How to Win Clients With Personalised Video (The 30-Second Method) | The Resilient Recruiter

Speaker 1 Here's one of the biggest reasons to join us at the Recruitment Coach Live Summit in Dallas this September. Connection. This is your opportunity to connect with like minded business owners from across the US and around the world. There'll be people flying in from the UK, from Canada, from all over the states, $1,000,000 billers, multimillion dollar business owners, people at every stage of building their recruitment business. What they all have in common is their commitment to growing and getting better. And what's a the usual is they're genuinely willing to share what's working. A lot of recruiters are quite secretive about what they're doing. I know when I was coming up as a recruiter, we were taught like the competition as the enemy, right? But this group has an abundance mindset. One of our clients and attendees, Elaine Petticord from Banyan Search, put it perfectly. For me personally, it's really related to the people and just being able to share that knowledge. This is such a great form to share knowledge versus being competitive of which recruiters can be. It's very, you know, it's got a very generous spirit of sharing knowledge and making everybody better than they would be by themselves. That's exactly what you'll find in Dallas on September 9th and 10th. To learn more and to register, visit recruitmentcoach.com/summit. Speaker 2 A lot of the time I would send just videos of of me. Sometimes I would hold a whiteboard up Mark Whitby their name so that they knew it was personalized. But probably my best hit rate was when I used. Speaker 1 Sam Johnstone has built a video first recruitment agency. What does that mean? Sam has designed his entire business around video, using it to prospect for new clients, market roles, screen candidates and deliver short lists. Video is his single biggest differentiator for winning clients and making placements. Speaker 2 I utilized a lot of video in my process. We would take a video production team, we would go to their site, we would record that video job advert, promoting what's great about their team and their culture, but also selfishly getting time to spend with their team as well. We then take that content. We push out on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, but we also go one step further. Speaker 1 Over the last four years, he's built a thriving business with a portfolio of key accounts, giving him ongoing repeat business. But what's crazy is that when Sam started his business, he had 0 recruitment agency experience and yet his business model got traction from day one. Speaker 2 I would send video messages directly to their sales manager but also their CEO and also their MD. So they might have three unique videos coming from me that day or that week, but I wasn't sending the same video to to the different people. I was genuinely recording them each and individually and trying to make it really tailored for that specific business and that specific person. Speaker 1 Welcome to the Resilient Recruiter podcast. I'm your host, Mark Whitby, and my guest today is Sam Johnston, founder of Real recruit That's REEL. There is specialist sales recruiting firm based in Glasgow. In this episode, Sam breaks down how he uses video at every stage of the process, from his very first outreach to the final shortlist in a way that that makes clients choose him over every other agency they're talking to. He also reveals how he runs hiring days for his clients to compress the entire interview process into a few hours on a single day. And he shares his simple and yet extremely effective BD process. If you've ever struggled to get a response to your cold outreach, this episode will give you a new approach that you can implement straight away. Hey Sam, great to see you again. How are you doing? Speaker 2 Hey, Mark, it's great to see you too. I'm doing very well. Thank you. Speaker 1 Fantastic and Sam so the last time we met was in Glasgow for the team regional events. So shout out to to team they they always put on a good a good event. So that's when we last caught up in person. And so I'm excited to be able to actually sit down one-on-one and learn about your journey. Speaker 2 Me too, Mark. Yeah. Listen, love to join in the team session. I think we're both invited along by, I think Andy Dunn, who is he's a great guy and he previously ran his own recruitment agency, so he's got a really good understanding of the network. So I've been going too long to a few of these events and I really enjoyed them. So it was good to meet you at the last one, Mark. Speaker 1 Yeah, Shadow to Andy Dunn. Andy's been on the podcast actually last year and that was a fun episode as well. So, so Sam, you come from a different background to most of my most of my guests. So can you tell the story of how you gone into recruiting? Speaker 2 That's correct Mark. So I am currently running a recruitment business having never worked for a recruitment agency. I started my career off in a sales role. I joined a company called Soft Cat, which is one of the largest kind of IT and resellers within the United Kingdom. Really good role, really good training and that started off down in London and then up in Glasgow for the office was was enjoying the tech sales side of things. But one day I was sitting in the office and I was scrolling down my LinkedIn feed Mark and someone who I actually went to high school with Doogie Lone, you might see him. He's now the CRO Source wheel. Yeah, he was posting on LinkedIn and I was like, wow, that's, that's Doogie from school. And he's in Japan talking about the, the job that he's doing. So I was so excited by that. And, and really I wanted at that point in my early 20s, wanted to travel a little bit more. So spontaneously I reached out to to Doogie. He invited me into the the audio office, which was the company he was working for at that time. For anyone that doesn't know, Audra was a recruitment technology company. So Ryan, who's the CEO at the time, and Doogie interviewed me at that point. I turned up in a fill suit for that kind of casual office. So I think they're still slagging me off a bit. We're having a briefcase and stuff like that. They they genuinely mark, they took a chance on me. I wasn't working in recruitment. I didn't really understand the industry. I understood the technology. So the role I would be going in to do at the company was sales. I would have been sailing to recruitment agency founders, but I hadn't had any experience ever in this industry. So I really had to learn all from scratch. So I worked all drove for roughly about 3 1/2 years and and in that time learned everything, really, really enjoyed it. I was promoted a few times into the role of growth lead, which really was a fancy title mark for looking after like kind of some of the sales, a certain type of size of business. But I would run literally thousands of demonstrations and at the beginning of every demo of this tech product, I would ask, what does your process look like to the recruitment agency owners? So after doing this 500 a 1000 times, I got a really good understanding of what a kind of solid recruitment process would look like. And I wanted to do it myself. So I worked to Audre was doing really well. I was one of the top performers I had targeting like 13 months in a row, joined the half million pound Beller club. And for anyone that knows, we all got Kevin like a wallet. We still have to this day. So it's really nice enjoyable time Audrey and but I handed them I noticed to say, listen, I want to go do this myself and they couldn't have been more supportive. So I worked them for roughly 6 months after that helping me build a real recruit and real recruit really stems from everything I learned at Audro. Mark, do you want me to go in and talk a little bit? But real recruit just don't explain that. The kind of USPS on that. Speaker 1 Yeah, let's do it. But first, a couple of things. So when did you launch Real Recruit? Speaker 2 Just over 4 years ago. Speaker 1 OK, fantastic. So let's give Audra a a shout out, great Scottish technology success story and really, really great platform for enabling video, right, integrated into various parts of the recruiting process and your top performing salesperson there. You obviously got your clients were recruitment agencies, right? So you got very familiar with what that looks like. But what inspired you to want us to to think, Oh, that's what I want to do because if anything, I mean, this is a crazy business and is not easy. If you're selling software and the client agrees that they want your software, you've got a deal, right? Whereas in recruitment it's not as straightforward as that. So what possessed you to leave a good B2B sales job and want to get into this crazy game? Speaker 2 I think I was naive to start off with Mark. I'm honest. I think when I was speaking to these recruitment directors, a lot of the time they made it sound really easy and the process seemed really super simple. So at that time I was like, this can't fail, this is going to work 100%. And don't get me wrong, it's done really well. But I think from my own perspective, I looked at where I was at and I, I had roughly around 20,000 followers at that point on LinkedIn. So I was doing OK. My engagement on LinkedIn would do pretty well in terms of we would post video content, we'd post written content, some pictures that was going really good. So I knew that if I was to possession myself in a way and provide value to the viewers, that people may engage with me and I might be able to book demonstrations. So I wasn't really too worried about the prospecting side of it. And then because I had been selling Audra as a solution, I knew the Audra would one, help people get candidates because they had a kind of video tool that would allow you to reach the candidates to allow me to automate quite a lot of the process, Mark. So we would do a screening call with a candidate, but then the candidate would complete a one way video interview, which massively reduced my time that I needed to spend on interviews. And then the biggest value add would have been once those video interviews happen, I can share that video shortlist as one link to the hiring manager and they can just pack who they would like to invite for that final stage. So from my perspective, I had the platform to market myself well enough and the process to kind of get it running in the back end as well. Speaker 1 All right, that's awesome. That all makes sense. So Sam, talk to me about the day you opened for business and and what, what was that first year like? Speaker 2 Wow. So I'll be honest, I didn't really start with like with loads of like cash in the bank and stuff like that was probably pretty skint like I I start to probably. Speaker 1 By the way, that's a British term for broke, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, I would say I roughly had a bit. I got £13,000 in the bank when I. Speaker 1 Started. That's a good. Speaker 2 Which is OK. I, I actually realized, I think it was a time in my life where I probably couldn't have stayed and Glasgow to start the business just because I had tons of distractions and I felt that I would go out too much or I would maybe just focus on other things. So when I was starting the business, I made the conscious decision to to change my environment and I actually I rented a little place and a seaside town in Scotland called Port Patrick, which is the middle of nowhere for anyone that knows this. And it was a small house with a little cabin at the back. And it allowed me to basically isolate myself from everything else and just totally focus on the business for six months. And that is exactly what I did. Now to that. Speaker 1 I went like total monk mode. Speaker 2 I did, honestly, and I would wake up every morning and I would go and run in the morning around the forest and the sea. So I must have been like a crazy person at that point, Mark. I'd be so rigid with my process as well at that point. So because I'd utilize the audio video technology, part of my process was posting content but also sending out tons of video messages that personalized video messages. So that takes time. Genuinely, you could spend 8 hours a day doing that. And the lovely thing about it was as I got instant notifications when anyone would open it. So I really had to be on the ball in terms of I need to be by a phone when this notification comes in. So I'm best positioned to contact that person and in a good format. So because I was down there, I was focused on the business full time and that really, really helped me get off the ground. It was amazing. Over the first few months. It was really daunting. I wasn't really sure how it was all going to work out. My first client was was Audreal, so I was quite lucky that I'd left on really good terms. They were looking to replace me and they brought me and they gave me that job to go and fulfill. That's good. That's good. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. And then we did a lot of business development and then acquired a couple of really big clients across the United Kingdom and and it started to look up from there. Speaker 1 So what sort of people do you specialize in placing a deal? Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's just sales consultants, Mark that we do predominantly across probably the cost to take space. Initially it started kind of within software space. But you know, as time goes on, we'll get maybe some prospects and stuff to ask for something a little bit different and but just sales consultants within the technical arena. Speaker 1 OK, perfect. That makes sense. So this first six months you're working from a Hut in the middle of nowhere scholars seaside town, you've got your routine, you go for a run and then like what is a typical day? You said you had a rigid process and and could you give more detail around that and then what kind like what sort of results that started to generate? Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure. So I didn't actually have much of A life at that point. The Gabbit that I was going to say earlier, I didn't have any children. I didn't really have any commitments to that stage. It was super simple for me to do that. You know, it would be a bit more difficult, I'll be honest. But my dear. Speaker 1 Congrats on the you've got a daughter now, right? Speaker 2 I do, Mark. Seven months old. Yeah, well remembered I I've been with my partner Joy for over 10 years. We've been together for a real long time and we got engaged a couple of years back. Joy was being super supportive about everything, so she was OK with me going away and she would come down at the weekends to support me and make some dinner and stuff like that together. It was something to look forward to, but yeah. Speaker 1 You've been isolated yourself from your girlfriend as well. This is like you were really locked in. Speaker 2 I was honestly like it was crazy so but the day would the day would usually start. I would just start at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning. Wasn't like 5:00 AM starts a note ago. But I would always start with a run in the morning. The previous manager had the late Ryan McCabe, who was an amazing manager who had he always used to describe it as like brain food in the morning. So get out or run gets way and then you're honestly just feel much more energetic for the day ahead. I would then do to then spend time actually just kind of ironing out who I was going to be sending these videos to do to that day. I had quite a strict ideal kind and client profile in terms of businesses I want to go after. At that time, it was tech businesses, predominantly recruitment technology businesses because that's what I knew. So I've worked with likes of job Adder and Source Well and Audra and Gag DI and a few others within the space as well. So I would send video messages directly to their sales manager, but also their CEO and also their MD. So they might have three unique videos coming from me that day or that week. And but I wasn't sending the same video to to the different people. I was genuinely recording them each and individually and trying to make it really tailored for that specific business and that specific person. Speaker 1 Hold on, let me just ask you a quick question about that. So I like this. What was the first of all, what was the thought process behind? You're going to send a video to kind of all of the key decision makers on the same day. What were you hoping that would achieve? Speaker 2 So I I genuinely wanted them to be talking about me in the office, right, to say this guy has sent me this video, but then at the end of it to actually go, and you know what? That video is pretty good. I'll happily take that call. My, my intention wasn't to get a deal straight away from that video. As I said, I would get an instant notification when the video got watched. So I know who was watching it when they were watching it. And I would pick up the phone and phone that customer there. And then to say lesson, I'm sorry if this comes a little bit creepy, but you're, you're watching my video right now. What do you think? And people then knew I was proactive. And what do they want from a sales recruiter? Speaker 1 Right. Do you want someone who's going to go out there and get the talent for them? Speaker 2 Of course. Speaker 1 Yeah. OK. So we highly recommend video prospecting, but I think it sounds like you've got it down to a science. What are you saying in those videos? And then like timing wise, when does the phone call come in? Speaker 2 So couple of different ways in in which I would do it. A lot of the time I would send just videos of of me and sometimes I would hold a whiteboard up mark with their name so that they knew it was personalized. But probably my best hit rate was when I used used a video technology that allowed me to have a small box of me. So audio capture, veg yard loom, something like that and, and hover above their profile. And what I would do is just really talk about them and why I'm reaching out to them. And then and in the second part of that about how I can potentially help them in a call to action. I would always keep videos roughly under 30 seconds. Speaker 1 That's fast. I I think I talk too much in videos. I like I would struggle to get it in under a minute so but I guess you had. Speaker 2 A Yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, no, that's so 30 seconds about that. How do you fit in talking about them and then talking about how you can help in 30 seconds? That must have been a tight script. Speaker 2 Yeah, So for example, let's use let's use source wheel as one. You could go onto, we talked with Dougie earlier, so you could go onto Dougie's page and you could say, hey, Dougie, I seen that you were Dougie. It's been great to connect. I see that you were playing tennis last week and you also posted this on LinkedIn. That's absolutely amazing. By the way, I'm I just want to have a quick chat with you around this, this and this the call to action. I get an instant notification when you when you click on this video, by the way, so don't be too creeped out when you receive a phone call from me. Have a good day, speak to you soon. Speaker 1 So you give them a heads up that you're going to be calling as well. That's cool, yeah. Speaker 2 Just try and give those much info because I don't want anyone to feel like they're being like hard sold to or misled, but at the same time I want them to know that that I am. I'm going to be proactive with what I do and I'll do it in a unique way. Speaker 1 Love it. And then so they you see that they've watched your video and you're calling them straight away, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, that would be my intention. As I said, it was a lot easier when I was locked in a cabin and and and the seaside town. But yeah, we had a rule. It was like get called within 5 minutes. Speaker 1 Do you know what drives me crazy? Paying five different vendors for five different tools that don't talk to each other. Your ATS over here, your sequencing tool over there, your note taker somewhere else. And now you've got data silos everywhere and your team has to learn 5 different systems. That's why I'm excited about Recruiterflow on AI. First, ATS and CRM. That's a true all in one platform. You get ATS, CRM, e-mail sequencing, AI, note taking, business intelligence, and data enrichment all integrated in one place. One vendor, one login, one system your team actually uses, and no surprise add-ons jacking up your price every quarter. I'm very selective about who I partner with on this show and I only work with products I genuinely believe in. Recruiter Flow checks all the boxes. To see how it works, book a demo at recruitmentcoach.com/recruiter Flow and then any other sort of steps in your business development process. Or is it pretty straightforward video call? Speaker 2 So content would be a big one for me as well. Mark. I actually probably took a different route to a lot of businesses. I started posting a lot of written content at the start and built up a really good following. And then when I could afford to, I actually hired a professional videographer and that professional videographer would meet me in a studio to record content. They would then also come out to our client sites and record interviews with the clients or our hiding days and almost just trying to position ourselves as one recruitment business that can help you, but we can also market your role much better than others through this video technology as well. Speaker 1 That's smart. Absolutely. Well, we're going to definitely talk about hiring days. We're going to talk about using video for as part of your offering to clients in terms of the service you deliver. But so you're locked in. You had this very unique business development process. How did it work? I mean, how well did it work? Speaker 2 Yeah, I just start. I absolutely amazingly Mark and I think maybe like many of your, your lessoners that you and recruitment, you could keep winning clients, but then actually you need the time to facilitate those services as well, right. So that, that's probably where I probably had a bit of a learning curve. So I did really well with the business development because I came from a sales background. So I was packing up clients relatively easily. Never had the process to facilitate it but I once I won and so I got on Worldpay as a client. Speaker 1 That's like a massive payments company. Speaker 2 And that came exactly from the video process, Mark I sent, but it was a little bit more than that. So I actually sent a video message to one of their directors. He told me that he wasn't the guy to speak to, but if I was a Rangers fan, right, to message this guy because he was also from Scotland and he was a big Rangers fan. And Mark, I have season tickets at Ibrox, which is Rangers Football stadium, so it was a good end for me. I sent him the video message talking about how it's reached out to his colleague, and I think that then they were just a lot more open to having a conversation with me because I was a real person rather than just a robot hammering them. Speaker 1 But what's funny is if you hadn't gone to the trouble of sending that video, if you just sent a regular e-mail, then the other guy probably wouldn't have even bothered responding. And you wouldn't have gotten that inside info about the, you know, the, the real decision maker being a Rangers fan. So that the efforts and the, you know, the, the enthusiasm, the personality that you put it into that resulted in them being receptive and giving you something in return. So that's pretty. That's pretty cool. Speaker 2 100% And that was, that was my first big retainer that we'd won off of the back of that one. And then to be honest, I still play, still play golf regularly with that head of business development who who signed me up. Speaker 1 Oh, that's fantastic. I love it. So Sam, you mentioned then that the learning curve was actually recruiting and placing candidates. So what what's happened? Like you've now been at this for, for a few years, What's what's been that trajectory? I'm sure you've had some successes and some some frustrations or or disappointments as well. But how's that played out over the last few years? Speaker 2 Yeah. Do you know what, it's gone really well, Mark. And we're in a position right now where we're, we're doing great. I would say that the first thing that, that came up was the, that, that you could, you could only really work with a certain amount of clients a certain amount of time. So that was the first one that that really resonated to me that you need to pick your clients wisely. And financially we were doing really well with some of these businesses. But then we would bring on a new business who seemed like they were amazing and actually they would maybe take up a lot of our time, but who really weren't getting the financial benefit from it and to be. Speaker 1 On like, one of the number one pitfalls of running a recruitment business is your time is finite. And if you don't invest it with the right clients and the right candidates, then you end up like working really hard and not having much to show for it. Speaker 2 But it's probably one of the hardest things to get right. Like I have met people who seem like the most enthusiastic bought in business owners or directors ever. And but then actually when you get midway through a process, they are not responding quickly enough. Candidates are getting disengaged and it's just really difficult to call it from the outset. So one thing we did to try and overcome that in the early stages was we only worked with clients who paid a deposit. So maybe your standard retained model, we would take 2000 lbs. And for that 2000 lbs, that would get them a free video job advert that they could take and post on their own LinkedIn as well if they wanted. So they didn't lose anything from it, but it allowed me to get that commitment, allowed me to post out their company name on LinkedIn and get that process moving. So that was probably the first learning curve. We're still a relatively small team in the early stages. My my brother Ross, who also worked in tech sales came on board and we got one other from there. We've kind of stayed at a similar type of level, Mark. And so we've not scaled up massively. And I think that is just because we have been inconsistent with the clients we've worked with sometimes. So we've done really well in some campaigns and then we've jumped onto another campaign thinking it would go the same and we do put in the same amount of work and actually we didn't get the the fruits of our labor. Speaker 1 Yep, this all sounds familiar, Sam. And people are nodding as they're listening along here. So just talking about the deposit a little bit, because I think this is a cool idea. I think the amount of the deposit is less important than just getting something upfront, right? Because it's a sign of commitment. It shows they're serious and it means they're much less likely to take Candace from another agency because they've already invested with you, right? So it kind of just qualifies them a little bit that this is a solid opportunity. But what you're offering in exchange for that deposit is you're actually doing a video job, AD could you explain what that really means? Speaker 2 Yeah, So the the probably evolved over time and got better and better. But right right now like the last one that we had done, we actually sent a video of for out to the clients of the clients site. And that's such a really nice story actually. So the client, the client was someone who's working with for a while. We we went out to their site and on that day allowed me to sit down with their sales manager for one hour while recording the session. That allowed me to sit down with eight of their consultants who were doing the job that I was recruiting for for an hour as well because we're recording the content allowed me to get around the office, allowed me to meet some of the people we'd previously placed. So from a client relationship standpoint, it was unbelievable, Mark. And for the client's perspective as well, like they get posted, yes, on my LinkedIn out to 2530 thousand followers, but also they can take that video and and reuse it as much as they want and, and I'm not going to hold the back. Like they can post that and get their own candidates if they do so as well. Speaker 1 OK, I can see this is a double edged sword, Sam. So I see the, I see the benefit to them because really what you're at no extra cost. They're almost getting video marketing thrown in, right, which is going to help their brand, their employer brand and help them attract, you know, great people to their, to their business. And the other thing it does is it really it, it's, it, it connects you with that client much more closely than a standard recruitment agency client relationship because you're in their office, you're creating these great media assets for them. I can see that being really good for the relationship. The bit that I think a lot of people are going to question is, so you're letting them post this video and then, but what if candidates apply direct to them instead of through you? Then you're missing out on the fee potentially, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, definitely. But these businesses a lot of the time Mark will already be posting their own job adverts. They might have already worked with other agencies and my jobs and that process is to come in and add value. So for me, if if we take a £2000 deposit, I'll still make something on that video job advert. It's not great, but we'll make something on it. And then it also allows me to build my credibility on LinkedIn for working with these type. So like I then can approach maybe their competitors or businesses within that area and say we've done a really good job with them, go check out this video and take it from there. But don't get me wrong, Mark, I've probably lost out on fees because of the video that I have done that's attracted a candidate through another channel. Speaker 1 Sure, but I guess so you're weighing up the benefit and the risk and you've decided the benefit far outweighs the the risk of any loss placements. Speaker 2 We've never lost any clients and Mark, like I'm very much a relationship builder. So for me, if I can possession myself in the absolute best light, yes, we might lose out on one fee this time. But I guarantee if if that worked for them that time and maybe they're hiring our two people in the future, they would come back to me before they went to another recruit. Speaker 1 Yeah, no, absolutely. For sure, sure. So actually we've already started going into this, but maybe it would be a good point to describe like because you have a really great value proposition, can you describe a little more about how you deliver the service and how you differentiate from other of the many thousands of recruiters out there? Speaker 2 Yeah, 100%. So because I worked at Audio Video Technology, I utilized a lot of video in my process. So we would, as I'm kind of talking about there in terms of the, the video job ads side of things, we would take a video production team, we would go out to their site, we would record that video job ad fair, promoting what's going to be about their team and their culture, but also selfishly getting time to spend with their team as well. We then take that content, we push out on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, but we also go one step further because we've already created this really nice resource to track people. We'll identify the ideal candidate profile, so people that we think are perfect for the role. And we'll actually send them that directly through LinkedIn to their inbox. Again, we've got notification set up when the person is open and they're clicking it. So we know kind of who who's relatively interested from there and we'll then have a phone call with every single candidate to just kind of screen them and make sure that they are suitable for the goal. If they are, we'll get them to conduct a one way video interview using Audio's solo interviewing technology. Once they've then completed that, we internally will analyse that all of the videos will pick which candidates we think are most relevant for this hiring manager. And then we send them one link. And, and that link, they get access to each of the candidate videos, their salary expectations, their notice periods, their, their CD, everything in one area so that they can collaborate much easier with the decision makers and the business as well. And, and for us, it's actually quite a nice process allows us to automate quite a lot of it as well. Most recently we've gone one step further with with the opportunity for, yes, the video shortlist. But if there's maybe 10 people that they like from that video shortlist, they maybe would like us to host a hiring the type session where we bring the best talent into the office. We tell them, we tell them a little bit more about the role. We get them to meet the CEO and to talk to them about the culture. And then we host that kind of assessment Type D where the business will then hire two or three people potentially at the end of it. Speaker 1 I love this idea, Sam. It's so weird because this is a new spin on a very old strategy that I have completely forgotten about until I read this in your, in your notes while I was preparing for this podcast. So back in like, I don't know, the late 90s, I was doing what you're describing, hiring days. There was no video element though. So I think that's what you've got. That's kind of modern in the approach, but the the concept. Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, I think the the video aspect of it almost helped us to shortlist the the candidates for the official day because I think ACV is very difficult to to understand who's perfect. So when we get the videos as a recruitment business, we're able to pack the best people because we've been to the office, we know the team will see in the culture. So we've never really been in let down by the candidate quality on the day. Speaker 1 That's brilliant. Yeah, Yeah, I know that that makes sense. I think it will. In my day, I would have already face to face interviewed all of the candidates and then basically lined up interviews for the client so they can just come onto. Now in our case, we did it in our office, so we got the client to come to our office and they had a day of interviews. But you're right there to do brief and debrief every single candidate on the spot and then at the end of the day, talk to the client about who they like best, who they want to bring back to the next stage and so on. It gives you so much like A, it's the relationship with a client, right? Because you're spending the whole day with them and B, it's also their control over the process because as you mentioned earlier, clients can ghost. They take too long to give feedback. And this just compresses the timeline because you get a instant feedback instead of having to chase them. But the way you're doing it is really cool with the. So have they already done the the one way video interview in order to get to that hiring day? Speaker 2 Yeah. Most, most of the time we would ask the candidate conduct one of the videos just so we can basically understand they have the right skills that we're looking for because as I said, on paper doesn't always show us that, especially in sales. So yeah, we would ask them to do a video interview, then we would select the best ones from the back of it. Speaker 1 Got it. And then the is the client then doing a presentation for all the candidates and you're running an assessment day on the back of it or how does that work? Speaker 2 Yeah. So we'll either rent a space where we can host the day or we'll go into their office, We'll get cakes, we'll get juices, we'll get name tags, and I'll bring the videographer with me and we'll go into the office and we'll meet with the team to start off the day. The CEO or the MD or the sales director will give a kind of overall presentation on the company and what they're looking for. And then after that, candidates will get the opportunity to just introduce themselves and tell the MD and the CEO why they think they would be relevant for the role based on what they've just. Speaker 1 Heard in front of everyone else. Speaker 2 Of everyone, yeah. Speaker 1 OK, interesting. Speaker 2 And then we would break into the one-on-one interviews after that. So it's not like a big assessment day. They do still get like a a feel for how people would interact in like a competitive environment. But also from the candidate side, we're not wanting to put them under too much, too much unnecessary pressure. Speaker 1 I understand it can it can be quite a high pressure. What, So I can see this working for entry level roles, but how do experience sales people feel about this kind of a day where because they might already know some of the people in the room and so then there's a confidentiality thing. If they are, they don't want other people to know that they're actually interviewing for a job. Speaker 2 For sure. OK. I would say you're probably right with the first part and we've had probably most of the success on your kind of junior level SDR type recruitment campaigns. That said, one of my favorite days that I hosted was for account executives, which is people who are going to be damning the products. Yeah, a little bit higher up, you're probably salary start around about 50,000 lbs, which in Glasgow is pretty good salary. And these people are predominantly coming from software businesses. They've done this, they've done this kind of process before. I think for that one, I was really nervous about it, Mark. I thought I was going to be bringing in people who may have had more experience than me. They may, they may have made me feel uncomfortable and, and to be honest, in the morning before that, I felt uncomfortable. I was nervous about that. But the one thing I would say on that day is the, these people came, they were really professional and they, they ultimately wanted the job. And I think having the opportunity to hear about the business here, about where they're going and, and, and exciting things are happening from the CEO and it almost gave them a little bit more reassurance than it would if it was a recruiter on the other side of the phone just trying to fail them. The dream on an opportunity. And then the CEO gets the opportunity to actually meet them and interact with them in person and without feeling awkward and without feeling. It's like an interview environment from the start as well. Yeah. Speaker 1 It's really interesting. That's cool. So do you do this all over the UK or just in Scotland? Speaker 2 We've most of them being Scotland, we've only done one out with Scotland, but that's and I probably shouldn't meant this, but I and the business Mark have really not done much kind of like and since starting like much like cold calling or trying to acquire like once we got that solid base of accounts that we were working with, I have really benefited from referrals and in bones. So the back of these hiring days is a lot of the time in person relationships that I've kind of horn over the years. Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah, I got it, Sam. I have to. I hope you don't mind a bit of coaching on this call, but I've learned from very bitter experience that you always, you know, you must keep selling and keep business developing. You know, never, ever, ever stop the proactive business development because you never know what's going to happen in the future, right? It's. Speaker 2 Trust me, Mark, I've felt the pain since then. It's, it's one of those ones where like as you were saying at the start, you are too busy at points to take on any more jobs. So you then don't do the business development side, but then two months later you've placed those candidates, other ones have went through and you're certainly, well, what do I do now? I need to get back on the business development train, but that takes maybe a month, two months to actually get those opportunities to come to fruition. So I'm with you. I totally agree. And we actually utilize a system called Source Wheel. Now. I don't know if you've used too much of that Mark. Speaker 1 I know in fact we're talking to SourceWhale right now about partnering with them and we have quite a few of our clients use Source Whale. It seems like a great platform. Speaker 2 It's been a game changer for me. I think as as like sales person, a lot of the time are not the best admin tasks and maybe forget to put the notes and wet source fail. It just lessons to all of my calls. It's in my inbox and my e-mail inbox so that if I personally miss anything, source fail is telling me in the morning to get it done, which is really nice. They have this tool called AI Tasks, which is probably my favorite. Take two level IT lessons to every phone call that I'm doing, and then in the morning click on AI Tasks and it tells me what I need to do for the follow-ups from those phone calls. Speaker 1 Oh, that's brilliant. That's definitely what I need. I've got. Yeah, man, I could. You lose if you're having conversations all day long, you lose track of all the different things that you're supposed to do to follow up and things you're going to send people and everything so. Speaker 2 Yeah. And also I think like sometimes you're like, I need to call him back, but you actually can't remember what was the conversation? How did it go with Source? Well, I can go back and listen to the call, speed it up so it's not taking too much of my time, and then get the real action points off the back of it and then call them really knowledgeable. And also like, you've got little bits of Nuggets where you're like, oh, Mark, how was your holiday last week? And they're thinking you've just remembered that, but actually you're using the data that the system's got inside. Speaker 1 You're a great recruiter. You know how to close deals and deliver results, but does your business run like a well oiled machine? If your revenue is unpredictable or you're stuck in the day-to-day, you don't need to work harder. You need a better plan. And that's exactly why we created the Seven Figure Freedom Scorecard. It's a free 10 minute assessment that evaluates your business across the six pillars of sustainable growth, so you can see exactly where you're excelling, where you're struggling and what to focus on next to. Scale to seven figures, Stop guessing and start growing. Take the Scorecard today by visiting Recruitment coach.com/scorecard. It's just occurred to me, Sam, that what's cool is you're actually using the products of the companies you recruit for. So I mean, that really gives you even more knowledge when you're trying to recruit for those companies, right? Because you actually use the use the product in some cases. Speaker 2 For sure, I think that would probably be one of the, my favorite campaigns to work on would probably be these recruitment technology companies. And I think Mark, because I've got a really good understanding of these network groups. So we met at a team event, for example, and think about how many suppliers are at these at these network events. And then for me, I know kind of what businesses are best to reach out to and what ones have really good sales teams. And I won't mention them because they'll never want to work method because everyone will go and steal their staff. But there's a few businesses that that I know personally have really good sales teams that people on Langton wouldn't necessarily know. Speaker 1 Right. Of course, that's cool. So what would you say have been the some of the challenges that you've had to navigate while growing your business? Speaker 2 Yeah, I've had a few for sure. And we mentioned the hiding days and part there. I'll talk about that story 1st and I hosted a high I we've got a client on board. They actually haggled which negotiated on the deposit to pay £500 as opposed to 2000. And you're right, Mark takes some money to get that guarantee. So I took it. We did the video job advair. It was everything was looking really, really good and we hosted the day and candidates said it was the best hot assessment day they've ever been on. The two business owners had also told us like this was amazing. We would love more over and but we got to the end of the day and no candidates got offered a job. So I had paid for the videographer, I'd hired a room, I'd paid for all the treats and lunch and everything like that. I had hosted an amazing day and every candidate was qualified. I didn't get paid on it. So I'd spent literally a month on a project and I didn't get nothing for her. Later found out it was actually just internal business issues. The company that that made that made them put that pose on felt a bit unfair for for me. Speaker 1 Totally unfair, Sam, I get I'm angry on your behalf that that happened. That's like, This is why I'm such a big fan of retained or engaged projects because often when there's no placement, it's not necessarily that the recruiter didn't do their job properly. It could be factors totally outside your control, internal to that company or what have you. And you know, you not only did you not make money, you were out of pocket for that hosting that thing. So what did you learn from that in terms of how to offset those risks in the future? Speaker 2 Yeah, I know 100%. To be honest, it was a client that we hadn't really worked with too much and the past so like we hadn't worked with this client at all. So it was a new one for me and I still honest Mark been fully transparent. I still don't know the answer of how it blew those businesses at the start because they had the best of intentions. There were the two really enthusiastic and engaging business owners. They had money perceived to have a lot of money. And honestly, I don't have an answer to it. I've not figured it out yet. Do you? What do you think? Speaker 1 I think #1 the fact that they haggled over your 2000 is, is a red flag, right? Because then at least you wouldn't have lost money on it. And 2nd, but you know, client qualification you already mentioned is key, right? As well as candid qualification, making sure you're working with the right clients. That's, that's it's, it's never 100% right. You can still make a mistake. Or maybe they were a good client, but something changed, right? And but yeah. Speaker 2 That's think like it's a difficult one even because if it's a new business working with me and I've never hosted a hiding day for them, how do they know that I'm not going to turn up with no candidates or candidates that just pulled over by job board and not qualified out. So as almost about getting myself out there more on LinkedIn, proving the value of the system that works, not negate, not negotiating on the deposit mark and taking it from there. But yeah, I don't think I've not come up with a solid answer. Maybe the listeners here today will come up. Speaker 1 Here's here's one, which I'm sure you already with all your sales training probably already do. But so for the audience when you're qualifying a job, it's not just about, OK, what's the, what does the role involve? You know, what's the day-to-day, what are the targets and all that sort of thing. What we're really also asking is how important is this role to your organization and the goals you're trying to reach? What makes it important? You know, how urgent is this? What's driving that urgency? What's the consequence if you don't hire within the time frame? So you said you need someone by, you know, to start in June where like early May. If you don't have someone starting in June, what impact does that have on, you know, the sales, you know, targets being hit on the business. If you don't hit the sales targets, then what impact does that have on your plans for growth and so on, right. And get them to tell you we Sam, we have to have someone by the state. Otherwise, you know, we're going to be losing 100 KA week right in opportunity. And so if we don't hire it, it, you know, if we delay a month, it could cost us 500,000, right. If you've done that upfront, then it's pretty hard for them to go, Oh, these cans were really good. But we've decided we're going to wait. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I know. I totally agree. I think more qualification was probably needed at the start of that one and I kept myself still on it, but it's a lesson learned. Speaker 1 Absolutely. Luck, man. Mistakes are part of I, I don't even say that's a mistake. I think that's just a learning opportunity, right? That's just part of business. Any other challenges or setbacks which have been? Speaker 2 For sure. And I think probably one of the most important ones for people starting their own recruitment business is to really have an understanding of the financial side of it within business. So we had, we had one client who we'd done a lot of work for at least multiple candidates. The payment terms were already 60 days. So for a small business that's tough like to wait 60 days after the candidate starts. So realistically could be like 6 months Max if you're if you're not getting through it, but that's business that then pay for 180 days after the invoice was paid. So honestly, as a business owner at that time, still paying, still paying staff, still paying for all the licenses that I'm utilizing was probably one of the most stressful points I've ever had in my life. Speaker 1 I feel like throwing up just listening to that. I can from the stress. That's just yeah. Speaker 2 It was horrendous and it's actually, it's a really difficult situation to deal with. I won't name names but F Desk, if I was to spit the dummy out too much and kick up too much of A fuss, that contract's probably not going to come round my way again. Not necessarily that I wanted, but the fees were high, there were good money on them. So I was in a situation where I wanted to push, but pushing too hard annoyed someone. So as a business owner just getting started, I really at that point, I didn't know what to do. I sense took advice and got people to help me and we've got everything resolved and got it paid. But I would say that I would say that that's probably one of the the biggest things that you need to have a think about is like if the client doesn't pay on time, what are you going to do about it? Do you have invoice factoring say up? Do you have an accounts team? They're going to chase it for you and there's different options. But yeah, that was really difficult to start. Speaker 1 That's yeah, cash is king, right? And I'm sure every single person listening has had a slow or late paying or non playing non paying client. So what what did you sort of put in place after that to protect yourself from these scenarios? Speaker 2 And so we did a couple of things and and first thing we did was we know invoice on the contract being signed, which isn't massive, but it just brings it forward a little bit. And also we also implemented a procedure where if the person doesn't pay on time, they would lose all right to rebates, which for them means that they if a candidate leaves, then they're not going to get any money back, which worked really well. Another thing that I did, which again you could probably get me some tips on where I've gone wrong here boys, we decided to implement a system with it's like a monthly recording revenue model. So businesses there were maybe there may be reluctant to pay back fees out because they've been burned in the past or they maybe just don't have the cash flow there to to hire and people through recruitment agencies. So what we decided to do was we charge a 17% fee on the candidates annual salary for a standard rule. However, for the monthly model we decided to charge 22% of the candidates annual salary and but charge it across 12 months. If the candidate left within that 12 months, payments would stop. So what it meant for the businesses, they are only ever paying for candidates that are employed. And what it meant for us is we're only ever getting paid for candidates who are on the job. But it also meant when candidates were let go or they left, that the first person that client was phoning was me. So they were calling me up and saying, listen, Sarah has left. Can we get another person or another replacement? Can we go after that or a consultative approach from me that allowed me to bring on quite a lot of clients, but also left me kind of wide open to risk because if a business had problems of their own or they'll, they had to let go of multiple staff at once, it would drastically impact my monthly recurring revenue. And also it meant that I was getting less of the bigger fees because I was just getting it kind of dropped fed over time. So that model worked for businesses and it still works for some businesses that we've got on board that are good at retaining their candidates and good at retaining their staff. But I have had some tough ones where they've not been so good and it's been a waste of time for everyone. And not even just the fact that we don't make money, but actually it can have a detrimental effect on personal branding and the company brand as a whole. Because if we're placing candidates in a business, they're not treated fairly, then it's on me. And I don't really want candidates to be coming back thinking negatively about that. Speaker 1 Absolutely. What what's cool, what what's what I admire about you, Sam, is you've got a lot of creative ideas, which I think is always. So it's just interesting to hear different different approaches, different ways of doing things. As far as like the spreading the payment set, by the way, I think you're under charging for your your recruiting fees. That's another conversation. But especially with all of the like innovative things you're doing that are better or different to the standard agency service. But as far as spreading it out to me that see, I can see there being a huge benefit from the client side, some benefit on your side as far as knowing and predicting what income you've got coming in. But to me, the only fairway of doing that is because what they're saying is if the person leaves, then you get less. But what if they stay longer? I would want to keep charging them every month that they're there. Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure. Speaker 1 And that way it works both ways. Speaker 2 Yeah, no, definitely. And that is a conversation I've had with a couple of clients. I tend not to go in and lead with the monthly recurring revenue model as such until I get to know the business now because I just don't want to get burned too early on. But I totally agree, I think that continuing on the model is probably the best way to go around. But seeing that I've got some businesses right now and one client thinking of and particular that that has replaced a candidates with them in the last 12, they've not sacked anyone. No one's left. So when I go into that office, they love me and I've got a great relationship with everyone and all like yeah, there's there's no negative in that that stands. But yeah, I wouldn't lead with it anymore. I would definitely go for the filthy earlier. Speaker 1 That's the best of Sam. Like you go into that office and you know everyone because you've placed them. That's got to feel good. Speaker 2 Yeah, 100%. Like for example, on Friday last week, I took and I have a crate of doughnuts to them and they were going through their seals kind of kick off and they invited me into the training session and I sat with them for an hour in the training session before going for lunch with two of the directors. So there's no better way to build a relationship with the team than that. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, fantastic. A podcast episode that I suggest you might well like listen to. It's an older one. I it's like 5 years ago I interviewed Abed Hamid, who was at the time the CEO of recruitment entrepreneur working for James Caan. I think he's retired now, but I asked him about this late payers issue and you know, and the fact that often it's the big, you think it would be small companies that are having cash flow issues, but often it's the bigger companies that purposely delay paying. And he just had no time for that. He was like, they take a very proactive and firm approach to enforcing their payment terms. First of all, they wouldn't agree to 60 days payment from anybody, even if a larger company or, or for a bigger fee. That's just they would decline. Like if, if that really was non negotiable, they would decline the business rather than have someone who they had to wait 69120 days to to get paid. But he actually said in the UK there are government rules that prohibit companies from not paying you on time and that I don't. I'll, I'll need to look it up to refresh my memory on it. But it was an interesting, it was an interesting take. Like his view was cash is king, like paying us according to our terms of business is absolutely non negotiable. And it's like 30 days is the is the maximum that they would offer in, in terms of settlement days anyway. And if a client isn't going to pay you on time, they're not a good client. And we don't care about losing the business. And we're going to, we're going to chase and remind and push and get lawyers involved if necessary because ultimately they've already shown us that we don't want their business. So that was his. Speaker 2 No, listen. And I totally agree with everything he's he's saying there. I think, I think it's easier said than done if you're in a business like recruitment entrepreneur and you've got the backing of people like Dragons Den James can. I think when you're sitting in a cabin in the woods and you say it's very difficult to walk away from these opportunities, especially if these just these just are the standard terms that they utilize with every other maybe supplier that they're working with. And being totally honest, Mark, I was probably naive in that instance as well, like I had never done it before. I really wasn't sure if I could push back if there really would have been room for negotiation and that standpoint with a business of that size. Whereas no, I think it's all changed. So now I go in with a 14 day payment term and really if you go in confidently about it, unless you are dealing with these large multinationals, definitely the smaller businesses, everyone's happy to pay one time. Speaker 1 Yeah, great, great. I'm glad. So I guess I, I wanted to hear you. So you started out in this cabin, What's the set up now and you know I is it still 3 of you or what, what's the business look like now? Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Still still three of us and plus one Ryan, who is our videographer, we actually have him now on retainer. So he'll come with us semi consistently and we'll shoot out to other offices and other cities and stuff like that. And quite early on in, in the business, I think like 2 years. And I realized that I was a guy in the late later 20s at that point. And you don't know what you don't know, Mark. So I joined accelerator programs and I'm part of the Royal Bank of Scotland accelerator program, which provides mentorship, provides funding if you need it, and just help and also really good community. So we actually joined that accelerator. I got made alumni on the program, which means that it can help in other businesses and stuff like that as well. So we actually work from the Royal Bank of Scotland offices and Glasgow. Yeah. We've got a space here and we will go out and visit clients and also work remotely on side of that. And the Business Today, we are still focusing on tech sales clients and we are working on a few retained projects just now. Speaker 1 Yeah, exciting. So looking back over the, you know, last few years, then Sam, what, what are you most proud of having accomplished? Speaker 2 Since starting the business, I would probably see the thing that I'm most proud of as my LinkedIn getting that position where I can post a bit of content and leads are genuinely coming directly to me. It's probably one of the most powerful things that that that you can have in business. But also like we've done really well financially, but I would actually say the relationship building as well. So I'll take it one step further than a lot of recruiters. An example of that would be my business approached Me, which is in their software space. They have nine staff, but they did 8 million last year was only 9 staff, right? They're huge, dead, really, really well. But they had said they have never had a sales manager, they've never brought it on. It's all been on referrals and stuff. So because in part of that Royal Bank of Scotland network, he asked me to do a recruitment campaign for the head of sales. As I did more of a discovery, I quickly realized that actually they didn't really have a process. They didn't have a kind of ideal client profile. They really had nothing about set up. So actually as part of the recruitment campaign and I actually helped them build their national sales process and then build found a person to help fill that role as well. So taking on a kind of consultancy side as well. Yeah, massively involved in like kind of tech bills and AI and stuff. And I really, I love that kind of side of the business and that's probably why I've built a recruitment businesses which is so technically heavy as well, but trying to keep that people approach as well. Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. Definitely. That's cool. So talk to me about your LinkedIn process then, like how do you approach it? How much time does it take and what What's your kind of rhythm for producing really good original content consistently without it taking up all your time? Speaker 2 For sure, I think in the early stages, you want to be allocating a lot of your time to create and really unique content that comes from you and, and saying something that no one else is really talking about. You really don't want to come across like a robot and in any way or this kind of business. And for me personally, I actually don't like to, to overload on LinkedIn as well. I'm conscious not to become annoying and people might say it's not enough, but I I just kind of commit myself to posting one time per week. I try and make it as relevant as possible and we do a lot of it now via creating the video content through Ryan. So I'll meet with Ryan, we'll go to a client office, we'll record the videos, we'll post out onto my LinkedIn from the back of that, or I'll take pictures of him out for lunch for someday or plain paddle or something like that. That's some recent posts on LinkedIn. I'm not someone that plays paddle every single day though, but there's my like 10 process. I actually take a kind of soft approach. I try and post what's relevant and what's going on in my life and post once a week to try and stay consistent. And but also, I would say a big part of it, Mark is engaging with others and like in their posts and commenting on their stuff because those people come back and like yours. Speaker 1 So OK, this that's I wasn't expecting you to to say you only post once once a week. And how long does it take you to like create that content? Speaker 2 Takes a long time. And the video, I would say if we were to create, if we were to go into a client today, we'd probably wouldn't be able to post that video out for another like 4 to six weeks minimum. So it does take quite a bit of time to get that content out there, which is probably probably one thing that kind of slows me down. I'd like to push out more. But what I've always kind of got in my mind, like I hate to try and hurry up and hurry creatives. If people are really good at what they do and they're creative thinkers and they're amazing creating the videos, the last thing they need is me chasing them saying hurry up, get this done because they'll just make the work lesser quality. So for me, it's about finding that middle ground in terms of setting your agenda, managing expectations and and trying to make sure you're getting a post out every week. And I find that LinkedIn, I do get a lot of inbounds that will come, but I would actually say a lot of it as when I post someone that maybe I've messaged or they haven't got back to me, they're like better reply to Sam. I forgot about that one. Or outreach. And I meet someone at event and they're like, you're the guy I've seen on that video on LinkedIn. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 So it's not all you won't get business from all straight away, but I definitely think stuff I've done three years ago is helping me today. Speaker 1 That's a great point. Absolutely. Is you did the work once and then it keeps benefiting you kind of there. There's a very long tail on it, right? People might, you know, it's still benefit you three years later. I like that. And then how much time per day or per week are you spending engaging with other people's content? Speaker 2 Yeah, so I just try and do that every morning, Mark. And I'll actually do that from my phone as opposed to when I'm opening up the laptop and I'm I'm kind of amongst all my emails and everything else that's going on. And in the morning I'll try and get out to go to the gym or I'll go for a run in the morning. But then when I set back down with a coffee after that, I'll just pull up LinkedIn and I'll try and change 10 is what I try and do comment and 10 and posts per day. Once I've then done that, I'll close it off. Don't get get me wrong, I've later in the day so one of my contacts post something like I'm getting married or I'm launching a new business then I'll jump on it straight away and I'll give them a comment. But yeah, try and get on in the morning when I'm not thinking about it and I've got the days not caught up with me and I'm not not neged out by anything that's gone wrong and super positive. And then throughout the day, in terms of my own LinkedIn content, I have a little notes folder on my phone that when I come up with any different, when I come up with any different ideas, I'll pop it in there and I'll constantly go back and reject things. Speaker 1 That's awesome. Sam, is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to chat about today? Speaker 2 I, I honestly nothing else. I've really enjoyed meeting you Mark. I loved attending the team event along with the rest of the guys and hear a bit more about other people's journeys and stuff like that as well. If if anyone else has any questions about about my process, I am very tech heavy so I'm more than happy to talk people through the different solutions that I use. But my top three would definitely be all draw source wheel, and then LinkedIn is probably where it's at as well. Speaker 1 I'm glad you reminded me actually, because people would get mad if I didn't ask you your tech stack. So Odro source whale? What about for like your recruitment software CRM? Speaker 2 Yeah, so I've actually utilized a few cents starting I I started with one that was good and it didn't end up being 1II stuck with. Then I moved to a system called Manitol, which is a really cheap recruitment system, which actually I would recommend to people getting started out genuinely. I think it's less than £40 a user per month and it gives you the basics of what you need. So it's got the multi poster, it's got the LinkedIn integration, everything like that. But since last year and I actually went to an event down in London of the launch of this SourceWhale CRM system and I know do everything through Source Wheel and even connected it to my Gmail inbox. So for example, in a morning if I receive an e-mail, it auto drafts the e-mail based on what I have said in previous emails to reply to that conversation. So if I receive 50 emails in the morning, it's already drafted it based on the thousands of other emails I've already sent, and it's pretty much bang on every single time. Speaker 1 That is awesome. Yeah, Yeah, that's cool. You mentioned AI as well. What's your favorite use case for AI and which model are you using? Speaker 2 So I have used a few Royal Bank of Scotland accelerator, brought in Google to do a talk. So I tried. Started off with Gemini, really cool, worked well for the start. When I wanted a little bit more I went on to ChatGPT again, practical system but by far the best AI model as Claude. I think I've been used not know. I pay the pro version as well so I am all over it. Like I don't want to Max out my usage, I want to keep going. Speaker 1 Even the prover, it's not that expensive, right? It's it's. Speaker 2 Like 200 quite a month Max, yeah, like maybe I think 1's 90 lbs, one's 200 and that like when you're building certain things, it's really kind of useful. So one of the one of the things I got it to use for is I integrated with system called clay which is a data aggregation tool and I got it to do. I told her I work with audio or a job adder source will go find me 200 other companies like them and then add them into my source will campaign using the Cowork system. So I could literally get it to build a list of the prospects I wanted, build a cadence inside source, fail, click on the cadence, get it set up, and in the morning when I actually click, I want to get started with work. All I'm doing is logging into the system, clicking go, and then it's just working me through my tasks. So none of it is an automated robot that the client is seeing. They are, they're getting a call from me, they're getting an e-mail from me. But it's just the admin heavy stuff that I'm trying to automate. Speaker 1 This is cool. So I is this Claude Co work or is it just? Speaker 2 Yeah, Claude Co work. I use Claude Co work and cloud code for certain tasks called code will be much, much quicker. And because that's just working in the coding system, Cowork and essence for anyone that's not utilized acts as your cursor on your screen. So anything that you can do on Google or or LinkedIn or whatever, you can teach that to Cowork and create almost an agent that can go and do those tasks for you. So that recruitment technology company campaign I have that reset to to redo those searches consistently so that I never miss out on any new players coming in the market of a certain size. Speaker 1 Awesome. But then what is it? So we use clay as well, by the way. And we did a course, in case you're interested, on clay for recruiters. And I actually invested in Clay when they did a funding round sometime in 2025. I mean, not, not a very much, but it was yeah, I, it was a cool such a cool company that I was like, I, I want to get involved in this as a, as an investor. So how what are you using Clay for with that Claude cowork and? Speaker 2 So that was a view I've used it for both clients and candidates. So if we've got a specific candidate profile we're looking for, we'll utilize Clay to find us the, the kind of database of the candidates we want to go after. Well, then also enrich it so it gives us their phone number, their e-mail address. We wouldn't then keep that data and Clay, we would export that data as ACSP file and then put that into source will as a campaign. So for me, Clay is purely for, it's got a really, really nice chat function that you can almost talk to to find the right people you want. And it's by far better than LinkedIn sales Navigator or, or even recruiter system. So, yeah. And, and actually one thing to say is I actually don't utilize LinkedIn recruiter anymore. Mark I, I found that when I was using job boards and I was using LinkedIn recruiter, if I'd got a good candidate and they're at the final stages, they were almost always more competitive than they were if I'd headhunted a candidate and for business was only taking the candidates that was presenting to them if they're working me on a routine basis anyway. So I take the approach now of head hunting pretty much all of the candidates, but that is utilized strictly. Speaker 1 I love it so Clay plus Claude cowork has replaced LinkedIn. Find the candidates. Speaker 2 For sure, for sure. So you've got, you've got Claude Co work and then you've got Clay and then you've got SourceWhale Well to actually then go and facilitate the campaigns. Speaker 1 Yeah, love it. That's cool. Sam, I'd like to talk to you more about that, but so let's definitely catch up again soon. Speaker 2 For sure Mark, thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed having a chat with you. Speaker 1 Thanks Sam. Hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sam Johnston. Here are two things that you can put into practice straight away. First, send prospects A personalized video message. Sam's videos are under 30 seconds and his format is simple. Reference something specific about the person, explain briefly how you can help, and end by giving them a heads up that you will be calling them. Then, the moment you get the notification, they view the video, pick up the phone, and call them on the spot. That combination of personalization and timing is how Sam gets a high number of new clients to accept his. The second thing that Sam does, which I love, is using a video job ad to win retained assignments. So Sam takes a videographer into the client's office, records the team, the culture, the role, and post it all on LinkedIn. It gets him FaceTime with the client. It strengthens the relationship and positions him as having something unique. If you apply one or ideally both of these strategies, you will stand out from all of your competitors. Highly recommend that you follow Sam Johnston on LinkedIn because you'll be able to see behind the scenes what he's doing, the quality of the videos, and that the way that he's working with clients to differentiate himself in the market. Be sure to subscribe and definitely check out the full show notes to this episode with all the people and resources mentioned at recruitmentcoach.com/podcast.