The Mike Ames Recruitment Show

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