin?

Most recruitment companies fail to scale for the same reason. The owner has a recruiter mentality rather than a scalability mentality.

If you own a recruitment company (even if you are a solopreneur), and you have a recruiter mentality you're pushing water uphill.

Step one on your journey to scale is to adopt and nurture a scalability mentality.

This is the subject of this #MARShow: what is a Scalability Mentality, and how can you get one.

A scalability mentality has 7 parts to it, and we'll reveal all of them. I wonder how many of them you already have?

Anyhoozle, just to get you started here are the first three: -

❶ A deep belief that your business is there to serve you, and not the other way around.

❷ You are as strategic as you are tactical (you need to be both).

❸ You feel no guilt for working "on" the business and taking time off for yourself.

These are the easy ones but there are others you need to know about.

Adopt a scalability mentality and I believe it's harder NOT to scale than it is to scale.

The thing I am most proud of achieving with my clients is changing them from a recruiters who own a business, to a business owners who just happen to do recruitment.

There is a world of difference between the two, and I want you to be the latter.

Client care is one of those topics very much misunderstood by some recruiters. It is NOT the act of getting vacancies off clients. The actual definition is the opposite – client care is what you do with clients when they have no vacancies for you. Research around client care overwhelmingly points to many clients not being happy with the attention they get from their suppliers. This breeds a thing called "perceived indifference" (you do care but your clients think you don't because of your actions). In turn, perceived indifference often leads to clients giving vacancies to other agencies leaving you out of pocket. In this episode of the hashtag#MARShow we'll be explaining what real client care consists of, if you want to be your client's natural first choice agency. This is called Apex Client Care and it's how I made most of my money in recruitment. We'll explore the following: - 💥 The research around this fascinating topic. 💥 How to grade your clients. 💥 How you build strong business relationships. 💥 How to get more vacancies than your competition. 💥 How to make sure your team are properly looking after their clients. 💥 How to get more exclusive or retained work from existing clients. 💥 How to move up the chain and get bigger roles from them. A lot to cover but then again, it's a very important part of your business. I'll leave you with this. My first business went from zero to £5m turnover in 5 years. In the next 5 years we went from £5m to £40m. That growth was down to Strategic BD combined with Apex Client Care. Can you afford to miss this one?

-- THE SUMMIT --

To find out more about the Summit click here - https://www.recruitmentpioneers.com/summits --

GET IN TOUCH --

▹Flair Homepage:- http://www.recruitmentpioneers.com

▹LinkedIn:-

• Mike: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mspames
• Kirsty: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstyames/

Get your commission scheme wrong and you'll either make less money or attract less top talent.

Get it right and it can boost your profits.

But what options do you have, and what are the popular schemes out there these days?

Our guest on the MARShow is Carl Jones, founder and CEO of Konquest and an expert on commission schemes.

Obviously, commission payments are one of the most important motivators for recruiters so you have to get it right.

And that's where Carl comes in.

He's forgotten more about commission schemes than I ever knew!

We'll be exploring such things as: -

✅ What the most popular schemes are these days

✅ Thresholds and accelerators

✅ Paying on GP or Contribution

✅ The most and least popular schemes at the moment for 360s and layered models

✅ What percentage of the GP should you be paying.

If you employ recruiters (or plan to anytime soon) this show is for you.

It's widely accepted that when it comes to recruitment the less you focus on, the more money you make. In other words, you have to niche up. But how do you do this? Well, that's the theme of our next show. We'll be looking at: - 💥 The Pros and cons of operating a niche. 💥 How you select your niche. 💥 How you build your niche. 💥 The best way to promote and sell your niche. I think building a niche is easier said then done, but it is doable and I'll be showing you how. One of my team, when I owned a rec firm, had a niche that not only bought in about half the company's profits but also had new clients ringing her! Operating a niche in recruitment is well worth doing because: - ✅ you'll make more profit. ✅ you'll win more new clients with less effort. ✅ candidates will seek you out, not just the other way round. ✅ it can also help you to by-pass the dreaded preferred supplier lists. So, join Kirsty and me in the next #MARShow and find out how to niche up.

If you use an automailer from your CRM system or a product like Mailchimp, many of your emails won't hit the recipients inbox.

Worse still, your current email policies may unwittingly be making the situation worse.

This is because the ESPs (email service providers) and ISPs (internet service providers) are desperately trying to reduce the amount of spam their clients receive.

Their spam-checkers are becoming increasingly sensitive, and yet you can easily avoid many of their traps.

This week's guest on the #MARShow is Nick Butcher whose job is to get more of his recruiter clients emails into the intended recipients inbox.

He'll be explaining three massively important things: -

❶ How the ISPs and ESPs decide if an email is (rightly or wrongly) spam.

❷ The common mistakes many recruiters are making in their mass-email policies.

❸ What simple steps you can take to vastly increase the chances of your email hitting the recipients inbox.

Email is far a more cost-effective sales tool than any other channel, and yet you could probably make it soooo much more effective.

More emails hitting a client or candidates inbox means more revenue. Simple as that.

One of the big debates in recruitment right now is 360 or Layered.

They both have their pros and cons, question is, which is best for you?

Well in this episode of the hashtag#MARShow we will aim to shine the torch in all the dark corners of both models.

In the red corner will be Max Learmonth a keen supporter of the 360 approach.

In the blue corner is my good self, very much a devotee of the Layered model.

We'll be looking at the best and worst parts of both models and also how to convert from 360 to Layered.

Furthermore, we'll also explore whether it's possible to run both models side by side.

This is going to be for you if a) you're not sure which is the best model for you or b) you are dissatisfied with the model you currently use.

This is all about building a safe, profitable business that doesn't need you in it all the time and will make you wealthy one day.

There's a lot at stake!

By the end of the show, I believe you'll have a very clear idea of the implications of both models and which is best for you.

PS There is some "frank and honest" exchanges between me and Max.

Would you like to hear how the owner of a recruitment company trebled his profits but reduced his headcount by 20%?

He'd been running his firm for 20 years but then made the decision to convert to a Factory model.

And that's when things began to change.

He opted for a blended fulfilment function that was part 360 and part layered, and it operates like clockwork.

We are honoured to have Matt Ellis of ENG as our guest on this #MARShow.

He's going to share: -

✅ Why he decided to make the change to a Factory model.

✅ How he blended 360s with a layered team.

✅ What changes he made

✅ How he convinced his team this was the right way forward.

✅ A high level view of the salary/commission arrangements

✅ What he thinks caused this enormous boost in profits.

Oh, and one more thing. Last year Matt's firm only lost one person from his 40 strong team.

So, listen in if you want to boost profits, stabilize your team and be in complete control of a business that needs you less.

We know that teams that stay together longer become more productive and so more profitable. But how do you do this? Simple, by becoming a sticky employer. This makes it easy for you to attract, retain and motivate the right people. In this edition of the hashtag#MARShow we will be exploring exactly how you do this. The key factors we'll discuss are: - 1️⃣ the type of people you employ 2️⃣ your selection process 3️⃣ your EVP (includes rewards, culture etc) But there's one more thing you can do that costs nothing and yet will give you all you need to become stickier. Create an offboarding experience. By asking the right questions in the right way, you can understand the changes you need to become stickier. This isn't the old exit interview where you tick a few boxes and wish them well. This is encouraging your soon-to-be-erstwhile employee to actively criticise anything they feel needs to change. And what's more, you'll thank them for doing so. To dig deep into this powerful tool, we'll be joined by Jake Holt, a keen advocate of offboarding. Added bonus: offering this service to your clients is a real differentiator!

What makes a great recruiter and how can you discover whether the person you're interviewing is one or not?

That's the theme of today'sMike Ames Recruitment Show.

Over the years I've employed well over 100 recruiters and estimate I've interviewed over 1000.

I've learned some very hard lessons along the way (some cost me a lot of money).

But I believe it comes down to a handful of characteristics and some key interview questions to bring them out.

So we start by exploring the characteristics I believe all great recruiters have.

Then we give you some questions that you can ask in interviews that may help discover whether they will be able to cut it or not.

We all know how expensive it is in time, money and distraction if you hire the wrong people – this show should help keep these to a minimum.