The Full Desk Experience

Brian Kirlik [00:00:00]:
I think the system is fundamentally busted, all of it. I think between candidates and companies, everybody is speaking to each other about the same problems, but not taking the time to listen to the fact that both sides are saying the same thing. Please help me right. Candidates believe that the hiring process is long and convoluted and frustrating, and companies and hiring managers saying, oh my goodness, my talent pipeline is soft. I can't find anybody to come to work for me. And so I think that from our perspective, we're trying to rewire our DNA at a thought level so that we can start to see AI for the potential that it is probably not a novel concept, but we really believe that AI is where the power is going to come from in terms of being able to track down talent on demand in real time. But it ain't going to go anywhere without being human driven. And so we think that if we can find this equation that allows us to boldly and without fear implement AI, but maintain the fact that the human still needs to be driving the bus, that we stand a better chance of helping and I think the role for us to play as experts here.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:08]:
Welcome to the full desk experience. I'm your host, Kortney Harmon. In the next few weeks, we're going to be specifically talking to the executive search industry and leaders who are ready to break through to their next revenue milestone. Over the next few weeks, we're going to deep dive into proven strategies that have helped top search firms scale from steady performers to industry powerhouses. This series is going to provide you with actionable intelligence that you need to scale and have sustainable growth. Each one of these upcoming episodes is gonna bring you conversations from industry veterans who have successfully navigated the challenges you're facing right now. Tune in over the next few weeks. Join us as we uncover the strategic shifts necessary to transform your practice and capture high value opportunities that are going to truly define your firm's revenue.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:02]:
Thank you so much for taking the time carving out time of your busy day to be a part of this exclusive online conference. And it's really the idea we're speaking to a specific audience. We're speaking to the executive search firms, the direct hire, what they're doing differently in 2025. We often heard the term survive till 25 a lot last year and in a lot of my conversations today, it's how do I thrive in 2025? There's no more of the days of wait, wait, wait, we're here. What am I doing differently? And that is why I invited all of you wonderful faces, because you're in it, you're with amazing organizations and you're doing amazing things. So there's nothing better than bringing everyone together to be able to ask you questions live. So with that being said, we're going to talk about a few things. We're going to talk about strategic planning.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:52]:
We're going to talk about what you're doing different with your client relationships or marketing position and where you are today. How are you treating talent different and most importantly, operational growth and efficiencies. I know that seems crazy, but what are we doing? How are we growing? And how can we share that wealth for everybody else? Before we get started, I know each of you individually. If we can go around the horn and introduce who you are, what company you're from and kind of like the industry you serve and what your role is there, that would be amazing. Just to give our audience some insight. So, Brian, can I go to you first? You're first on my clock as I go around.

Brian Kirlik [00:03:26]:
Absolutely, Kortney, and thank you for having me today. Been looking forward to this. Hopefully learn as much as I can give or more. So my title is Executive Director of Talent Operations at Calica. We're a smaller shop, 12 years old, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, with plans this year to open a presence in the uk. I've been with Kelika for four years, but when I was a little bit shorter, my goal in life, as you might tell by the background, was to play professional hockey. That did not happen. Obviously.

Brian Kirlik [00:03:58]:
My legs stopped growing, I think probably the fourth grade, so I had to pivot. Wound up in media, sports, writer, editor. And when the Internet became a thing, for those of you who have been around long enough to understand that concept, I was roped into developing new storytelling models, infrastructure for digital news. So I went from, you know, creating content to managing really smart technology teams. It was a great experience and it really offered me, I think, a front row seat into the trials and tribulations of digital transformation. Watched it mature from what many people thought would be a fad. Some people, it was a joke, right? To be serious to a line of business that drove, I think it was about $250 million in revenue for my company at the time, way back 2014, 2015, that disruption, of course, it was a lot of fun, but it also came with a lot of job losses and a chapter 11. My number came up as part of that evolution.

Brian Kirlik [00:04:54]:
After a couple of pitch stops supporting some global and domestic digital transformation projects, there were sales, customer success, project management. I turned to recruiting. I joined Calica as An entry level recruiter. It was way, way back in March 2020 and here we are. And I think the big postscript to that is, ironically, I think I'm back in the middle of another disruptive era. This one, of course, though, is making the Internet look like child's play.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:19]:
I love it. Well, thank you so much. I am so excited to have your organization and you join us. So thank you. I'm happy you're not playing hockey. So then now you can be with us. So that's great. Todd, you're next on my list as I go around my clock.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:33]:
Jen and I know you, but give us the rundown of who you are and all the amazing things that you done.

Todd Dawson [00:05:38]:
Oh, my gosh. How do you capsulize 40 years of experience in two minutes? My background is in law enforcement. Helped me hone some pretty significant investigative skills. I spent six years in insurance investigation before I became a recruiter. Primary motivator was I needed to make some money. There wasn't much money being made in insurance investigation. So I started my career with Manager Recruiters of Omaha in 1985 and produced at a very high level, as Jen knows, and ultimately became the second generation owner of the second oldest franchise in MRI history. And so in 2002, I took over.

Todd Dawson [00:06:17]:
And I often say if I had my service revolver in the drawer next to me, I'd have blown my brains out because I'd never run a business before. The accountant was calling me, the IRS was calling me, the lawyer was calling me, the franchisee was calling me. And I'm trying to run a full blown 360 recruiting desk. And I had 17 recruiters reporting to me. And it's just like, you got to be kidding me. I mean, what did I sign up for? I should have stayed on my desk. But after two years of that kind of misery, I decided I got it. Both are suffering.

Todd Dawson [00:06:45]:
The business is suffering. My desk is suffering. I got to pick. So I chose to decide to run the business and build the business out. So In March of 2002, three months into it, I was invited to a meeting at MRI Corporate, where there was a group of people there that put offices together that needed mentoring. And we decided in that meeting that we were going to create what is now World Bridge Partners. And there were eight original founders, of which there are only four remaining now. The other four retired.

Todd Dawson [00:07:14]:
And so we've gone from eight offices to now 17 offices. One of those are international. We cover everywhere from New York to LA and everywhere in between. We practice in about 25 different disciplines. We have 65 recruiters that work in all those different disciplines. I'm rewriting our entire training program now that my son and another one of my guys are in the be the third generation owners of this business. They're in their fifth year of transition, and you'd think I'd spend more time on the golf course, but unfortunately, I'm still the tip of the spear for WorldBridge partners. So be careful what you wish for.

Todd Dawson [00:07:49]:
You just might get it. So I've rewritten our training program. We're integrating AI into putting those podcasts together so that people can actually be interactive. Reading the newsletters and asking specific questions, going straight to almost like a glossary for answers and things. And so that's been a very exciting time for us. So other than being a grandfather with seven grandkids and traveling all over the world with international meetings and speaking engagements around here, I've even been invited to speak in Australia in the fall. So I don't know if I'll travel quite that far to speak. I'd much rather be going to Lincoln, Nebraska, but you do what you got to do, I guess.

Todd Dawson [00:08:25]:
So. We've been very successful here our last two years with management recruiters. We were in the top 10 of all their offices, which is maybe not saying all that much considering when I started, we had 1200 offices and when I left we had 120. So I guess your view is different. Jen could speak better to that than I can, probably. But you know what? I have no plans to retire. And I see a crystal ball and guys come in and ask questions. It's like, you know, kind of like Nick Saban, right? You've seen it all, done it all, you understand what's coming at you and been through a number of recessions and nothing scares me anymore.

Todd Dawson [00:09:00]:
I don't worry about it because I know every downturn is followed by an upturn, so that doesn't bother me too much. But I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:07]:
I'm so excited to have you here. You have a wealth of knowledge. So thank you for taking the time out of your busy day. And you let me know if you need someone to assist you in Australia. I'll be happy to drop my calendar and we'll. We can go. Jen, do me a favor. Introduce yourself, please.

Jen Meyer [00:09:20]:
Yes. Very, very humbled to be in this conversation and to be alongside these gentlemen. It's really great. And I was going to say the same thing, Kortney. I was like, hey, Todd. I mean, if you need me to take it for the team, I mean, I'll do it. So following Todd, I mean, so I've been a part of the MRI network as well for going on almost 30 years, if you can believe that Todd. And Todd was somebody I highly looked up to and was a mentor very early in my career.

Jen Meyer [00:09:48]:
So thank you for that. I started with an MRI office on the sales consultant side, was there for six years, kind of started as a project coordinator, you know, fulfillment recruiter, moved to an account executive, then moved to a billing manager of that office in 2012. So right in the heart of the one of the recessions I decided to open my own franchise. And so I did that. I had that for almost 14 years and then was approached by the Govigs at Govig and Associates back in end of 2015, 2016 and to Todd's again comment, I was great on a desk, I was great in the weeds, I was great on the front line, loved the hunt, love closing the deals and absolutely hated the administrative side. And balancing those two is very difficult. But I was like putting pins in my eyes. And so when I was approached to come over here and be able to do what I do best for the go bigs, it was very enticing to me because I could give up the whole meeting with accountants, lawyers, you know, all of that.

Jen Meyer [00:10:57]:
And so I joined as a senior vice president general manager of one of our three internal divisions and ran that for I guess up until the beginning of 2024 and recognized very early on coming here. Although we were, you know, we've been in the MRI network since the late 70s. We've been the number one office in the network for the last three decades. But we were very light in our business development. We had basically six key million plus dollar producers that really drove about 80% of the business through the doors through their efforts and that left us super vulnerable. So I moved into a vice president or senior vice president of revenue generation or whatever we called it at that time. It was kind of a made up title and I moved into where I was driving business development for the whole company and training and development and all of that. And then this year shifted a little bit to where I'm now chief revenue officer, which basically is same, same role, different title where all of the division managers report to me.

Jen Meyer [00:12:05]:
I have the top $5 million producers within our office reporting directly to me and I just drive revenue across our three primary verticals. And those would be we have a life sciences division, we have a healthcare division, and Then we have a division that is kind of the backbone of Go Big, where it's primarily a local market in the state of Arizona, although we have extended that footprint to more of the Southwest. And our primary emphasis in that is construction, real estate development and accounting and finance, although we do have a manufacturing sector, which was my old business, so it made sense to carry that over.

Kortney Harmon [00:12:43]:
Well, I know without a doubt, I'm not the only one going to have questions. Our audience will, too. So if you guys have any questions on a question or something you want to hear specifically in the next hour and 15, feel free to put it in the chat. We will ensure that we talk about that. I'm going to kind of go around the horn if you got. Whoever wants to start can start. I think I want to talk more about your outlook for 2025. I want to kind of talk of the idea of 2024 was a fun year.

Kortney Harmon [00:13:12]:
We're going to say fun. Fun is the word. It might have been great for you because actually, I talked to a lot of offices that had their top producing years in 2024. But I want to know what lessons you learned in 2024 and how are you pivoting or staying on course based on today's economic climate? Todd, you want to start?

Todd Dawson [00:13:31]:
Sure, why not? You know, lead off theater always gets hit by the first pitch. Why not? Well, I would tell you, of our 17 offices, we had 14 offices that had a downturn. Collectively, we were down about 12% in 2024. We had three offices. One of my office were up, which was really nice. The things have started out slowly as a collective. I don't usually speak about my office. I speak in broader terms.

Todd Dawson [00:13:57]:
As far as World Bridge Partners, Omaha started off very strong. Toledo started off really strong. The other offices that have had really great track records over the past decade have just really, you know, they're down 18, 20, 22%, depending on which office you're talking about. So, you know, whenever things start turning bad, Jen knows this. She's probably heard this from me 18 trillion times. You always get back down to the basics, okay? When business is good, recruiters get sloppy. They don't take a complete job order. They don't, you know, I cut corners, okay? And they're looking to move closer to the money when they're not utilizing all the information that's available to them.

Todd Dawson [00:14:36]:
And they all of a sudden turn things that are good prospects into working on things that are hope prospects. Well, that's not a very good strategy. So what we've drilled down on specifically is to make sure that you're working hard on your value proposition. Give the person you're talking to a reason to talk to you, okay? It doesn't matter if it's a client, prospective client, or an existing candidate. You know, there's got to be a value prop. And, you know, you just can't call a hiring authority and say, oh, you got any openings? Really? I mean, you know, how do you separate yourself from. Everybody else Are getting called by all these recruiters that are working in their basements in their pajamas, right? And they've lost all the good technique that they learned how to do. And because they haven't had anybody around them to correct them or suggested them what they have done, you know, what they used to do to continue to improve.

Todd Dawson [00:15:25]:
And so we focus really hard on the value prop. And secondly, we intensify our marketing efforts, okay? And it's really important. Look, what employer would not hire someone that would improve their team, right? We used to talk about this in general. Remember this? You know, top grading. You got a team of X number of people. If you brought somebody that would be your top person, would you find a place for them somewhere? I always say, if I had a $500,000 recruiter plus come into my office and I didn't have any desks, they could have my office. And so where's the value? And you have to bring value in every single phone call. And we have found that recruiters tend to surrender too easily after they've been defeated for two or three months in a row.

Todd Dawson [00:16:11]:
They've been kicking in the shins, nonstop rejection, counteroffer, all these different types of things. And what winds up happening is that they stop asking questions. And you really need to be a professional interrogator is what you need. That doesn't mean you have to be, you know, Joe Friday, nothing but the facts, okay? But you need to be more diligent in your questioning and understand that every conversation has to yield something for not only the person you're talking to, but also you as well. And so you know what happens? A recruiter goes in a marketing call, and they stop asking any other questions about other openings, other movement they've heard in the marketplace, all that sort of thing. And we press our recruiters to get every ounce of information they can out of every single contact that they have and to rely specifically on LinkedIn in mails and email to reach out to people. You know, the phone is still your friend. I just did a podcast recently with our top Performer.

Todd Dawson [00:17:04]:
Jen, you remember John Fisher?

Jen Meyer [00:17:06]:
Oh, of course, yeah.

Todd Dawson [00:17:07]:
20 plus million after in 25 years. Okay. And he says, what do you do that separates you? You know, he gets clients. What do you do that separates you from every other recruiter that calls me? He says, I talk to people. He said, it's like a deer in the headlights. What, you actually talk to people? Well, yes, we talk to people. Do we post jobs to us? Yeah, we do. But when we get leads, we talk to those people and we identify all the things that are necessary for them.

Todd Dawson [00:17:32]:
And so what you have to do when we're expecting a downturn, and there's always a downturn, okay. Always going to be, you got to strap it on and you got to utilize the skills that you've been trained to use and stop being sloppy. And our recruiters do a really good job. I mean, we only talk to 13 or 14 people a day. Well, then if you got a two minute phone call, where did you fall down? And, you know, you got to figure out a way to keep somebody on the telephone and keep asking questions till they finally say, dude, I got to go. You don't surrender the call. Don't sit. You know, I didn't get the information I wanted, so can I send you my contact information? Well, that's a lot of baloney.

Todd Dawson [00:18:07]:
One of my guys comes in and every day they say, how come you ask so many questions? I said, I never run out of questions ever, Ever. There's always something that they know that I want to know. And if somebody tells me they don't know anybody, yes, they do. And it's incumbent upon me to find out who. We used to say in the Rolodex, now open up your outlook and tell me everybody that's in your outlook file. And then when they give you the names, find out what they can find out about that person. Right. I mean, it's an indirect reference.

Todd Dawson [00:18:35]:
Why did you refer to me to this person? And it creates a whole different conversation. So recruiting can be as simple as baseball pitching, hitting and throwing. Right. But the nuances of understanding what's going on behind the curtain, there's a talent that gets lost, and that's a talent that needs to be applied. When we're facing a year like 2025, I love it.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:55]:
Back to basics. Going back to things that matter. Brian, what are you guys doing differently? What lessons did you learn from 2024? How are you changing your strategy for 25?

Brian Kirlik [00:19:04]:
Well, we're trying a lot of different things. Let's just reflect on 2024 for a minute. I can't speak for everybody in the organization or everybody else on the call, but I was personally done with it last June. I know there was still six months to go, but boy, oh boy, you know, it's like swimming upstream with a stiff wind in your face. We took a deep breath. Mid year, our founder made the big decision to move with his daughter and wife to London with the thought of expanding the business with a global footprint. So that was part of the backdrop of all of this. And between that change in the organization and the fact that I think we all will agree that market conditions in 2024 were what would be a euphemism interesting, the realization that we had entered a disruptive era of work.

Brian Kirlik [00:19:49]:
This AI stuff had been neat, but it started to hit like a tidal wave. And then, you know, just that whole drama of where we were and we knew we were headed into different waters. And so we came, I think at 2025 with some ambitious and aggressive objectives. I think good place to start might be strategic aspirations, right to sort of build from the top down. I mean, you know, for us it's about we use the words like transform, innovate and evolve. And so everything that we do now as an organization gets thrown at one of those three foundational elements of strategy. And if it sticks, we do it. If it doesn't, we move on.

Brian Kirlik [00:20:26]:
And that backdrop has really helped us, I think, activate foundational change. As part of all of these discussions and where we were so far this year, we've reimagined and rebuilt our service offerings. We, I think I'm going to say we have, you know, embraced the structure of a disciplined approach to social selling. So that was new to us. We've made some investment there. And just as a side note, a personal side Note, I joined LinkedIn just to reinforce the social selling point in May of 2005. And it wasn't until last Tuesday that I had personally posted original content on LinkedIn. So if you want to get a sense of how serious this is, just look at me, right? So we've got a company wide strategy to support that.

Brian Kirlik [00:21:11]:
We want to reposition ourselves as experts in our field, right, to earn the trust, respect in business of companies globally who believe we might be able to help them solve their most urgent hiring needs. Ultimately, we are still trying to cut ties with outdated terminology. That's difficult even though it's only 12 years. But we learned how to position ourselves right as talent advisors. We like to think of ourselves as talent advisors and Our niche was our client. Jettisoning all those outdated thoughts and terms is easier said than done though. That's really the postscript to that little nugget. We've recalibrated our target markets so reorganized how our business development and client advocates go about their business every day.

Brian Kirlik [00:21:54]:
We've updated the definition of our ideal customer profile. Right. And then we transitioned to AI. We've accelerated its adoption big time and how it fits into the broader context of everyone's future. Not just the people who work at Calica, but all of our clients who are looking up at the sky asking, what does this mean and what do I do next? Interestingly, thinking back, it's been almost two years for Kelika since we first formally started to think about what AI meant within the context of our business and our industry. So fast forward two years. Boy, what an amount have we learned. I can't wait to see where it goes in the next two weeks.

Brian Kirlik [00:22:33]:
And I'm serious about that. Right? Like two years, two weeks, same amount of distance traveled simply because of knowledge and the advance of technology. So we're just a little bit dizzy, if I could use that term. But we really like what we landed and we're ready to go in 2025, just in terms of the areas that we're focused on. Happy to go into more detail at some point in time, but I don't want to take up everybody's time here if you want.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:56]:
I'm sure we're going to get all into those things because AI is the topic of conversation, so we're going to get there. Jen, anything from your side? Obviously I didn't even know about your latest change in title, so congratulations. I haven't talked to you since then. I know anything from your end. Lessons learned last year, obviously. New role, a little change in structure. Anything to add that maybe we didn't talk about from the other two.

Jen Meyer [00:23:18]:
So we went through a big innovative change in regards to last year where we actually went from roughly about 80, 85 people down to 50. Not that we downsized or right sized or anything like that, but we just came back to kind of Todd's point in regards to the basics and he is right. I mean this is, I think my. You go through like four recessions or four economic challenges. I'll say, you know, where our business has to shift a little bit and you have faith that you're going to come out on the other side. Right. So there's some comfort in knowing that, yeah, it really stinks while you're in it, but this too shall pass.

Kortney Harmon [00:23:54]:
Yep.

Jen Meyer [00:23:55]:
So we did focus heavily on, you know, we're going to get back to our KPIs, we're going to get back to three days in the office with our team. And you had to be in the office in the same three days so that we could really spend a lot of time and training, training and development and culture and all of those things. And we ended up with half the people because we just, you know, some people just said, I'm opting out. Like, I'm just, this is what I signed up for. I don't want to do it. Which was absolutely fine. And so we went from, you know, where we were to come to the end of 2024 and we were half the people, but we had grown by $2 million. So it's like we really focused on just kind of like leaner and meaner, if you will, to piggyback on something that Todd said in relation to what is your value proposition.

Jen Meyer [00:24:43]:
We spent a lot of time on that as well. But not just looking at it from a perspective of what do we have to offer, who do we stand for, what is the legacy we want govig to be left with, you know, that kind of thing. It was really, really more about the messaging itself and going back to Todd saying, you know, your interrogator. That's kind of how I was trained again, probably from Todd and another friend of mine who did that in a past life. And I've taken that very seriously through my career and was passing that wisdom kind of to the team to say, you know, we have to sound different. We've got to break through the noise. And because every road leads to an MRI training, every single person is like six degrees to mri. So we all sound the same.

Jen Meyer [00:25:29]:
And although we may think that we are being creative, in our mind, every single recruiter is calling up and saying exactly the same thing. So how do we say it differently so that it is about the client and not about us? And it has boded very, very well for us in regards to just our differentiating factor, how we do business, our authenticity. We know who we are. We walked away from a lot of business that just didn't make sense. Now we are about 85% retained. And in retained, engaged, you know, model, we increased our baseline from 30% to a third. So, I mean, we are going after the market with that highest value, if you will. We are one of the most expensive in the market and we're totally okay with that.

Jen Meyer [00:26:17]:
And that doesn't fit for Everybody, but not everybody fits for us either. Like, we are evaluating them just as much as they're evaluating us. And if we're not a resource, we'll help them find one. But we're not going to take on bad business and waste our time. And I think that that helped us through the year. Now, mistakes made were we were tired by November, I am not gonna lie. Like, we were exhausted, all of us. I mean, we just couldn't even see straight.

Jen Meyer [00:26:46]:
And we close between Christmas and New Year's every year. And where Christmas and New Year's fell this year, it was basically two full weeks off, closed the office. So I would beg to say From Thanksgiving until January 6th, we did not work. And we came into the year very bullish and we got really slapped in the face in January and it knocked us down for sure and not just for a loop. Now we're fighters, you know, we don't stay down. So we are absolutely seeing an uptick. I mean, our searches has doubled in the last 30 days. We're back on track to being that $12 million, $14 million operation.

Jen Meyer [00:27:27]:
So it's coming quick. And we are focused very heavily right now on hiring because. And again, Brian, I don't know. You know, you came in in 2020, Todd, you certainly know this. Everybody that has made it through the years came in in a down market. They learned how to do this business in a down market. And it's because you had to be scrappy and you had to do a lot and you had to have a lot of output. So when things got tough, you just had to flex that muscle again.

Jen Meyer [00:27:53]:
But you knew how to flex it. You didn't come in and things weren't easy. And so that's what we're focused on now is like, if we can ramp back up and hire people through this next kind of wave of interesting, as Brian said, challenges that we're faced with. We're going to come out of it really, really strong.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:10]:
I love it. I love the refocus of value prop. It's a big conversation at a lot of the places that I'm at because the things that we've said over the years, like we've been in business for X number of years, those are amazing. It's good proof of their pudding. But it comes down to what are you doing for your client. So I love that you guys are reevaluating that. Jen, I'm going to stick with you and then I'm going to go back around the horde. Brian, you're next.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:31]:
You'd mentioned a few things right now, but what other specific actions are you taking to secure what's next of revenue growth? You said that you're reevaluating growth, you're adding to your team, you're refocusing on your value.

Jen Meyer [00:28:42]:
Props.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:43]:
Is there anything else that you're focusing on to say this is to get us back to the next where we need to be or beyond where we need to be. What actions are those?

Jen Meyer [00:28:51]:
We're looking at the market a little, kind of, probably through a little bit of a different lens than maybe a lot of other recruiters are looking at. So again, somewhat going back to the top grading conversation that Todd was mentioning, almost every recruiter will look at companies that are downsizing and. Right. Sizing and all that, and they'll look at that organization as an opportunity to recruit out of there because a lot of people feel disengaged or just, you know, they don't know where their future is going to stand within the organization. Which that still is true. Right. I mean, this is not in lieu of that, but we focus very heavily on that. Those are our business development opportunities.

Jen Meyer [00:29:23]:
Because companies don't change their goals and objectives for the year just because they have less people. But now do they have the people that have the right skill set to get them there? And more often than not they don't because the skill that they hired was not the skill that is probably needed today. And it is interesting because a lot they are not hearing from recruiters of how can we help you get back on track as an organization? It is, they're hearing from recruiters about let's get you out of there. So again, just pivoting some of the turning upside down some of the traditional methodologies that we were all taught to do. And again, not in lieu of, but like flipping it on its side and saying, how do we take this as a different opportunity and have those conversations? We do a lot of face to face, not just with conferences, but I mean, certainly teams. But we are not afraid to jump on a plane and get face to face with a client or potential client. We don't wait till they're a client. That goes a long way as well.

Jen Meyer [00:30:23]:
Because recruiters are just not. They're not used to it. They're used to recruiters only doing that when they secure to search. And then we're just trying to be as creative as can, like within boundaries. We're trying to be creative as we can in regards to those solutions that we're providing. It's not black and white. I mean, I. Going back to the interrogator, I really look at us as almost like psychiatrists.

Jen Meyer [00:30:43]:
Like, we're there to get to the root of the issue, which is typically not what they discussed in the first blush. And, you know, it's like I always talk about, like, you know, I went in having problems with my time. You know, I was going through a divorce, and after 20 years and it was difficult, and I went into therapy and came out realizing I had daddy issues. Right. Like, so it's like it had nothing to do with my assessment. So, you know, it's like you just go into it with a notion, but your job is to get to the root of that issue, which is typically not, again, what it was on the surface level, and trying to be creative to that solution based on that versus just this is how we work and we're a third and take it or.

Kortney Harmon [00:31:20]:
Leave it kind of attitude, different perspective. But you also have different influence when you do things differently. So I love that. Brian, what about you? I'm going to go to you, then I'll go back to Todd. What specific actions are you guys taking to secure your teams? Whatever. Maybe next 5 million. What's next?

Brian Kirlik [00:31:38]:
Absolutely. Hey, Jen. And congrats on making it through November last year. You did a lot better than I did, but it is what it is. So I talked a little bit earlier about the thought process that went into repositioning ourself in the marketplace. And to Kortney's point, I think it's fair to say that that 5 million, if I could use that as a nice, big, nice round number, and that's not going to come from doing what we did last year. That's just a matter of fact. So I think at a big level, the top level, we're really trying to address the friction in the organization without getting into the weeds here.

Brian Kirlik [00:32:09]:
That comes with balancing the present with the future. And that gets complicated. I'm sure everybody here knows if you've been around. I mean, we were talking in the organization the other day, and I had this image of us driving a car that gets us from point A to point B. You know, that's the past. That's what we're comfortable with. It offered a degree of efficiency and comfort. But I feel like I'm driving a Yugo today.

Brian Kirlik [00:32:30]:
Right. If you can, if you remember that analogy, the ride, it's a little bit bumpier than it used to be. There's fog. I can't see around the corner. There's wear and tear on the Old frame and it's time for a tune up. So, you know, on the sales side, we went to work with really trying to redefine what the definition of our ideal client partner is. I'm familiar with the sales side, but I'm not in it every day like my partner, Amber Buckner. So I'll spare you me trying to go into the nitty gritty details of that.

Brian Kirlik [00:32:57]:
But nevertheless, we know that our ideal partner faces the same sorts of challenges that we're facing today. And we want to create alignment with them to understand where the pain points are and how Kelika, as a recruiting organization with its finger on the pulse, can help them identify, navigate and confront the biggest challenges of our time, you know, with a degree of empathy, humbleness, humility, you know, all of those good things. So we rearranged and reorganized our BD team around those areas of specialization. We're recalibrating, you know, from a sales theory perspective. We've always been big on relationships, right, because we really believe, like probably a lot of you do, that credibility is everything in this business and if you don't have it, you're not going to earn it, the business. And so we're trying to find a better balance between building those relationships, developing the rapport, but also being perhaps a little bit more aggressive and assertive about the need to move the relationship forward. It's nice to have cups of coffee, it really is, you know, but after maybe a hundred, perhaps we need to move a little bit faster. And so this is all about helping our sales team understand and use their natural skills, right? They're great at relationships, they know how to close the business, but sometimes, you know, the target is uncertain.

Brian Kirlik [00:34:14]:
And so we're reimagining and re evaluating how we go about all of that stuff from a sales strategy perspective. I think the other part of it, if I could go down this path, is that overarching, all of that stuff is the notion of really servant leadership in a time of disruptive change in our own business, looking up at everybody on the monitor here. And I think that when you look at the folks in your organization and we hear stories about what it's like to be a recruiter when the times are tough, what it's like to be in business development when the nos outweigh the yeses by what, a hundred to one or something like that, we're trying to provide some vision, clarity and inspiration and most importantly, I think a sense of hope to the team, right, that yes, it's challenging. Yes, it's Difficult. We want to be empathetic and recognize that not every person handles change the same way. So this is about us trying to understand where this is going, where the needle is going. Be fearless in that pursuit of change, but at the same time, make sure that the team understands that while we're ready to throw the old playbook out and it needs a rewrite, we still have to find a way to lean on each other, motivate each other, and learn from each other. Coming back to, again, the fundamental principle of servant leadership, right? Empower, make everybody better around you.

Brian Kirlik [00:35:31]:
And so we're working through a lot of the decision points about, you know, technology and process and phone calls and interviews and how do we move quicker in a paradigm that has fundamentally changed. So all of those components are on the table. And I don't think there's a day go by where we don't deliberately look in the mirror and say, you know, what could we do different and what can we do better? And we think, we believe that iteration, if you're familiar with that concept, is the best path to transformation. Take a hundred little steps over 30, 40, 50 day period, you are going to be in a different position. So that's our approach. Take these big concepts, break them down into little digestible pieces so that every day we learn something and we get better.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:15]:
I love it, and thank you. It makes it much more attainable when they're smaller.

Brian Kirlik [00:36:19]:
It does, right.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:20]:
And it probably helps your retention in your organization when there are small bites instead of people feeling like July's the time to turn in the towel. So, Todd, give me your insights of kind of what you guys are doing differently to grow. What does that revenue look like? And then we actually have a question from the audience while we're talking on something, and then I'm going to get into AI.

Todd Dawson [00:36:40]:
Okay, Brian. Servant leadership, that's what it's all about, man. Recruiters are creatures of habit, right? And to change behavior and routine is like trying to turn the Titanic, okay? It takes time to do it, okay. Especially when you have a tenured team, you know, rookies, you plant seeds and it's different. But planting seeds in a field full of wheat already is a lot more challenging. And so I learned a long time ago that my responsibility when I came off of a desk was to listen to the recruiters when they were having a downtime, pick them up, dust them off, pat them on the bottom, and get them back in the game again, helping them recognize that they're not broken. Okay? So, you know, when you Have a tenured team like we do. We actually took a three pronged attack on how we were going to continue to grow.

Todd Dawson [00:37:30]:
Right. Your recruiters, if you take a look at your recruiters, oftentimes, you got a million dollar producer. They're a million dollar producer. They don't go to a million five and a million seven, a million eight. Right? They do a million. And you got your 500,000 people, and they do 500,000, you got your 300,000. I mean, they tend to get stuck in these ruts. And so what are they going to change in their behavior to increase the opportunity for more revenue for them and for the business.

Todd Dawson [00:37:51]:
Right. So what we have to realize is that we offer a lot more services than just executive search. We will offer to do assessments for them, we will offer compensation surveys for them, we bring consultative services about what's happening in their marketplace. Because most of these companies don't know what's going on except for their little competition. Right? And so we're able to drive additional revenue just by adding additional services that we present as a full array consultant. Not just, hey, we're going to be a solution to your opening, okay, And a solution to your company's growth. The second thing we do is we realize that we have an opportunity to grow. And my recruiters, they just stay where they're at.

Todd Dawson [00:38:35]:
Once in a while you have somebody take a big jump, but then they come right back to where they always are. Okay? And so, you know, what we've tried to figure out is, okay, we gotta leverage all the WorldBridge offices. We're not part of MRI anymore, thank goodness. Okay? You know, paying those people $200,000 a year and got nothing in return. Now, it's not like that any longer, so. But we do have additional partner offices that we can leverage. And what recruiters tend not to do is that they get in their veins. Let's say you're recruiting accountants and that's all they talk about is recruiting accountants.

Todd Dawson [00:39:08]:
Well, you know what, there's probably a sales opportunity, a marketing opportunity, product development opportunity. You know, there's other openings that they have and we get so stuck in our lanes that we forget that there's opportunities with other openings, even though that we might not handle it. We have another office that can do it, that creates another revenue opportunity. And then the one that we're right in the midst of right now is we've been at 11 recruiters and I got three empty desks and we've been sitting at 11 recruiters for the last three years. And all three years have been growth years. But doggone it, we're gonna hire. Okay, we're gonna hire. You know, like Jen talked about, I'm a good friend of Todd, as you know, and so I understand the challenges that you've been through over the last few years.

Todd Dawson [00:39:47]:
So that's Todd Govic. And we're gonna have to grow. And we can grow by acquisition or we can grow by granular. Well, what my experience has been by growing by acquisition with hiring other recruiters is that they don't fit my culture very well and they disrupt my office. And I hate that. I hate that the culture is so important. It sets the tone for every day, every week. And so we're going to utilize more services, we're going to use more IORs, as we said, inter office referrals with positions that are outside of our dig, our specialty.

Todd Dawson [00:40:20]:
And we're going to grow, we're going to add people. But they've got to perceive us as more than just headhunters and which I hate that term by the way. We're professional executive search consultants. We know more about these companies, industries and their competition than they do. Why would they ask us what the other company's paying if they already knew? They don't. We are the masters of disaster. We know what's going to happen before they do oftentimes. And Jen, I'll bet you you got people all the time that they know what's right when an employer doesn't know.

Todd Dawson [00:40:52]:
Right, right, of course. And so, but that's how we're going to move beyond. We've grown about 10 or 11% each the last three years. But now I'm looking for 25%, 35% growth. I mean, we're not going to go from 5 million to 8 million. That's not going to happen. But if I can go from 5 million to 5, 7 to 6 to 6, 2, you know, we can go that way. TD's a happy camper.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:17]:
I love it.

Jen Meyer [00:41:21]:
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Jen Meyer [00:41:57]:
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Kortney Harmon [00:42:25]:
Two questions. I'm going to go with the first one first because you. Todd, you mentioned something too about this. Mike gianta is here just in case you're curious.

Todd Dawson [00:42:32]:
Mikey.

Kortney Harmon [00:42:36]:
He said, did I hear you correctly? You went from 85 to 50 and you grew by 2 million. Amazing. Can you share more about that? Big fan, Mike.

Jen Meyer [00:42:48]:
No, Mike, I cannot. I'm just kidding. Yes, we went from 85 to about 50. And by the way, half of those are ops. We're about 50, 50 operations, 50 recruiters. So last year we had 18 recruiters. 15 of those were over 400,000 because that's our baseline pay setter level. So we only had three people that didn't qualify for that.

Jen Meyer [00:43:14]:
So it was pretty remarkable. I will say that I do think that the absolute 100% number one thing that I could pinpoint is that again, we just, we walked away from business and we said no, because recruiters, they think just because they have business on their desk that their desk is healthy, or they think that, well, I'm doing something, and they get very nervous when nothing is on their desk. And we keep saying as leaders, you know, having nothing is better than having bad job orders. Right? Like, it doesn't only take your time, but emotionally it can kill you. And so we just stayed strong on that. And we just walked. We walked away. We kept walking away.

Jen Meyer [00:44:01]:
Even when we had people that had nothing to work on, we walked away. And that left us open to bring on the good searches. And then the good searches started to come. I do think too, when people were down, we didn't beat them up. You know, I mean, it just happens. Everybody has cycles and it's silly to beat people up over it. You know, we got really in the weeds. Todd Govig, our owner, did.

Jen Meyer [00:44:27]:
Hadley, our president, did. I did. Like, we have a lot of resources at the top that are not billing managers, so we're not sponsored, splitting our time. I probably do a little bit more, you know, driving revenue because I just, I can't help myself. I can't stay away from it. But, you know, it just. We're not working desks. We're not in competition with our people for our time.

Jen Meyer [00:44:45]:
And so we're able to get in the weeds with them. You know, we locked in again, if everybody remembers closing rooms, like we just started doing it again. Right. Like we're two people. Closes on everything. And so we just had to shift our mindset and just be. Get back into the business and work on the business and in the business simultaneously.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:05]:
Great advice. Thank you for the clarifying. And I'm happy you guys got to say hi. There's another question. I don't know if you know Kurt Church. Kurt, hello. Nice to see you. Any thoughts on client diversification? We lost a large client, which forced the company to reframe the outlook for sales.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:22]:
Anybody want to take that?

Brian Kirlik [00:45:23]:
Might be a little bit outside my lane, but we had an experience going back maybe two and a half years ago where we took a phone call because of a networking relationship from a large pharmaceutical manufacturer Mid coast on the east side of the country, and asked us if we wanted to do business with them. Which was a nice phone call to get. Right? And of course, you don't often turn down that business. So we wound up working with this pharmaceutical manufacturer for about two and a half years in a greenfield development scenario where they were opening a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, nonprofit. So very noble goal. Not difficult to pitch that to candidates, right? And it was noble. So we helped them, you know, hired dozens of folks over extended period of time, helped them build their management and leadership ranks, operated basically as an early stage recruiting arm within the organization. So we were embedded in the operation and were networked throughout.

Brian Kirlik [00:46:17]:
Just about everybody who was making a decision. Great relationship, right? But like life, all good things come to an end. And we decided that the point had come for a clean separation to move on. And our board, if you want to think of it, physically went from being flush to maybe a third of its size. So there was a huge reset that we had to go through. And we really felt that diversification was really helpful to embrace that, you know, you can't be all things to all people. But we know what we're good at. We know that to Todd's point earlier, that we pride ourselves on being sort of white glove super service over communicative.

Brian Kirlik [00:46:56]:
We'll go to grant lengths to understand exactly who the candidate is, the value that they can bring to the organization. And so we bootstrapped, right? Picked up our boots and went to work and started hitting the streets, carving up our sales territories, thinking about business a little bit differently. You know, right now I'm going to reflect on a little bit of a list here. To give you some details because I don't have this burned in my head unfortunately. You know, life sciences and biotech, medical device, bio and medical engineering kind of sits right now as a bucket or a discipline within our sales group, Fintech and blockchain, cybersecurity and data protection. So we're attacking those markets as well. Health, tech, digital health, big components of the future. As healthcare grows and expands because of technology, who knows what AI does to that industry segment, right? If you look ahead two to six months, engineering and manufacturing is part of our portfolio.

Brian Kirlik [00:47:51]:
We will focus on SaaS and Cloud and DevOps. Government and defense oriented roles are a big part of our portfolio as well. We've got some really good relationships with some clients in the Raleigh area and they're part of our bread and butter. So as you can see, we're comfortable moving in and out of different areas of industry and business. But the common theme in all of this is you got to figure out how to make a difference. Right? You have to be able to communicate that. And I know that everybody understands that. But it's about representing yourself, positioning yourself as an expert, being able to go into these places and help them see things perhaps that they don't see because they're so close to the day to day operation.

Brian Kirlik [00:48:30]:
Give them some relief, give them some hope and solve their problems. So diversification, big part of what we do.

Kortney Harmon [00:48:36]:
I love it. Jen, Todd, anyone else want to chime in on that thought before I move on? Yeah.

Jen Meyer [00:48:41]:
No, I mean, I think we've all fallen to having a key client and realizing that that client goes away and it leaves you hanging. So I think with experience we spend a lot of time with what is your 60 day outlook look like, how much your business percentage is based on what client base. And we do a lot of key accounts and multiple businesses. But to Brian's point, all good things come to an end sometimes. Not that. So good things come to an end. So we do focus when we're talking to our account executives about just what is the overarching view of their business and how many clients are involved in that.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:17]:
Fair. I appreciate it.

Todd Dawson [00:49:18]:
I just have one thought. When you think of diversification, the person asking the question loses a big client. Okay. And there's always another client out there. But I think the way that you can look at this diversifying is if you got a client, they're doing something with somebody and they're getting something from somebody else. Let's take the auto industry. No, Ford has how many suppliers for different parts that they put into their cars. Ford has so many distributors out there that sell these vehicles.

Todd Dawson [00:49:45]:
And so we get stuck on Ford and we forget about all the people that supply parts or how about people that supply the materials for that company to build the parts? There's a lot of transferable skills. You know, at Ford, a guy that's running a plant in Ford can certainly run a plant that's building parts that he's responsible for in a vehicle. Right. That would be the way that I'd talk about diversification. You know, there's cousins and second cousins to specific companies. Take the insurance industry, for example. You have an employee benefits insurance company. Well, there's third party administrators, there's brokers, there's consultants, there's product development people, there's underwriters, there's actuaries, and you're only working in sales.

Todd Dawson [00:50:23]:
And there's probably 15 different titles that you can continue to work in that maybe that client doesn't need you in your vein, but there's other veins to pursue. And I think that it doesn't always have to be just exactly what you do, but there's somebody in a supporting company or an end result company that can be just as effective for your client and just as effective as being a new client.

Kortney Harmon [00:50:45]:
Such a great point. I want to dive into AI because that's what everybody wants to hear. Good, bad, or ugly. How are you using AI and analytics in your firms today? I'm going to toss it up like a softball and see if anybody wants to take it first. Don't all jump at once.

Todd Dawson [00:51:02]:
I'm the old timer, so you guys go first.

Brian Kirlik [00:51:06]:
AI. Oh my goodness. Where do you begin, Kortney? I think. Let me explain it from a personal perspective first because I think that might help bring context to what I might say. I'm not sure. I think the system is fundamentally busted, all of it. I think between candidates and companies, everybody is speaking to each other about the same problems, but not taking the time to listen to the fact that both sides are saying the same thing. Please help me.

Brian Kirlik [00:51:31]:
Right. Candidates believe that the hiring process is long and convoluted and frustrating. And companies and hiring managers saying, oh my goodness, my talent pipeline is soft. I can't find anybody to come to work for me. And so I think that from our perspective, we're trying to rewire our DNA at a thought level so that we can start to see AI for the potential. That it is probably not a novel concept, but we really believe that AI is where the power is going to come from in terms of being able to track down talent on demand in real time. But it ain't going to go anywhere without being human driven. And so we think that if we can find this equation that allows us to boldly and without fear implement AI, but maintain the fact that the human still needs to be driving the bus, that we stand a better chance of helping.

Brian Kirlik [00:52:24]:
And I think the role for us to play as experts here, right. Change doesn't happen overnight. And change doesn't happen because Brian Kurlich says change is happening. Change is going to happen when we convince a candidate and a company that there's a different way to do this. And that takes time, patience and leadership. But we have to start somewhere. And so we've been looking at the operation from the inside in terms of where can we not automate automation. We've done that.

Brian Kirlik [00:52:51]:
We got to figure out how to AI enable all of these tools so that we can work more quickly and come close to this concept that if you've done a little bit of research in the space, this notion that zero time to hire is a very tangible and real objective and it can be accomplished provided everybody's prepared to look at the challenge differently than they have in the past. So it's everywhere in our shop. To say that we're running fast and furious with AI at our backs would be the most glorious overstatement I could make. We've been using AI driven search capability with a third party partner since middle of last summer. That has been more of an R and D project than anything. I can't sit here and tell you that we've made a million dollars off the placements that Alex, as we call it, has created for us. But we've learned a lot. Just again, you know, for us, as Kortney can tell you, is our knowledge of Creelit has expanded dramatically over the last couple years and have really come to appreciate what it's doing for us right now.

Brian Kirlik [00:53:51]:
And so we've been able to connect this third party service to our configuration in the system at an API level. So we have this connectivity between a third party AI agent and the tools that we use every day. Alex can find a candidate online and say, hey, this person looks really good, Brian, what do you want to do with them? Hey, I'm going to approve that person. That person, because of the integration, gets dropped into our Creelit workflow and we get to work. Alex can message candidates, Alex can answer questions from candidates. So all of these things have been instrumental in helping us understand that there's nothing to fear here. But what we have to do and what we are learning to do is think about our business differently within the context of moving more quickly, with a higher degree of quality to address the most pressing needs that candidates have, which is get me in front of the hiring manager so that I can demonstrate my value and the hiring manager helping that individual with a robust pipeline of candidates and not having to wait two, three weeks for it. Does that make sense, Kortney?

Kortney Harmon [00:54:55]:
It makes complete sense. I understand that. I understand the value. You're saying a lot of the same things I even hear from the American Staffing Association. From that end, people were saying, do you remember when the Internet came about? Do you remember when LinkedIn was going to put recruiters out of a job? It's just another vehicle to get us where we need to go. But fortunately or unfortunately, it's on a treadmill that's set at 10 and we're either driving on the road or off road. So it's interesting just to hear perspectives. And there's so many new things.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:26]:
I mean, we talk generative AI. I've used that for two years straight and then now there's the whole AI agents. I'm like, o, how do I do that? It's like there's always something new and it's like, how do you be better? How do you implement into your process and how do you help that scale? Anybody else, Jen? Todd wants to go last.

Jen Meyer [00:55:44]:
Yeah, I think Todd doesn't want to go at all.

Todd Dawson [00:55:46]:
No, I. Go ahead, Jen.

Jen Meyer [00:55:48]:
You know, we use AI internally really from a perspective of just time and, you know, being able to do things faster, especially when you're working in the retained world, like we're very heavy administratively in regards to the support that we give. So it definitely, you know, when you think about like probably the two that we use the most would obviously be chatgpt and perplexity. And you know, when we think about my ability to just pop in a perspective from a company that's, you know, 4,500 pages and be like, here, give me a quick outline in regards to what the future is or where this company is and not have to sit there and look through it. I mean, I'm an outdoor recreation major, so I don't even know why I'm looking through this. I don't even know I have any idea what it says at all, but it can give me that fast, right? Like or write ups or just research quick. Just things are at your fingertips a lot faster that allow you to work smarter and faster. But at the end of the day. What AI will never be able to do for us is to align people, their feelings, their culture.

Jen Meyer [00:56:53]:
They won't have the human intuition that we get when we're on the phone and we're listening to tonality and those types of things. So I'm not ever feeling threatened by it, especially at the level to which we place. But we do feel that, like you said, on the bus or off the bus, it's going to pass you by if you don't embrace it just even a little bit. So you have got to embrace it. We are using. And it doesn't really necessarily go in the AI bucket, if you will, but we use a lot of transcription stuff. So we're capturing, especially on intake calls and that kind of thing. So we're capturing everything and then using that and just summarizing it on the AI function.

Jen Meyer [00:57:31]:
So again, it's multiple platforms that you're working with at any one time, but to be able to work faster, because we all only have so many hours in the day that we've definitely embraced as an organization. But I will say you still have to read it, right? Like, it's not these people that just, like, shove it out there and they just don't even look at it or wordsmith it or redline it or just. I mean, that's just stuck on stupid, right? Like, it just, like, you gotta do that.

Kortney Harmon [00:57:59]:
I say this all the time. Like, I live in a very small town in Ohio, middle of a cornfield, and I get, no joke, three emails a week saying, oh, my gosh, my parents met in your small town at this restaurant. That restaurant never existed. I love that you want to rely on AI to tell you that, but check your facts, right? And honestly, like, get better at your prompting, because you can get good enough at your prompting. It doesn't sound like AI. It gets your writing style. I'm a Claude fan. He's my favorite.

Kortney Harmon [00:58:28]:
And I can use projects with him so I can kind of give him insights, give him my back knowledge and the stance I have on things. And I love how it just iterates in all the pieces. Yeah, Todd, you want to go on this one?

Todd Dawson [00:58:40]:
Yeah, Jen, I agree with you a thousand percent. I'm going to disagree with you on one thing, but I'll give you some background. Speed to hire is what it's about, baby. Danny Cahill, how many times have you heard him talk, right? And he was talking about speed to hire a dozen years ago. And what AI allows us to do is to eliminate mundane tasks that the recruiter has to do on their desk that allows them to present deliverables very quickly. But you're right, you have to read it. And a session I listened to with three AI experts in Sacramento last August. Jen, I would totally agree with you that there's no way AI can understand the subtleties of what we catch as a human being.

Todd Dawson [00:59:16]:
And those three people who are all much smarter than me were saying, AI is learning so fast that, yes, they are. They're going to learn the subtleties. And I sat back in my chair saying, no, you're not going to do that. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. And I still don't believe it. But they assured me. And I actually confronted two of them at the meeting and said, you're telling me that that AI can distinguish better than my ear can about the emotion that's going into that statement? Said, yeah, it learns that fast.

Todd Dawson [00:59:45]:
Okay, well, I haven't seen it yet, but that's what the experts say. But I'm in your column, Jen, 100. They're not gonna get that. There's no way. You know what's our best friend? The phone. Right. What's our second best friend? Our ear. You hear things that the computer can't hear.

Todd Dawson [01:00:02]:
But those AI experts says it's going to replace you, pal. And I go, no, it's not. So we'll see what happens.

Jen Meyer [01:00:10]:
And maybe it will, but not in my lifetime. Like, I'll hopefully be on a beach drinking a Mai Tai by then. So I'm with you.

Todd Dawson [01:00:17]:
Let me know what beach you're on. I'll join you.

Kortney Harmon [01:00:19]:
I need an invite.

Jen Meyer [01:00:22]:
Hey, Brian, you can come along, too. Thanks.

Brian Kirlik [01:00:24]:
I like the beach as much as anybody.

Todd Dawson [01:00:26]:
I mean, looking outside at snow, beaches look real good right now.

Jen Meyer [01:00:30]:
Right?

Kortney Harmon [01:00:30]:
I love it. Well, I know one thing's for sure. We're all learning it's going to change. And I think anything. We just have to approach it with an open mind. What is the value? How do we change? How do we implement it to help us with that speed to hire? Because that's what matters. And it goes back to what Brian was saying. What's the root cause of what they're really saying and how do we really get to them? So I think there is much to be desired in AI, but there's also much to be learned.

Kortney Harmon [01:00:59]:
I think we'll probably have the same conversation in a year and it's going to change drastically. I can promise you I will have no robots in my house. There's that. So we're talking like crazy. I want to focus on the growth in efficiencies within operations. I just kind of want to get your gut feel on this. What do you think are some early indicators that you found to predict sustainable growth? How do those help shape your decisions? Is that easy? Oh, that's easy. All right, Todd, you're first on this one.

Kortney Harmon [01:01:28]:
Let's hear it.

Todd Dawson [01:01:29]:
Ratios. We monitor ratios. We know what our send out to placement ratio is. We know what our job order send out placement is. We know how many hours it takes to get a viable candidate. We know how many submissions it takes to an employer to get an active interview. We have all of those ratios. And when we monitor our metrics every single week, okay, Collectively.

Todd Dawson [01:01:51]:
And we know our metrics don't change. They haven't changed in the last decade, okay? So we know that if the metrics are out of whack for one of our recruiters, then it allows us to dissect what they're doing or not doing properly. For example, someone's making, let's say, 90 phone calls a week, and they're only talking to 10 people all week long, two a day. Something's wrong with their voicemail. Okay? I mean, that's just one simple example. You know, if we know that they're all of a sudden that they're submitting 10 candidates for one interview, well, one of two things is wrong. They're not qualifying the job order very well with the hiring authority or they're not qualifying the candidate very well. Jen knows this.

Todd Dawson [01:02:35]:
I'm a monster for metrics. And it's amazing to me how many offices that I have visited through the course of my career as a mentor that don't track metrics at all. I can't understand. The metrics are the roadmap for success. Let's say that we got someone like Marcus in the legal side. His send out, the place ratio is 2 to 1. Okay? I don't know a recruiter on the planet that wouldn't trade places with that. But if I know that if all of a sudden he goes through a quarter and it's five to one, then, Marcus, you got to start taking a better job order, understanding exactly what you're looking for because you're missing the boat.

Todd Dawson [01:03:06]:
And that works for all of our recruiters across all of our 20, 25 or 6 disciplines. It's all about ratios. I mean, if you know what your bedrock is. Jen, you guys have been open. I mean, you're second generation owner with Todd, right? You know what Your ratios are. And if they vary from there, it's easy to. To backtrack and dissect what the recruiter is not, is or is not doing. Well, to me, that's an easy thing to monitor and watch.

Kortney Harmon [01:03:31]:
I love that that was your first response because that tells us so much and to be able to help them succeed. I'm going to recall a conversation that Jen had the last time we were here. First thing you need to do is get permission from them to hold them accountable to those things. And Jen, that is a clip that we use all the time. And actually Mike Gianta talked about that today. Understand their motivators to hold them accountable. And it's not the micromanager, but it is. You want to achieve this, I will help you get there.

Kortney Harmon [01:03:58]:
And these are the things you need to do. So I love that. Anyone else? Jen, you want to chime in on that? Brian? Anything. Think about predictable indicators for growth.

Jen Meyer [01:04:09]:
I think Todd's dead on and I think we got away from it for a while, not even realizing we got away from it because we were so focused on results. The results were there in a high market, right? Like, so you just don't dig into them as deeply and then they bite you. So we've gotten back to what got us here in the first place, which was that. And Kortney, you talk about micro and that's the one thing I'll say is that people come into the business and they say, I don't want to be micromanaged. I don't even know what that means. But frankly, because at the end of the day, you look at all of the pro athletes, everybody, they all have a coach, right? They all have a coach that holds them accountable. I to this day cannot go to the gym and not have a trainer because I'm the first one that it says do a rep a 10 and I'm like, it's okay. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I need somebody there going do it and do it.

Jen Meyer [01:04:57]:
Get tired first and then we'll deal with it. And so people that don't want that when we're interviewing them, I'm not interested because I don't have the time to be aggravated with wanting it more than them or fighting them on it. When I look at again, I. It's a thing I use a lot. But like, you don't cheat off the dumb kid, right? Like you go to the person that's doing it well and you say, I want to do that. So I ditta to Todd and we're under the same. Completely the same notion.

Brian Kirlik [01:05:26]:
Yeah, we see the same thing. Our KPIs probably aren't profoundly different than anybody else's. Right. We're tracking raw activity in the system. Phone calls, email messages, text messages, job board messages, pre screens, long form interviews, submittals, submittals to our account executives, submittals to our clients. And at the end of the day, we know today where the business is going to be in four to six months. They're indicators of whether we're going to be on track, behind or ahead. It's just a regular part of what we do.

Brian Kirlik [01:06:00]:
I mean, I look at them all the time. Then there's really good stories to tell. I think like Todd, we look for ratios, we look for narratives, we look for patterns. Sometimes it is about the habits of the team or a particular recruiter. Sometimes it's environmental. It might be related to the type of job that they're on. All of those factors come into play. And so like everybody's saying nobody needs a micromanager, especially when you're swimming upstream, right? So we try to find a balance between accountability and nurturing.

Brian Kirlik [01:06:32]:
And while crack the whip as well as anybody, we do take the time to try to understand what the environment is and what we can do, who we can lean on within the organization to provide a lift where it's necessary to overcome whatever obstacle it is. It might be tactical, it might be between the ears, whatever it is, we just make sure that throughout the week we're looking at the metrics, but we're also paying attention to the human as well, trying to understand what the impact of all of this is on them and how we can proactively motivate them to make whatever changes are necessary to try to produce a different result.

Kortney Harmon [01:07:07]:
And I think that's such a good ambition for those recruiters that you are having join your teams to say this is what the blueprint looks like, to be the next tier, to make the next set of money. It is very clear cut. And I'm with you. I'm surprised and amazed that there are so many offices that don't measure these things, that don't have the ratios. We see it from our side of all these people that bring in data to create and they're like, I can't lose all of this stuff. Well, what are you doing with it? I don't know, I might need it someday. I officially am cut from their cloth with MRI and all the things, but I love that. Thank you.

Kortney Harmon [01:07:39]:
And Jen, I always talk about, I love being critiqued it's my type A personality. It's amazing. But Tom Brady has a coach. Someone has a different lens of focus that's riding his butt to do better. We all need that.

Jen Meyer [01:07:50]:
And I think one of the things that owners don't ask when they're recruiters, and recruiters don't ask themselves. Getting into the business, it's not only even about accountability and do I have permission to hold you accountable to it? But if you're not doing it, if you're not doing what we had set out to and committed to do, like, what are you willing to sacrifice? Because we've all had to make sacrifices at some point in our life. And it's. Again, it's not that you want to sit in that seat long term, but, I mean, there's certainly times when the business, your need for the business, you need to lean in harder and you need to work longer hours and you need to do these things. And then there's times where you can lean out and have be with your family. You know, it's that harmony. Like when your business needs you, be there. If your family needs you, be there, wherever it is, be there and be present.

Jen Meyer [01:08:35]:
But there are sacrifices that have to be made. And what are you willing to sacrifice when times get tough?

Todd Dawson [01:08:40]:
I know Tom Ryan. He's the Ohio State wrestling coach. He wrote a book called Chosen Suffering. It's a book about the price that you're willing to pay to become elite. And it's a wonderful story. It's not a really long book. It's his story about his personal journey and that type of thing. But I actually wrote him a letter and there was many excerpts out of his book that we apply here every day.

Todd Dawson [01:09:02]:
And so I get a call from him one day saying, hey, Todd's coach. He responded to my letter. It was exactly what you're saying. He says, you know, what are you prepared to do to be successful? And in his case, it was chosen suffering. And there's some. I won't bore you with the stories that he tells about it, but he went through the crucible when he transferred from Syracuse to the University of Iowa to be on a wrestling team. And he got a rude awakening from the Olympic champion, Coach Gable there. What is your why? Right.

Todd Dawson [01:09:32]:
Why you get kicked in the shins 200 times and keep coming back for more. Why?

Jen Meyer [01:09:37]:
Yeah, I love it.

Kortney Harmon [01:09:38]:
I love that we could talk about that topic the rest of the time. I only have less than 10 minutes. Well, 10ish minutes. I'm going to ask you just as A general, very less thought provoking question, but what are you looking forward to in 2025 when it comes to execs research, what you're doing, what makes you excited about this industry right here, right now?

Brian Kirlik [01:09:57]:
Psychometric based hiring.

Kortney Harmon [01:09:59]:
Give me more. You can't just say that and not give me more. I need more. Brian.

Brian Kirlik [01:10:04]:
The idea that retention is a big part of our value proposition, right? It's not just about putting somebody in a seat and saying, hey, good luck, right? It's about truly understanding the DNA level, work related habits that these individuals have and helping clients understand that that data, that insight, is the key to unlocking what I think is a new level of fulfillment for an employee, which translates into guess what for the client, unmatched performance and retention. So they're not burning through person after person in search of the right match. We're using data and science as a predictable element to determine the right fit for not just the culture and fitting in, but how do they add value to the organization. I was talking to somebody earlier today about a Scrum master that my organization hired back in the media days. Right. And a Scrum master, we all know what that is, right? Kind of nuts and bolts. Help a team get more productive. Well, unknown to us was the capability that this person had inherent in who they were.

Brian Kirlik [01:11:12]:
This individual came in, learned the job, knocked the ball out of the park for the team, and then guess what, at the same time started to introduce value and ideas that not just elevated the people closest to her, but the entire department. And thinking back at that, my guess is if I could psychometrically assess that individual today with the tools I know exist, I would absolutely see in who she is and what she's capable of, that that behavior was lurking in that person's ability. And that's the kind of ticket that I want to unlock our value for our client and the candidate to create that more ideal match so that both sides of this look at us and say, how did you do that? Oh, you know, little bit of luck and a little bit of skill.

Kortney Harmon [01:11:56]:
We won't tell you the secret tool.

Brian Kirlik [01:11:57]:
Not yet.

Kortney Harmon [01:11:58]:
I love it. That is amazing. I already know kind of what I scale on most of those, but honestly, it's been great to understand that and the jobs that I've had and the people that I work with. So I love that. I think that's a good perspective and it really changes maybe how you guys are approaching 20, 25. That's great.

Brian Kirlik [01:12:14]:
Absolutely.

Jen Meyer [01:12:15]:
I'm going to think about it from more of an internal Factor, I think, I mean, I've always loved the psychology behind our business and not the human trafficking side of selling people to companies. But I get very excited about the opportunity to bring more people into this business and provide a platform that will allow them to have and afford a lifestyle that it's afforded me. And that is very exciting to me and to kind of see, you know, I think I'm finally like teetering. I always felt like I was like one of the youngest in, in the top 10 of the business. And I'm no longer that. I mean, I'm 50 now, so it's, that's just not happening. But I feel like it's like the next generation is coming in and to be able to give them the platform to have this industry to continue to make such an impact on people and companies and all of that is really, really exciting for me. And then to watch the people that we have, especially those five that are reporting to me now, watch them reinvent themselves after 20 years in the business and being $1.52 million producers and the openness to try new things and watching them light up again and get excited about it, the business again and not just be a robot in, in motion.

Jen Meyer [01:13:33]:
So maybe that's a little selfish in the sense that, that, so it gets me excited, but it also, there's, there's an impact on others that then the, it's a domino effect.

Kortney Harmon [01:13:43]:
I love it. I think that's great. And I think that's the most exciting piece of anything is giving back. To watch others evolve and change and change the business and what their ideas are. It's, it's just a fresh perspective and it, it's get. It's very exciting.

Todd Dawson [01:13:56]:
Mine's much more personal. I don't think about the industry as much as I think about our people. My book is titled It's Not about us. Okay. And it's 65 lessons of how to Become a Grown Up Executive Search consultant. Okay. So we're in the midst of a third generation ownership here. Third generation, okay.

Todd Dawson [01:14:18]:
The chances of success as generations progress through businesses diminish dramatically after the first to the second to the third and so on. And so we've got a number of people that have reached heights and they've made more money than anyone else in their entire family has ever made. Knowing watching them go through the crucible and the challenges that they had and the doubt and the regret and should I go back to my old job and looking at want ads and oh my God, my wife's going to kill me. And I can't believe I'm doing this. And then to have them finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I got a guy that just came in today, and he says, you know, he's built 130,000 this month, right? And he said, I bought my wife a purse. She. She didn't think I could do this, and I bought her a nice gift.

Todd Dawson [01:15:04]:
I get such a bang out of watching our people succeed. And to take it a step further and if you just oblige. I got two guys, both of them dads. One's my son, another one of my guys, and they're in the fifth year of transition of leadership. And to watch those two mature and learn how to handle the business and run a desk and run a team and run the operations, they never came in here and asked me, what do you do all day long? Now they know what I did all day long, okay? And so now my focus is different, but I look at both of those guys. I love them. I look at both of them as my sons. Okay? Just had lunch with them today and just checking in with them to see how things are going.

Todd Dawson [01:15:48]:
And I know how they're going, but I want to hear it from them and to watch them grow professionally and mature in their leadership and their ideas about culture and how they can grow the business and their vision for the future. I smile on the inside all the time. People say, what's it like to work with your son? And I say, well, I got two sons, really, that are in the business, and to watch them grow professionally is the ultimate satisfaction. I know that the business is going to be in good hands. I'm hoping that one of my grandsons decide to get in the business, too, and make it a fourth generation. We're not in this for just our career. We're in this for a lifetime. Generational lifetimes.

Todd Dawson [01:16:31]:
Henry Ford and all these people that, you know, these Rockefellers and all these people, you know, they were thinking about businesses, how they were going to last 100, 150, 200 years, that's what I'm excited about. And I know that the two guys, when I'm long pushing up daisies, these guys are going to be pushing forward. And I get just the biggest kick out of that. I go to bed every night thanking my lucky stars that I got these two men that are leading. They're great Christian men. They got great kids. They interact with each other well. There's no tension.

Todd Dawson [01:16:59]:
There's no backstabbing. They're in this together and they're forging on with the culture. Man, that's life doesn't get any better for me professionally than this.

Kortney Harmon [01:17:09]:
What proud parent moments. This is great. Even though they're not our kids or the idea and maybe some cases, Todd, it might be but it's just wonderful to see the next generation grow, succeed. I love that. That warms my heart. And this is why we got into the business in the first place, to help people and that's it's just different from the stage of life that we're that you're in today. So I love that. Thank you all.

Kortney Harmon [01:17:34]:
Brian, Jen, Todd, out of taking time out of your busy day to be with me and talk to me for an hour, I'm going to leave. If you have other questions and you will say, you know what, I don't want to ask it here, you can shoot me an email. It's k harmoncreate.com and we can send it to the panel. I can get a different perspective offline for you. Otherwise we're also going to follow up with a survey. We'd love your thoughts. What you liked best, what you want to change. We want to continue to have more discussions like these.

Kortney Harmon [01:18:02]:
We're going to have a more in depth probably I didn't put this out to the public yet, but more in depth AI panel conversation about what's next in AI probably come May. So stay tuned for that. But thank you guys so much. Your guys insights and the drive that you guys have and the successful offices you're a part of. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your insight. Thanks for tuning in to the full desk experience specifically focused on the executive search industry over the next few weeks. Tune in next week as we talk to the next industry veteran that you're going to learn the best tips from. Have a great day.

Kortney Harmon [01:18:38]:
See you next time.