The Full Desk Experience

Mark Whitby [00:00:00]:
It's all about mindset, Kortney. I'd say mindset is 60%, strategy is 30%, and 10% is like the specific tactics and techniques. But ultimately it all has to be put into action. And so the people who double and triple their billings are the ones who take action and don't just learn and talk about theoretically what they're going to do. They just dive in and. And do it. And so everyone I've interviewed on the podcast who has achieved remarkable success, they have a really strong mindset where they're able to turn adversity into opportunity.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:39]:
Hi, I'm Kortney Harmon, director of industry relations at Crelate. This is the Industry Spotlight, a series of the Full desk experience, a Crelate original podcast. In this series, we will talk with top leaders and influencers who are shaping the talent industry, shining a light on popular trends, the latest news, and the stories that laid the groundwork for their success. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience Industry Spotlight. Welcome to the Full Desk Experience. I'm Kortney Harmon, and today we're diving deep in with Mark Whitby. He's a recruitment coach, one of my favorite podcast hosts that I listen to frequently. Industry transformation expert who has helped countless recruitment businesses break through their growth barriers.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:28]:
Mark's journey has really been phenomenal, and I'm so excited to share that with you and get his insights of what he's not only heard and seen with boots on the ground, helping so many in our industry succeed. So get ready for an unfiltered conversation about scaling strategy and success overall. Mark, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mark Whitby [00:01:47]:
Kortney, thank you. This is an honor to be here. You've had so many amazing people on this show, so, yeah, it's. It's my pleasure. And so many of our clients are creight customers, so I'm excited to be able to get involved with this.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:05]:
I love it. So I'm sure there's very few people that don't know about you and your organization, but for those who don't know, tell us a little bit more about you, your journey, how you got into this industry, and more about your consulting company.

Mark Whitby [00:02:17]:
Sure, absolutely. So as you can tell, tell from my accent, I am from your side of the pond. I'm from Canada originally, but my whole recruiting career has been over here in the uk. So I live in Scotland, just outside, outside Edinburgh. My wife is Scottish and I followed her across and fell into recruiting. Didn't have any idea what it was about. I knew I wanted to do something, you know, sales Related and ended up in recruiting. But, Kortney, I wasn't very good at it and I was working really hard.

Mark Whitby [00:02:48]:
I was super enthusiastic. I was like, so I had. I was so hungry. Like, I wanted to prove myself and I would like, break through walls to be successful. But in spite of all that enthusiasm, my results were average and I'm quite competitive. And I wasn't satisfied with that. So I was about halfway down the leaderboard. So I was doing well enough to keep my job, but I was not doing well enough to like, be really recognized and feel like I was in the, you know, in the top set.

Mark Whitby [00:03:16]:
And so I end up hiring a coach. And this is way back in the late 90s, sort of around 2000, Kortney. And the idea of having a coach back then wasn't kind of as mainstream. So I kept it a secret. I didn't actually tell anyone. I knew they would make fun of me. Right. I just didn't want the grief and the banter that I would have gotten like, oh, Mark needs a coach and all this kind of stuff.

Mark Whitby [00:03:38]:
Right. So I hired this guy who was phenomenal, Kortney. His name was Ravi Tangri, and he helped me double my billings in 90 days. And I moved up. I was like the number one in my team for production. I was in the top 15% of the business. I became the number two person out of 200 fearners at winning retained assignments. So getting paid because we were a contingency shop, right.

Mark Whitby [00:04:04]:
And so most of what we did was contingency. But I started doing a lot more retained work and my career really took off from there. And that experience with a coach was literally life changing. And it sounds corny, but like, that really had such a huge impact on me that it sort of planted the seed for me to think, I wonder if one day I might be able to be a coach and help other people to experience that same transformation in their recruiting career and their business. And that's what I ended up doing. And that was 23 years ago that I've been a coach.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:36]:
I love it. The best athletes, the best business people, the best. Everybody needs another line of sight and another vision from the outside in. So I love that. I've been an athlete all my life. I only got better from someone else telling me a different perspective. So I love that. And training is near and dear to my heart.

Mark Whitby [00:04:54]:
Just as an aside, what sport were you?

Kortney Harmon [00:04:57]:
I played college softball. So I was a Division 1 pitcher. And there was obviously a lot of tweaking, a lot of analytics to figure out your on Base percentage to figure out what I was doing wrong, to figure out why on an O2 count, you know what was happening. So that has always been. I'm like you. I am competitive as all get out. So I got into recruiting accidentally as well. But I was like, okay, I'm going to go train and help this system.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:25]:
And then I'm like, you can make money at this. And I was like you. I'm like, you want to. You want to play tiddlywinks? I will beat you at tiddly winks. Like, whatever it is, I'm like, I'm game. So that is amazing. And I think those are the people that really drive in this industry and it's fun to see them grow. And I'm sure your journey was amazing whenever you're running a desk.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:44]:
And I'm sure it's just as exciting to see other people succeed as well. Okay, Mark, 2024 was an interesting year. Like, I heard a lot of conversations of recruitment offices survive till 25. Right? That was kind of one of the themes that, you know, you heard. But talk to me about the idea of recruitment offices. It was a rough year in 2024. They're looking to scale, they're looking to grow. They're looking to make up the lost traction that they had in 2024.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:10]:
So talk to me about what advice you would give them or what advice you're giving your clients today to make 2025 that year to make up what. What they might have lost last year.

Mark Whitby [00:06:20]:
Yeah, it's interesting, Kortney, because you're right. I do think it was sector specific. Cause some firms still did great last year. But I understand for a lot of recruiters, it was a down year and in some cases it was extremely rough. So, you know, huge empathy to people who had that experience last year. The advice really has not changed. The things that recruiters and recruiting firm owners need to be focused on and thinking about are the exact same. What is interesting, though, is 2122.

Mark Whitby [00:06:54]:
Let's go back to like the explosion of our industry post Covid and how people, a lot of people had their best year ever. And during that time, we had some clients who were so busy that they were completely focused on delivery and they completely switched off the tap as far as business development and marketing. And I was saying to them, guys, please, please just listen to me. I've been through a couple of recessions and this is not going to last and the market's going to flip and we're going to go more client focused again. Right. Client driven market. So even though you're really super busy and it feels like you don't want to take time away from filling jobs, you must implement the marketing strategies that we're talking about and give at least an hour a day to business development and doing outbound, you know, getting in front of new clients. And fortunately a lot of people were on board with that and they were able to put systems, processes and strategies in place that were going to build a predictable pipeline and position them as like a credible, trusted advisor in their space.

Mark Whitby [00:08:14]:
But I'm sad to say not everyone did. And some people didn't follow that advice and they absolutely were destroyed in 20, 23, 24. And I feel this is a mistake that recruiters often fall prey to. So the advice, Kortney, to where do we go from here? How do you like, scale your firm and make sure you maximize your billings is that we need to allocate time and energy to every area of your business, not just recruiting. Right. And so we teach a framework called the Recruitment Freedom Flywheel. And there are six pillars of a sustainable seven plus figure recruitment business. And so those six pillars are clients, candidates, team operations, strategy, and marketing.

Mark Whitby [00:09:09]:
Okay. So all the different types of activities that you do as a recruiting business owner or leader fall into one of those six buckets. Right. And the problem is that we all tend to have areas that we favor that we're naturally inclined to. And for a lot of us, it's recruiting. And so that's kind of where we like spending the most time. Other people, it's sales and business development, which is great. And some are more like they love the operations and the kind of behind the scenes stuff.

Mark Whitby [00:09:42]:
And the reality is that we need to have a business that is robust in all of those areas. And so we actually developed a scorecard where people can, it's like a diagnostic so people can evaluate how strong they are in each of those areas and then it gives them specific recommendations that are tailored to them on what actions they could take in order to improve in those other areas. But the advice is make sure that you're not focused just on delivery to existing clients. You need to have outbound business development, you need to have inbound marketing, you need to have a team behind you, a support system, and whether that is full time employees locally in your office, whether it's, you have a remote setup in country or whether you leverage global talent pools, you need to have those team members in place because nobody's great at everything. Right. And also from a time point of view, there's only so many hours in the day. And this is another huge mistake I see recruiting firm owners make is they bottleneck growth because they're trying to do everything themselves or they're trying to do too much themselves. So you need to have that team in place.

Mark Whitby [00:10:55]:
You need to also think strategically and take time stepping back and working on the business, not just running on that hamster wheel. And we need to have the systems, the processes, the operational things in place as well. So that's probably a longer answer than you were expecting, but it doesn't really matter. Whether you're in a down market, an up market, a client driven market, a can driven market, those things are the same. And if we put those things in place, then you're going to do great no matter what.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:24]:
I love that. I've seen the same. One of my favorite coaches that I used to work with used to always say the concept of a call block a day, depending on what side of the business you're on or when you're lacking, keeps poverty away. So whenever you talk about business development, it was always funny to me, but it's true. We oftentimes flock to the things that we're good at or that we want to do and we forget or put those on the back burner to think they're not important. But I think that's, that's where you're at. So I love that. I think that's great advice.

Mark Whitby [00:11:52]:
Kortney, can I just give you one more specific example? Because we have a client, Roger, who's a UK based tech recruiter. Now tech is one of those sectors that really got hammered last year, right? And it was a rough ride with layoffs and various things. Maybe, you know, less investment or people like waiting to see what was going to happen. And he had his best ever year. And I asked him, Roger, like, how did you do that? Like, what are you, what are you doing? And he was like, well, I do an hour of business development every day. But also I've just. It's the cumulative effect of multiple strategies and systems he's put in place. So for example, he's leveraging automation for his outbound, so including LinkedIn email campaigns.

Mark Whitby [00:12:39]:
Plus he's still on the phone making outbound calls. So he's got a really robust outbound system and he just does it every day, no matter what. Even if he's got lots of jobs, he keeps that business development machine running. But number two, he's also focusing on building his brand. So he's posting regularly on LinkedIn and he gets inbound job orders from his LinkedIn posting as well. Not enough to live on. You still have to do the outbound. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:13:04]:
But it's great for his credibility and his brand. He's developed a salary survey that has given him a lot of traction in his marketplace. He's hired a virtual assistant. He's a solo producer, like home based, really kind of micro business. But he's got a VA that helps him with a lot of the automation and the admin and all that stuff. So it's not one thing. And people always want a silver bullet, like just tell me the one tool or the one tactic or the one technique that is going to help me double my bills feelings and it doesn't exist. It's like you stack a number of things and that's what really gets you to that next level.

Kortney Harmon [00:13:38]:
I love that and I love hearing that there was success in that down market. So good for Roger. Great job. Roger, you had mentioned you've been through some recessions and I think at some point in time and reading through all your stuff that many offices can probably relate over the past two years they've, they've had maybe some downtime. I think in your details. I read you talked about the recession of 2008.

Mark Whitby [00:14:05]:
Yeah, talk to me about that. Horrible, Kortney, horrible. Like I hadn't really experienced anything like that in my career so far, so just wasn't prepared for it. I hadn't been like a lot of the stuff that I teach now, what we've just been talking about, I wasn't doing that right. And I was relying on repeat business and referrals. That's where all my business came from. And I was kind of coasting. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:14:33]:
And I'm sure there's people listening who can relate to this. Like you're doing well and you're kind of just like coasting on that success based on the hard work you've put in in the past and stop doing as much proactive business development, marketing, you know, making sure I've got systems and processes in place. So that just completely blindsided me that recession. In 08, I lost like 80% of my revenue instantly. Like within a month, my billings dropped by 80%. I had one good client that kept like paid the mortgage and thank goodness for Amoria Bond. If you're listening, that's the company that I was doing a lot of work with. But aside from that, I was like, well, first I went through like a grieving process where I like buried my head in the sand and I was just like, in denial that, like, oh, it's going to turn around.

Mark Whitby [00:15:23]:
It's going to be fine. And of course it wasn't. It took a long time to come back. And then when I finally woke up and smelled the coffee and realized, like, I had two kids and my wife was pregnant with number three, and I was freaking out, Kortney. I was absolutely freaking out and terrified. And so eventually I flipped from, like, feeling helpless to getting into action. I took way too long to make that transition, unfortunately. Meanwhile, the debt is, like, racking up because I'm living on credit cards, basically.

Mark Whitby [00:15:55]:
And when I finally got refocused on action, that's when I realized that I needed to double down on digital marketing, on business development, and I needed support, like, so that I could focus on what I do best. And, you know, I couldn't do everything myself. And so that's when I really learned everything that I now teach, right, about building a brand and leveraging email marketing and, you know, putting content out there. And so all of the. All of that, I was applying myself because the stuff I was teaching recruiters was super old school. I was teaching, like, how do you make a cold call? How do you overcome objections? How do you negotiate your fees? How do you switch from contingent to retain? Like, how do you manage a sales team? So those were the things that I had. That was my bread and butter, the stuff I was training people to do. But in my own practice, I was really embracing digital marketing and going all in on that.

Mark Whitby [00:16:54]:
And what happened, Kortney, is my clients started saying, hey, Mark, I really like what you're doing on the marketing side. Can you help us to do that? And I was like, well, I don't really know. Like, I don't feel like I'm an expert on that, but let's see. Like, let's see what happens. And so I started getting more and more involved in coaching recruiters on that. But that whole journey, Kortney, was, like, so horrible. But it was the best thing that could have happened. And I find that when you get these shocks, right? And that's why my podcast is called the Resilient Recruiter.

Mark Whitby [00:17:23]:
It's not specifically about me, but it's about our listeners. They're the resilient recruiters, right? Because these shocks to your business, they actually force you to grow and to improve and adapt and embrace new technology, try new things. And because when the business came back, I was actually way stronger than I had been when I was coasting before. So my business got to another level. Same thing happened in Covid. Like, that Was like, fortunately, that was a short, you know, shock. It didn't last very long, but again, it was a wake up call, right? Oh, my goodness. Like, I, I need to make my business even better.

Mark Whitby [00:18:01]:
So I feel like every time I have a setback like that, even though it's not fun and it can be super painful, you know, if you have the right mindset and it forces you to get better and adapt. And so my business has just gotten better and better through those different challenges.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:18]:
I love it. Well, I love the resiliency, obviously, the resilient recruiter. I think that's amazing. I listen quite a bit. We'll put the link to your podcast in our show notes as well as. So, absolutely, you talk about breaking down those muscles to make them stronger. Let's talk about a roadblock. So what is the most common roadblock you see preventing offices from scaling their business? Because scale's a big word.

Kortney Harmon [00:18:42]:
I've heard it a bunch already in 2025, what's the biggest roadblock you see with those offices scaling?

Mark Whitby [00:18:47]:
Okay, well, it's different roadblocks at different stages in scaling. Maybe I'll just break it down a little more. Because people use the word scaling to mean totally different things, right? So a lot of the clients we work with are literally solopreneurs, one man bands, right? So their idea of scale, when they say scale, it means they want to scale revenue or billings. That's they want to make more money, right? So they say scaling, but they're not imagining building a big office. Whereas then we have the group who, they want a team, but they want a kind of small, lean, mean operation, like high profit, low maintenance. But they have embraced the fact that they can't do it themselves and they need a small team around them. And so they might have like two to five employees, right? But then you also have the real entrepreneurs who want to build. They want to like build a business that runs without them and that they could exit.

Mark Whitby [00:19:41]:
Right? And they are looking to build, really build teams, maybe have multiple offices, maybe even multiple countries, different practice areas. So when I think scale, that's what I'm thinking about is that category. But so the roadblock of going from a solo producer to a high performing, like going from sort of six to seven figures in billings, but without hiring a big team. The main block is that you're on the hamster wheel doing everything yourself. And you need to embrace technology to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you as well as getting support. And it can be for a lot of Our clients. That first hire is a remote assistant, right. Someone who might live in another country where they have a different cost of living structure and you can, even if you're a one woman or one man band, you can afford to hire a really talented, hardworking person to work alongside you.

Mark Whitby [00:20:40]:
So it's technology and it's virtual assistants is like the first step because the main block is time. I do not have enough time. I'm doing everything myself. I'm already working as hard as I can. I literally can't. How do I make more money when I'm already working as hard as I can? Right. So that's the first block. Then the next phase is of that growth is okay, now I've got, you know, a good revenue stream.

Mark Whitby [00:21:06]:
I've got some, you know, automations in place. I'm leveraging technology, maybe I've migrated to crelate and I'm making full use of that platform. What's next? So next is okay, I need to have more of a team around me. And that next step is difficult because this is the role of the billing manager. Right. And that's the toughest job in recruiting because you have to still be the primary fear earner in your business. But at the same time you're looking to hire billers in your business. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:21:41]:
To also generate revenue. And we coach a lot of business owners through that transition. It is tough, Kortney. It's really tough. The irony is that we can work with some outstanding recruiters who are great at filling jobs for their clients, but they suck at recruiting for themselves. And then also billers don't always make the most patient and nurturing mentor like managers. And so that's a different skill set is you have to realize, okay, if I want to grow beyond just myself, guess what, your job description has just changed. Now I need to be a coach, I need to be an internal recruiter and I need to be a leader.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:19]:
Right.

Mark Whitby [00:22:19]:
If you're a one man business, you can have immature leadership skills, right. And you can still do very well because your clients and your, your candidates adore you. But so it's developing that leadership and that coaching skill, that's the, the kind of next block. If that makes sense.

Kortney Harmon [00:22:35]:
Yeah.

Mark Whitby [00:22:36]:
Are you with me so far?

Kortney Harmon [00:22:37]:
I'm with you. I'm following 100%.

Mark Whitby [00:22:39]:
All right, so then the final push that if you decide, okay, so you really want to scale and build a business that truly runs without you, the next blocker is systems process sops because it's the operational side of the business, because if your business is kind of held together with duct tape and you're still going to bottleneck, you're still not going to be able to hire onboard, train and manage people and then have managers in your business. You're managing managers and to. So the challenge is twofold at that stage is systems and process and it's also developing that next tier of leadership within your business so that you're not. Because a lot of people, when they're small businesses, it's a very flat structure. It's like everybody reports to me. I'm the principal managing consultant or whatever. Your job title is managing director and everyone reports to you, but that's not scalable. So then you need to develop those future leaders within your business.

Kortney Harmon [00:23:42]:
Do you do training on that third portion of. Do you work with them on systems? I know I've seen the same thing. As they grow, it's like they, they want to be able to have a repeatable process. But so do you work with them to get heavily in those processes, to create those processes?

Mark Whitby [00:23:59]:
Yes, absolutely. So it's for each of those six pillars, including operations, including team, we have a playbook and we've got the specific strategies and things they need to implement in order to develop in that area. And Kortney, I need to give credit where credit's due. Nobody knows everything about recruiting, right. And two things that I think have been the making of me. One is the podcast. So getting to interview like over the. Well, over the last 20 plus years, I've interviewed and worked with super smart men and women way smarter than me, but who are really successful.

Mark Whitby [00:24:38]:
And I always find when someone hires me to be a coach, I learn as much from them as they learn from me. Right. So I've been able to learn from the best in the business out there and incorporate that into our toolkit. And then the podcast has just been an ex, like an amplification of that, because you've probably found this as well. Like the podcast gives you access to people and an excuse to pick their brains and be really nosy and learn everything about what that makes them successful. So that's been just such a tremendous blessing as well. So we've got that. But then finally it's the community.

Mark Whitby [00:25:13]:
So like our coaching program is a community of. Right now We've got about 60 business owners in that community, all of whom are already experienced, successful in their own right and they bring so much value to the table. So I don't need to be the expert and know everything. I can leverage the people in my network and in our community to lead focus groups or trainings on different topics as well. So the operation is definitely something we cover. But to be honest, it's my weakness. So that's one of those areas where I'm leaning on other people to. To bring those strategies in.

Kortney Harmon [00:25:51]:
I love that you have that community, because people. I mean, as we listen, and that's why people listen to us, is the idea of they don't know what they don't know. Sometimes if they just pick one gold nugget, that's all that matters.

Mark Whitby [00:26:02]:
Yeah.

Kortney Harmon [00:26:02]:
So I want to pick your brain. On you picking people's brains. As the host of the Resilient Recruiter, what's the most surprising insight you've gained from interviewing industry leaders?

Mark Whitby [00:26:14]:
I'll tell you what it is, is that. Can I give you two?

Kortney Harmon [00:26:17]:
Yeah. Oh, you can give me as many as you want.

Mark Whitby [00:26:19]:
So the first one is that nobody has got this entirely figured out, right? And so that the people that we admire, and then we kind of put them on a pedestal and we think, wow, look at what she's achieved. She's, like, super successful. And then I interview them, and of course, they do know a lot, and they're doing some amazing things, but then I realize, oh, I can see gaps and deficiencies in things. They're not doing that. And that's. So that's always surprising is like, you know, no one is perfect, and no one has this entirely figured out, right? And so for people listening, don't assume that just because someone is on a podcast or that they build a million dollars or that they've built a company that they know everything about everything because. Because nobody does, and everybody has blind spots and gaps in their operation. The second thing has been that there is not one right way to do this and that you need to really figure out your own formula here.

Mark Whitby [00:27:15]:
Because just case in point, like, I interview some people, and they're, like, super old school. They're like, no, it's the phone. It's cold calling. That's how I built my business. That's how I, you know, bill a million dollars or whatever. And then I'll interview someone the next day, and they're like, oh, yeah, the phone's important, but we never cold call. Like, it's all based on leveraging technology and marketing, generating inbound leads. And of course, you still have to talk to people to do deals.

Mark Whitby [00:27:42]:
And, you know, so the telephone is important, but not at the top of the funnel and completely opposite opinions, and yet they're both successful. Right? So that's always a problem. I think people sometimes listening, want to know. Just tell me the answer. Tell me like the one thing that I should do. And it doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:02]:
No. Oftentimes, even with technology, we want the easy button. We want it to be faster, we want it to be quicker. We're in a generation of immediate gratification, immediate results. Right. So we want the same thing. I love that. So let's switch gears.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:17]:
Let's talk about your coaching platform. Tell me a little bit more about your coaching platform. And I believe you have like 20 plus training courses. Which do you find the most transformative?

Mark Whitby [00:28:28]:
Okay, great question. So I would like to shift people away from thinking about courses.

Kortney Harmon [00:28:33]:
Okay.

Mark Whitby [00:28:34]:
And more thinking in terms of having their own individual action plan. Okay. Because what I. And the action part is important, Kortney, is some people who are kind of training junkies and they just like, they go from coach to coach and they like learning, like going to trainings and listening to podcasts and stuff. And that's great. And I, I'm the same. I love, I listen to lots of other trainers and podcasts and things. But the ROI is in the implementation.

Mark Whitby [00:29:04]:
It's taking action that's important. And people can get overwhelmed if they try and absorb too much information at once. So our three keys to success are, number one, it's the coaching rather than the courses. So coaching is like an interactive discussion and that happens both in a group as well as a one to one format. Okay. Because listening to a course is great, you're going to learn. But applying it to your own business, that's where people struggle. There's like a disconnect.

Mark Whitby [00:29:33]:
So the coaching is super important. The content is there, but it's not. We discourage people from using it, like Netflix. So we probably have about 600 hours of content, lots of different speakers and trainers, not just myself, on different topics. Selling retained search, cold calling, you know, hiring virtual assistants, starting a podcast, even. So we have content, all those things, but we want you to put blinkers on and only focus on what is the next thing that I need to implement in my business right now that's going to get me to that next level. And so what the coach's job is to do is to look at. So we do the diagnostic on the six pillars.

Mark Whitby [00:30:13]:
We identify where's the area that is the biggest opportunity for you right now that you need to concentrate on. Right. Maybe it's client acquisition. You need a client acquisition accelerator in place. So then within that, what's the next strategy? Or step that you can take. Ignore everything else. Don't watch any other courses, right? Just do follow this one action plan. Now, there is content in there to accelerate your learning.

Mark Whitby [00:30:37]:
So there's videos and things you need to watch, but it's more geared around for that one. Next thing, follow this checklist. And then the other component is the community. And that's where you can see other people who have been successful at what you're trying to do. And that gives you first of all the confidence that, okay, it does work, because if Katherine can do it, then I can do it too. And number two is you see different examples and different ways because again, the customized aspect of this. Kortney, you and I might both implement the same strategy. Like, let's start a podcast.

Mark Whitby [00:31:13]:
We both have a podcast, right? But it's going to look different for both of us. And so it's figuring out, okay, I'm going to take that strategy and make it my own and let me look at a bunch of different examples of people who've done that and let me be able to ask questions. So people network outside of our group. So one guy I was speaking with yesterday, Kirk. Kirk, wants to transition from contingent to retained. So he went into our member directory and he identified who are the people who are already like 100% retained. And he just reached out to them. He, like reached out to about six people in our.

Mark Whitby [00:31:46]:
In our other fellow members. And he was like, could I have a little bit of your time? And I really want to make this jump to retained. I've watched Mark's course already. I know theoretically how to do this, but I want to hear from you, like, how did you make this jump? And they're able to just help each other, which is awesome.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:04]:
It just, it takes that learning one step further. That's amazing.

Mark Whitby [00:32:07]:
It's the community that is the thing I'm most proud of.

Kortney Harmon [00:32:09]:
Yeah, I love that.

Chris Hesson-Ad [00:32:14]:
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Chris Hesson-Ad [00:32:58]:
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Kortney Harmon [00:33:18]:
As you interview people, what are the most distinctive traits or strategies that correlate with business that really are the people that successfully double or triple their billings? I know that's a very specific question, and there might not be direct answer, but, like, is there any specific things that correlate with those that are successful that you see?

Mark Whitby [00:33:38]:
Yeah. So it's all about mindset, Kortney. I'd say it's mindset is 60%, strategy is 30%, and 10% is like the specific tactics and techniques. But ultimately it all has to be put into action. And so the people who double and triple their billings are the ones who take action and don't just, like, learn and talk about, theoretically what they're going to do. They just dive in and. And do it. And so everyone I've interviewed on the podcast who has achieved remarkable success, it's.

Mark Whitby [00:34:13]:
They have a really strong mindset where they're able to turn adversity into opportunity and they are able to just get stuff done. That is the core. Even if they don't know what they're doing, like, they just still take action. Right. And figure it out as they go along instead of waiting until they learn everything and everything is perfect and then they take action. They take action and learn as they go along and keep iterating and improving.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:40]:
Great advice. You're not waiting until you know it all, because we've already determined you never know it all in this industry.

Mark Whitby [00:34:45]:
Exactly.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:46]:
It's always changing. Even though the foundation is very similar from where you started.

Mark Whitby [00:34:51]:
Yeah, totally.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:52]:
Let's talk tech at this point.

Mark Whitby [00:34:55]:
Okay.

Kortney Harmon [00:34:55]:
Obviously, lead generation is a big thing, and you've actually talked about different ways that your clients have what they're doing and how they're succeeding. What specific tech tools or platforms have you found most successful that your offices are using and. Or help with lead generation?

Mark Whitby [00:35:11]:
Okay, great. So it all starts with your recruitment software, your CRM ats. That's like the hub. Okay, You. So we talk about, like, must have tools and then nice to have tools and then like, shiny objects that you know it's okay to play around with but don't get distracted. Right?

Kortney Harmon [00:35:30]:
Yeah.

Mark Whitby [00:35:30]:
So those are the kind of three tiers, so you have to have a really good ATS platform. And it still surprises me how many Recruiters, like are working on spreadsheets or, or they're putting up with a tool that they're not 100% happy with, but just because they're used to it, it's like better the devil you know. Right? It's. But they don't fully use it either, so it's just kind of there. So the single source of truth is your CRM, ats, whatever you want to call it, that's the hub. And then depending on what tools are already built in, you're either going to leverage some automations in there or you're going to integrate with other tools. And I'll explain the types of things that we need in a second. But so whether it's through a native integration or whether it's through an API or whether it's through like a connector, like Zapier or make, are the two main tools that people use to connect different pieces of software together and make them talk to each other.

Mark Whitby [00:36:32]:
So in terms of then other essential tools, you absolutely have to have some kind of calendar tool. And again, it's surprising how some recruiters still don't have that. And they're set, they're going back and forth by email to try and book calls with candidates and clients. And I mean, that takes up two or three hours a week just doing that.

Kortney Harmon [00:36:53]:
Yes.

Mark Whitby [00:36:53]:
So we use calendly in our business. But there's lots of other tools that can integrate with things that make it just super easy for, you know, those appointments to get booked. The other essential tool that we'd say all of our clients need is some kind of video tool to record videos. And so the one that we personally use is Loom. But you know, there's other platforms and tools out there. But what you're using that for, Kortney, is twofold. Number one, it's internal communication with your team because it's so much easier to record a video, explain to someone how you want them to do something, and then that goes in a library and all of your future team members can watch that video and learn how to implement that particular piece of the process. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:37:42]:
So it's internal communication. It's also for communicating with clients and candidates. It's just a really nice personal way to connect. Rather than writing a long email, I can just record a two or three minute video. It might end up being five or eight minutes actually, Kortney, I talk too much, but send someone a video and they really appreciate it. They're like, wow, you went to the trouble to make a video for me. Thank you so much. And Whether that's to a candidate or a client.

Mark Whitby [00:38:05]:
But then it's also can be used for recruiting and cold outreach as well. And you can send personalized videos to people either via LinkedIn or email. I think eventually this will be so commonplace it won't be that much of a differentiator. But right now it's still relatively new so that candidates or clients aren't getting that many personalized videos. So you can really stand out from the crowd by sending personalized videos. And there's ways to automate or semi automate that in your workflow as well. So that's another essential. And then the final essential is some kind of recording and transcription tool so that all of your calls with every candidate, with every client, whether it's a cold call, whether it's a zoom or teams meeting, those get recorded, they get transcribed.

Mark Whitby [00:38:53]:
Because then the whole note taking process gets so much easier, especially if it can then add those notes to your CRM or your ats. And then you can do so much with that recording. You can then use AI to write cover sheets for your resumes or CVs or reports. If you're doing executive search, you probably want a more extensive report to go with your candidate profiles and resumes. And you've got the whole transcription of your conversation. You can give it the format that you want those notes to take and AI can just write those notes for you. Right. Also, for internal training and coaching, you can actually listen to calls of team members or what some of our clients are doing.

Mark Whitby [00:39:40]:
Kortney, shout out to Tim Garrels. Tim recruits in the PE space. What he does with his team members is he uses AI as a sales coach. So he's created a customer GPT that's a sales coach and he can, well, his assistant can add the transcripts of calls, whether it's recruiting calls or sales calls that his team members have done into his custom GPT. And it gives tailored recommendations for that individual of how they could do the call better the next time. Right. So there's so much you can do with AI, but the transcription is really, really important.

Kortney Harmon [00:40:20]:
Do you have a favorite transcription tool?

Mark Whitby [00:40:22]:
Oh, we're using Fireflies for our own business, but we're probably going to go to Fathom is one we're trialing at the moment. But the two recruitment specific ones, there's Quill AI and there's Metaview AI. Those are the ones that a lot of our clients love because they're tailored for recruiting and they integrate with all the major ATSs and they actually save Admin time for. Because you know what recruiters and salespeople are like. We're not great at admin and updating the system. And that's one of the biggest frustrations as an owner. You're like, why isn't the data in the system? You haven't added the notes or whatever. And so some of those transcription services can do 90% of that for you as well.

Mark Whitby [00:41:10]:
So then the next piece is automating your outbound, your outreach. So whether that's email, LinkedIn or a combination of those things, and there's tons of tools for that. A lot of our clients use either Expandee, Tripify or Source Whale for outreach. And they all have different. I don't have time to go into all the pros and cons.

Kortney Harmon [00:41:35]:
Yes.

Mark Whitby [00:41:35]:
So that's kind of like LinkedIn automation and then email automation. There's tons of tools again, but the one that we use is called Instantly though in a lot of our clients use Reply.IO is another popular one. You know, there's dozens and dozens, but I think that covers kind of the essential and the nice to haves. Anyway, there's lots of shiny objects. Like, in fact, I just came across. Let me. Yeah, so this website. Kortney, you might like to.

Mark Whitby [00:42:05]:
I almost hesitate to tell people this because if you have shiny object syndrome, stay off this website. Right. But it's called Toolfinder Co. It's like a database of every piece of software out there and it's searchable. You can also look at like, it's got it, most popular trending categories, pricing, user type, industry. You can search by different filters and it shows you different tools. But again, like, if you know that you have ADHD and you are tending to like, buy tools that you never use, just pretend I didn't say that and don't even look at it.

Kortney Harmon [00:42:40]:
Oh my gosh, I love it. I will be checking that out because I've not heard of that. So I'll be checking that out after we're done. I love it.

Mark Whitby [00:42:46]:
The cool thing about when you're in a community is people can share notes. Like they can talk to each other, right? And say, hey, what are you using for LinkedIn automation? Or. And what do you like about it or not like about it. And you know, which ATS do you use? And so people can share knowledge with each other and rather than start from scratch and have to, like, do tons of, you know, demos and stuff and waste money on stuff that turns out not to be suitable for your use case.

Kortney Harmon [00:43:13]:
Yeah, we've talked about a lot about tools and tech. What do you think are the most important key skills for a modern recruitment consultant that they need to thrive in our industry? We talked about, you know, the tools and the shinies, but what is the most important skill to thrive in this industry?

Mark Whitby [00:43:31]:
Yep. So the good news is that the skills haven't really changed. The technology has changed. You've got AI and you know, that part has transformed the, you know, the industry dramatically. But ultimately we're dealing with human beings, right? It's empathy, it's being able to influence other people. It's being able to understand other people's points of view, what their motivations are and qualify them and manage expectations and, you know, lead them through a process to a successful conclusion. All the stakeholders, clients, candidates, so that none of that has changed. A lot of the workflows and, you know, the technology has changed surrounding that.

Mark Whitby [00:44:19]:
But ultimately at its core, that human to human conversation where we're influencing people to either use our service versus a competitor or to interview a candidate that we're recommending or to take a job that we think could be great for them, that part hasn't really changed. I guess the only part that is most important, and this is what I'm trying to tell my kids, Kortney, is the meta skill is learning how to learn. Right. If you are good at learning and you're able to embrace change and adapt, then you're going to be okay no matter what. Right. Because the specific tools and technology are going to evolve and change, but you need to be good at learning and embracing change. I think that's kind of like the meta skill.

Kortney Harmon [00:45:12]:
I think that's great. And honestly, it's been moving fast in the think about just where ChatGPT and Generative AI got us in two years. It is moving fast. So I think that's great advice. I know you don't have a crystal ball and that's what everyone likes to tell me, but I still like to ask this question. How do you see our recruitment industry evolving? Like, think five years from now. How do you see it evolving in the next five years?

Mark Whitby [00:45:37]:
Okay, so here's what I see and I'm doing a presentation about this next week at our conference in Florida and you guys are going to be there. So we're excited to have Crelate there as well. So my talk is about AI agents and how to build an army of AI employees to automate everything. Okay, so essentially in the like, not even five years, Kortney, like, this is a, this is a now thing. This is 2025, but definitely over the next two to three years, then we are going to work in a kind of hybrid team with people and AI agents collaborating, which sounds kind of weird, but essentially anything that is repetitive is going to be done by an AI agent. An AI agent is essentially a software that can leverage an AI model like an LLM and tools to make decisions and actually take actions autonomously towards a specific goal. Okay, so for example, let's say I wanted to research every client or candidate before meeting them, right? I could do that myself or I could get my assistant to do it. But what actually I'm going to do, and we're building an agent like this right now, is the AI agent is going to research that person and create a report for me that then could be used for icebreakers on a cold call, or talking points in an interview, or personalization for a hyper personalized email.

Mark Whitby [00:47:16]:
But the agent has done all that research for me. We're then gonna have teams of agents that are managed by another agent called an orchestrator. Okay. But there still needs to be humans in the loop because. So you are still gonna need team, you know, team members, human beings. But whereas in the past you might have hired, let's say a virtual assistant to do repetitive tasks, right? These aren't going to be needed for those types of tasks anymore. The AI agents are going to do all those things. So your VA is going to need to be managing the AI agents for you.

Mark Whitby [00:47:53]:
Okay? So that's. In the near term, five years from now is going to be a lot more like you'll be able to just voice command your tools to like do things for you. So you'll. It's almost like in Star Trek, you know, where Jean Luc Picard is like, computer, you know, and then talks to the computer and the computer tells him things and does things for him. Right? That's what it's going to be like. It's going to be like, okay, computer, find me this type of candidate in this location for this job and reach out to them all in a personalized way and get them booking appointments with me. That's what it'll be like in five years time. So right now there are tools that kind of do that or say they do that, but they're not great yet.

Mark Whitby [00:48:33]:
But we're kind of in the dial up Internet stage of AI right now. So you're probably not old enough to remember dial up Internet?

Kortney Harmon [00:48:41]:
I had dial up. Oh, I'm old enough, yes.

Mark Whitby [00:48:44]:
Okay. All right.

Kortney Harmon [00:48:45]:
So the awful noise that went in.

Mark Whitby [00:48:49]:
The background and you're sharing a phone line. Like your phone line with your family is also how you access the Internet. And yes, so like, that's the phase of AI that we're at right now. So as amazing as it is, it's like nothing compared to what's coming in five years. So. But 2025 is the year of the AI agent.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:07]:
I got a message from Benjamin Mena last week. We were talking also a Crelate user, and he's like, I got the new ChatGPT and guess what? It went into my system. I told it the job number, I pulled the candidates, it gave me a one sentence review of each of them all while I was reading a book to my child. He's like, talk about efficient. And like you said, we're at the beginning of this. Irobot, here we come.

Mark Whitby [00:49:34]:
Exactly. Ben and I were actually chatting on LinkedIn about this very thing. It was like operator, which is GPT new agent.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:42]:
Yes.

Mark Whitby [00:49:43]:
But it is really only a baby right now and it's still pretty clunky. But just imagine in three years, what, you know, what we'll be able to.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:50]:
Do will be revisiting this conversation then at that point in time, I'm sure.

Mark Whitby [00:49:55]:
Yeah. Oh, let's talk definitely before then.

Kortney Harmon [00:49:57]:
So, yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna switch on you instead of future. What is one myth about recruiting that you would like to debunk?

Mark Whitby [00:50:07]:
Oh, what is a myth about recruiting? I'll tell you the myth. It's the myth of the solo big biller.

Kortney Harmon [00:50:15]:
Okay.

Mark Whitby [00:50:16]:
What I mean by that is we all love to hear from super big billers who are just like a dude in a spare bedroom. Right. Who's like, just makes it seem easy. And they're like. So someone like Rich Rosen, have you had him on your show?

Kortney Harmon [00:50:35]:
Yep, he's been on. Also a Crelate user.

Mark Whitby [00:50:37]:
Yeah, exactly. Rich uses Crelate. So such a great guy, super nice guy. He's been on my show like three times. He's been involved in our community and people love hanging out with him. He's just a really good guy. But this is not a role model that is replicatable. Okay.

Mark Whitby [00:50:53]:
So the idea that you can just by yourself bill huge numbers can be misleading. For people to kind of want to be like Rich. What is much more replicatable is to leverage a team, right. And have. So you can definitely can one person bill a million dollars. Sure, it's possible. But what is much more likely is if you have a team of two or three key people. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:51:23]:
Maybe a sourcer Maybe an admin person, maybe a marketing person. Right. Or an operations person and a sourcer and some combination of two or three or four key people. They could be onshore, they could be offshore, and you have the right systems and processes and tech stack in place, you can absolutely hit a sustainable seven figure billings.

Kortney Harmon [00:51:46]:
I love it. Rich is an anomaly. So I love.

Mark Whitby [00:51:49]:
Exactly.

Kortney Harmon [00:51:50]:
Yeah, I love listening to him and all that he's done. But those people are few and far between. I love it. My last question in closing, as I have researched you, your approach emphasizes consistent, predictable placements. What final strategic advice would you share? Or for those. We're doing a virtual conference coming up. So the idea of that conference is to earn your next 5 million wherever you are. And granted, we've talked about those stages.

Kortney Harmon [00:52:18]:
You're in different placements of those stages. What advice would you give for those approaches as they're looking? So anybody looking to make their next 5 million.

Mark Whitby [00:52:28]:
So it just comes back, I guess, to what I shared earlier. So the secret to getting to your next 5 million is to analyze your business. Look at those six areas. So what are we doing in terms of client acquisition, candidate delivery, having a team in place, operations and systems, inbound marketing, and our overall strategy? And make sure that you have a plan in each of those areas. Right. But then just move forward with one thing at a time. Okay. Choose an area.

Mark Whitby [00:53:03]:
Let's say it's client acquisition. Okay, great. What's the very next step to, you know, building that client acquisition process that delivers consistent, predictable pipeline. Let's get that up and running. The metaphor for Getting your next 5 million is you need a flywheel. Okay. A lot of recruiting business owners are on a hamster wheel, the flywheel. Jim Collins created this idea.

Mark Whitby [00:53:30]:
He's the good to great guy, right? And he came up with this idea of a flywheel in business, which is that it does take effort to get it going. But as you implement more of these strategies, then it goes faster and faster and faster. It starts spinning of its own momentum. So it needs less of your direct input. And that's where you get exponential growth. Okay, you can't get exponential growth if you are physically having to do everything yourself. Okay. You need to concentrate on the 20% of things that you do best.

Mark Whitby [00:54:00]:
Leverage other people's time, talents and technology to create that flywheel. That's how you're going to get to 5 million. There's no other way.

Kortney Harmon [00:54:09]:
Great advice. We talked about your conference for those that want. How many conferences do you do a year, Mark?

Mark Whitby [00:54:15]:
We do two a year, once in the US and once in the UK and Europe.

Kortney Harmon [00:54:19]:
Okay.

Mark Whitby [00:54:20]:
So yeah, it's gonna be too late for people to join this one by the time this is published, right?

Kortney Harmon [00:54:24]:
Absolutely.

Mark Whitby [00:54:25]:
But what's probably more relevant than the conference is the scorecard. So if people go to recruitmentcoach.com scorecard, then they can do the diagnostic tool. And it doesn't matter if they're ready for coaching or not, they're still gonna find that valuable and it will give them customized feedback on what next steps they can take to increase their billings.

Kortney Harmon [00:54:47]:
Mark, I love it. You have so many amazing tools. I think that's a great place to start. We'll make sure we put that link there as well as to your podcast and your coaching, just platform in general. I love today's conversation. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. And I'm not going to get to see you next week. However, Peter will.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:04]:
So looking forward to hearing how that goes. And thank you so much for spending the time with me today.

Mark Whitby [00:55:08]:
Thank you, Kortney. That was so much fun. Kortney.

Kortney Harmon [00:55:13]:
I'm Kortney Harmon with crelate. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Industry Spotlight, a new series from the Full Desk Experience. New episodes will be dropping monthly. Be sure you're subscribed to our podcast so you can catch the next Industry Spotlight episode and all episodes of the Full Desk Experience here or wherever you listen.