How to Execute and Operate a World-Class Delivery Function with Alex Morton

A lot of the people we recruit are very young, so some of them are placement students, they're actually still at uni, so some of them have barely turned 20, so, you know, very young. Some of them are grads as well, but all of them are, you know, below the age of 22.

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and on this week's episode, I was joined by Alex Morton from Timberseed. For the last 2 years, she's been building her career within the SaaS space. So in her first year at Timberseed, she was in a full 360 role, and her best year to date has been £350,000. For the last year, she's been in a role where 50% is team management and then the other 50% has been new business and account management. You started your recruitment career in 2016 in education recruitment. You was very much, you know, building a desk from scratch, 360, temp and perm, working with state schools. It was difficult.

Yeah, it was tough time.

Um, in this episode, we really go deep into what world-class delivery looks like. How can we deliver an exceptional candidate experience? How can we drive referrals? How can we get more out of our existing clients? As well as this, we go into a really powerful function and team that Timberseed have, which is the research function. Utilizing it for long lists, short lists, market mapping, you name it. As well as this, we talk about retained and how we've gone about pitching that, and so many other things. Alex did such a great job of breaking things down in detail. What you believe are the common characteristics and traits that make up a successful recruiter in today's market?

Okay, so I think just from listening to the podcast, a lot of people have quite similar answers, but I think—

Enjoy this week's episode. Alex, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, great to be here.

Thanks for making the trip. Yeah, it's not too far from your office.

Yeah, literally 5 minutes away.

Yeah, so I really appreciate it. Looking forward to this one. I know that you, um, you know, you are very much involved in winning business, account management, but when we spoke, I was really excited to really delve into what makes world-class delivery because I know that's been your world in terms of whether that be, uh, you know, doing it yourself or managing people in the delivery team. So So I'm really excited to go into that today. But I guess just to give everyone some immediate context, like I said, anything that I miss here that you think is important, pull me up on that.

Yeah.

Uh, internship at Michael Page many years ago is, um, not many people, not many people do that. I feel like I might be completely wrong, but absolutely love that. So internship at Michael Page, then you start your recruitment career in 2016. In education recruitment, um, you was very much, you know, building a desk from scratch, 360, uh, temp and perm, working with state schools was difficult.

Yeah, it was a tough time.

Then you actually went internal, right?

Yeah, so it wasn't actually internal, so I was working for Tez, which is essentially like an edtech company. So they have lots of different services that they provide to schools. So they acquired loads of different SaaS products that they've sold to schools, but they also provided a recruitment service. So I kind of managed effectively a delivery team.

Okay, so that's what I wasn't sure, wasn't quite internal.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing. It's not your typical recruitment.

Yeah, but still very much education recruitment, but then you've got this really cool exposure to, you know, schools all over the world, uh, international recruitment. But like you said, it's still very much building on that skill set of delivery, candidate experience, placing people.

Yeah.

Then you joined Timberseed in September 2021, um, and over the last Uh, yeah, obviously we're pretty much 2 years. First 12 months, I think you was full 360, right? In terms of, yeah, doing the, the full 360 role. Obviously your world is SaaS startups, particularly SDRs and startups and early, um, career opportunities. And then for the past year you've been in— I think we broke it down, didn't we? So the past year, about 50% of your role has been team management. Yeah, particularly, um, managing a team of delivery consultants So, you know, that involves one-on-ones. There's about, I think, 5 people in your team. You also work closely with someone called George who is very much entirely focused on winning business. But then the other half of your job is split between new business and account management.

Yeah.

And then I think first year at Timbersheed did 350. Let's go. That best year in recruitment.

Uh, yeah, that was my best year. Yeah, so yet to beat it, but awesome.

Cool. Um, so Let's start with then the million-pound question. I know that you hire young people going into, you know, the SaaS world, but you also live and breathe that for yourself. So you hire a lot of young people. So talk to me about what you believe are the common characteristics and traits that make up a successful recruiter in today's market.

Okay, so I think just from listening to the podcast, a lot of people have quite similar answers. You know, there's the resilience piece, there's the, the mindset, there's the work ethic. So all of those, there's definitely a huge part of it. But I think, well, especially for our industry, just looking for people who are, they really understand people, so they can read and describe people. Because what we're looking for is not hard skills, you know, we're not recruiting software engineers or people in finance who need to have those hard skills. We're looking for people with those natural soft skills. So, looking for people, so, when we hire people, we look for people who can identify those kind of characteristics, they can naturally read people, I also think people— we like to hire people who are good listeners, so active listeners. So not just listening to respond, listening to understand. I think also a good eye for detail definitely helps a lot, just in terms of the qualification process and understanding all the roles that we work on. An eye for detail, just so you don't, you know, leave any stones left unturned. Um, I think a good memory as well. I feel like— I don't know if that's been mentioned in the podcast before, but just that natural ability to remember all the candidates that you're working with, all the jobs. Obviously you can have things written down and, you know, on the database, etc., but having that memory is, I think, that natural— yeah, that natural skill that I think can be developed. But I think looking for people who have that is, yeah, is really key.

We like that active listening piece, something that I wasn't very good at at the start of my career.

Yeah, I think a lot of people just, they can't wait to jump in with their next question, like, oh, I've got a great question to ask. They're not really probably not actively listening. They might, you know, be writing down notes, but they're listening to respond rather than listening to understand.

Yeah, it's a good way of putting it. Yeah, I always remember early on in my recruitment career, I'd literally ask a question and answer it for them somehow.

Yeah, or you just keep talking. I think recruiters love the sound of their own voice a lot of the time, so you just keep waffling on and on and on, but eventually people stop listening. I think more is No, so less is more in recruitment.

Curious then, with those traits in mind, what— how does your interview process look like? Because maybe you've done some interesting things that people could learn from. Like, do you have some interesting steps by the, the normal stuff? Do you get, uh, your people to do certain activities and tasks in between interview steps? Anything to share there that has helped, uh, you guys, you know, be confident these people have those traits?

Yeah, so as you said, a lot of the people we recruit are very young. So some of them are placement students, they're actually still at uni, so they're literally 20, some of them have barely turned 20, so, you know, very young. So, some of them are grads as well, but all of them are, you know, below the age of 22. So, what we do is we get them to record a one-way video. So, I think we used to use Audrewe, we now use PreviewMe. So I think some recruiters will use— a lot of recruiters will use those tools, but it just gives you an impression of, you know, how they present themselves, how they talk. I mean, it's a bit awkward talking to yourself on a camera, so, you know, how they come across and, you know, that energy they bring. I think that's really important.

What do you get them to talk about?

Just themselves, really.

What's the prompt? Is it, tell us—

yeah, yeah, it's pretty basic, to be honest. Some, like, tell me about yourself, why you want to work in recruitment, and why Timberseed. So I think showing those research skills are really important. So, showing that they've researched. So, when they actually come in for the interview, they need to have done a lot of research on the industries that we recruit into, which is recruitment and SaaS sales, essentially. So, a lot of them have no clue before they actually hear about Timm's, you know, they're applying to loads of different placements, just whatever's on the job board at university, or whatever the careers advisor's telling them to apply to. So, That research is super important. So, we verify that research when they come in, like they have to do a little presentation. We also get them to do a small task when they come in. So, that could be like a CV review task. So, look through these CVs, which job specs would you match them to and why? So, it's just a really basic task, but I think showing their reasoning or getting them to explain their reasoning is really important. We also get them to listen to some calls. and describe that person's personality. And, you know, if they think that— basically score them out of 10. Obviously, we don't say the candidate's name or anything, but they had to score them out of 10 and give that rationale as to why they gave them that score. So, there's a few different tasks because I think just there's nothing really to go off on their CV, just where they went to uni and maybe they worked in Tesco for a few months, but that doesn't really matter. It's about who they are as a person. So, we're trying to draw that out, get them to show those core competencies, um, rather than just, you know, their background, because that's pretty much irrelevant in, in, in this job. Um, what else do we do in the interview process? They also have to meet pretty much everyone. Like, it's a really intense—

it sounds like— yeah, it's a lot, but it sounds like it weeded out.

Yeah, we— I think we had about 800 applications to the year in industry last year, just because, you know, people apply to all sorts of stuff, is not necessarily people that are genuinely interested in recruitment. So a lot of them are just not suitable. Um, but when they actually come in, they're here for about— well, they're in the office for about 5 hours.

5 hours?

Yeah, well, if they're good. If they're not very good, they could probably be in and out in an hour. But, um, yeah, they meet all the consultants, some of the current placement students, they meet the directors, they meet me, who's like a senior manager, some of the other senior managers. So they'll even meet people like, uh, from marketing and just to get different perspectives because I think people have a different idea, um, of what's good. And we're not just trying to hire in our image, we're not just trying to hire people that are like, like carbon copies of us, but they have to be a good culture fit. But I think you don't want to just hire, you know, mini-mes, um, you want people that bring different perspectives. So, and also to make it fairer, I guess, um, we'll go away and give them a score privately. So we won't discuss it, we'll give them the score, we'll score them in different categories. So their just general demeanour, their personality, how they come across, their confidence, the level of research, their knowledge about Timberspeed and our sectors. There's lots of different sort of categories that we score them on, and then we— it's kind of like an anonymous scoring system, then we come together and basically score.

Oh, the managers would?

Everyone that meets them gives them a score, so we kind of calculate that, and then people who have the highest scores ultimately get the offer. So it's not just— because I think we used to— we've changed this a lot since I've been part of the hiring process. So we used to just kind of hire on a vibe.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah, like a lot of recruiters do.

No, there's no background really, but like you might go, oh, have you been in a sports team and stuff like that?

Yeah, I think any recruitment interview that I've ever been a part of is just like a chat. Yeah, tell me about a time you've demonstrated resilience. You know, it's all the same really, and they're good questions to ask. But I think, you know, when we're hiring people that are— they're— I say they're just placement students, but they really are the future of our business. So the idea is that they do the placement, then they come back as a like more senior consultant, because essentially they've had a year of recruitment experience. They go back to uni, then they come back. So that's kind of the the program that we try and run. It doesn't work for everyone, not everyone wants to come back, not everyone wants to work in recruitment for the rest of their lives, but some people— we do get a few gems that have come back. And George was actually one of them, he was the guinea pig here in industry, and he's been here for like 4 years now.

So, but it also means when you are hiring those types of people, you're hopefully getting the best of the bunch rather than just, you know, a young person that can help with like different tasks and take time off people. So just curious then, just to wrap that up, that's super interesting. Thank you for sharing that because there's a bunch of different tasks there, like the video piece, the presentation.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Yeah, different people, listen to calls. Um, from your perspective, don't expect to have the exact stats, but how much do you think that's impacted like attrition and people being— and like people being good, out of interest, by having that sort of system?

Um, in terms of people that return after their year in industry, or people that, like, people that say—

is that process just for the year placement people?

Uh, so it is for grads as well, right? Yeah. So all— I mean, we've hired a few— I say grads, some of them have been graduated for like a year, but it's their first job in recruitment, so they're all still here.

Do you think that process has, yeah, helped with when you hire people like that?

Absolutely. Yeah, everyone that we've hired since I I think we've hired about 5 people since I started. One, one of them left after a year to go to another recruitment job, um, but they're all still here and they've all received at least one promotion since they've been here.

Yeah, I love that. Appreciate you sharing that. Let's just go into then, like, world-class delivery, because I'm excited to dive into this. So I know your first year was very much 360 and it wasn't, um, just delivery, but yeah, keen to go into this with you because of the team that you manage. So would you mind just sharing like the setup at Timbersheed? Because this may not be, you know, normal for every single team. There's definitely plenty of recruitment organizations out there that have people that just, you know, are hunters that go out and win new business, then have a delivery team that support them on delivering, you know, hiring projects and different things. But would you mind just starting by saying— by sharing like your team, your like unit, and like the setup, and then we can go into it?

Yeah, so I think Timbersheed is a bit different than a lot of recruitment companies. I mean, I haven't worked in all recruitment companies, so I don't actually know this for certain, but I think the, the actual recruitment process is split into 3. So we have 3 different areas of specialism. So we obviously have people like me and George who are sort of winning new businesses, more the client-facing side. So I guess that could be classed as 180. We still do about candidate delivery, but, you know, now and then if it's a more senior candidate. And then we have the delivery team that are purely focused on speaking to candidates, qualifying candidates, managing them through, through the process. They don't actually do any of their own sourcing. We have— we kind of outsource the, um, what we call the research function, and they're based in our office in Warsaw. So their job is to essentially source candidates, build— it's market mapping, building out those different networks that we kind of headhunt from within, because we don't use job boards or anything like that. Most of the Most job boards don't use job boards for entry-level talent.

Really?

No job boards. Yeah, so we operate like a, almost like an executive search type company, you know. We're market mapping, building out that graduate network every year. So we have multiple different networks. We've got, you know, your bog-standard graduate network, like that's split into lots of different subcategories like Russell Group, you know, Oxbridge, and sort of non-Russell Group. And then we've got the bilingual networks. We— a lot of the SDR hires that we do speak a second language, like for the German market, French market, etc. Um, and then we have like sort of slightly more experienced candidates and building up. So the researchers in Warsaw, I mean, it's such an incredible function that we have. Like, I don't know how I used to operate without a function like that, but it's a big engine room of constantly sourcing candidates, and these people are being contacted all the time, not necessarily about one specific job. It's not like we get the job and we go and find the person. Sometimes we do work reactively like that, but we're kind of proactively building out that network, reaching out to graduates, messaging them about our opportunities, and educating them on the jobs. Because I'd say 90% of graduates don't know what an SDR—

yeah, exactly—

is. So that's a big part of what we're just constantly doing in the background.

So just curious then, just quickly, What are— so if I'm a delivery person, delivery consultant, sorry, delivery consultant in that delivery function, love, really like that, super smart on the, the research front, I absolutely love that. What are like the deliverables? So what I mean by that is if I'm a delivery consultant, what is my researcher giving me, if you get what I mean? So I understand that they're always then, you know, consistently building these talent communities from, you know, from a Timberspeed perspective. Not necessarily like pitching people jobs, but just always growing that network and always growing, you know, the people that could potentially be at some point interested in the career in SaaS sales. But like, what, what are they providing the delivery consultant? Like, do you get what I mean? So like, they're getting like every week it's like, hey guys, we've, you know, there's these bunch of, um, graduates that have recently come on to LinkedIn, or I don't know what, what are like the deliverables?

I don't Um, it's CVs and calls booked. So yeah, so they will sometimes have— so we'll constantly be building up that network that's on our database, and we'll normally reach out to those people through, um, we'll sometimes set them up on like a source, well, okay, like an email cadence, or just mail merge them directly. So we get their CVs back from that. Um, so their candidates are kind of sitting in our database. And then there's the kind of, I guess, fresh candidates who are straight from LinkedIn that might be— they're Could be a grad or someone with a bit of experience. Generally, we work on roles like 0 to 5 years of experience. So, they have to put a call into the consultant's diary. So, number of calls booked, number of CVs sent, although a lot of what we do, we've kind of changed how we target the researchers because it's not, there is a very different skill type. It's obviously very research heavy. It's not, We're not hiring recruiters. We're not looking for that kind of competitive, resilient type person. Like, we're looking for smart people who have like that eye for detail, enjoy those kind of nitty-gritty research tasks, building those talent lists, those long lists, and researching the network on LinkedIn. So, we normally sort of target them on time spent on a particular activity. So it could be 2 hours spent because they also help with the market mapping for BD, collecting leads. So it could be in the morning they have 2 hours spent collecting leads to pass on to me and George, and then we can then reach out to them in the afternoon. It could be 2 hours spent on a specific project. For example, we've got one of our clients who are opening up a new office in Germany, so we're sort of, I guess, adding people, connecting with people who are based in Munich for that job. So they'll have specific projects that they're working on and then they'll have the general day-to-day, you know, collecting leads, messaging people, asking for their CV about a particular role, posting job ads on LinkedIn. Um, so loads of different activities that they do. They also help build our salary benchmarking reports, uh, industry like hiring reports. So all the— we do like a quarterly movers and leavers report. So it's all that added value that the delivery team, or, you know, me as a sort of manager. We don't have time to do all of that.

But a lot of people are expected to do that, or like those things that you just said, they're pretty important tasks to do to be successful.

Yeah, yeah. When I joined TimSeed, I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh, so I just speak to clients? And that's pretty— obviously I manage people as well, but I was like, you know, a lot of that, it's very time-draining activities sometimes, that kind of market mapping, you know, the messaging people.

And so how big is that research team?

Oh, I think it's grown like massively since I joined. So roughly 20 people? Yeah, 20 researchers.

How many people do you think?

Um, so it's— I'd say the offices are kind of evenly split. So actually probably just less than 20, about 18, and then we have about 15 in the London office.

Yeah, so about 18 people support 15 people. Okay, and they also support the BD element to it, not just— okay, cool.

Yeah.

Okay, super interesting then. So, so that, that So that's the split, basically. You've got the people that are very much entirely focused on getting in front of clients, you know, winning hiring projects. People that are then— so the delivery consultants, bar the stuff, all the stuff that you just mentioned, what are like the key things for them then? Are they, yeah, like qualifying candidates, all these types of things? What are like the core elements that a delivery consultant does?

So the metrics that we kind of target them on, on a weekly basis is Well, KPIs, I guess, like the number of calls that they do daily. So, you know, 50, 60 calls a day, like they get through high volume because the work we're doing is kind of high volume, low value because it's more entry-level stuff. So, yeah, number of calls they're doing, number of candidates qualified, a number of CVs sent out to the client. So sent to us, then we'll obviously quality check everything and make sure they're good enough to send to the client. And obviously the number of interviews that are arranged as a result of that, that's what they're targeted on. So, Yeah, their job is just to speak to as many people as possible per day to find those diamond candidates, basically.

Okay, cool. So talk to us about how you've got better at quality checking.

So I mean, a huge part of what I do is listening to people's calls. So listening to the delivery consultants' calls, they have to send me their qualification calls. So that could be a phone call, or often we'll record like the video qualification call, which is like a more in-depth, like, second call. So I won't do that for every candidate because I'll be literally there 24 hours a day listening to calls. But I, yeah, I listen to the calls normally on high speed, so I'm just like, yeah, because it takes too much time. So what I'll do is I'll provide feedback to the consultant. So I normally use, I think it's called like the GAR method. So what's good, what points you need to action, and the remedy for that. So I'll say, okay, What was good about this call is you did this, this, and this. You dove a bit deeper into like potential counter offers. You asked them about other interviews. You know, that's, you know, great qualification call. What you didn't speak about is, I don't know, they're relocating. You didn't really dig into, into that in any depth. The remedy for that is, okay, next call you need to sort of ask them about the logistics of relocating. So it's like, what, what was good, what could have been better, and the remedy for that. So you're giving actionable feedback rather than—

and just 3 simple bullet points.

Yeah, rather than, oh yeah, it was all right, you could have done better, you could have dug a bit deeper, and they're like, okay, what on specifically? Like, you know, so I think it's that kind of reflection, giving them feedback. Um, so I'm obviously quality checking that for the client. Um, we track data across everything, so every candidate will track all different types of data, whether they're, you know, male, female, what kind of university they went to, the degree classification, location, all that kind of stuff. I'll make sure that's all, all tracked. Um, and then just the general quality checking of how we're presenting the candidates to the client, so how we're, how we're selling them. Because they're normally graduates without much experience, what experience are we drawing out and what are we highlighting to the— what's important to the client? Making sure the delivery team really understand that because they're not on every client meeting. So making sure we're all singing from the same hymn sheet, making sure I'm recording the client calls if they're not on it, getting them really involved in, in that Um, so, so what they aren't—

so they can understand like the culture, what's important to them, what makes that business different.

Yeah, exactly.

Etc.

Yeah, because one, one company is very different from the next. What they're looking for from an SDR is so different. So it's not like a one-size-fits-all. You can't just fling a CV out to 5 clients and, you know, hope for the best. So it's really— they need to really understand the, the sort of, yeah, the unique ness of each client and each job.

So you quality check by making sure that you do consistent coaching on them getting better at qualifying candidates, essentially?

Yeah.

So, but then in terms of the process, then they've got someone, they did the video call, you— they then say, hey Alex, this person I think would be perfect for X client, and then you're like, yep, I agree, and then you then get the— and then you present them to the client? Yeah, it works.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And a lot of the time they might not be suitable or we don't have anything for them. So we think, okay, let's create a plan of action for this particular candidate if we think they've got potential.

Yeah, sure. Curious then, done anything smart on presenting? I feel like, you know, the way that you guys do things, it's— so have you found anything? Because like you said, you're presenting people that has like, like a lot of the time haven't got like the previous experience to say this person has worked as an SDR for the last 2 years, hit his, hit their quota for you know, X percent. So like, you do not— I mean, you haven't got as much of that. So how are you presenting these people who you're really drilling into on their characteristics and like the culture fit and, you know, these things? Have you done anything smart there in presenting these people?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think we've reinvented the wheel yet on that. I think there's probably smarter ways that we can work. So we do it in a very straightforward way. We're, you know, we normally do like a candidate write-up. We just do a few bullet points based on who they are as a person and draw out those, I guess, those competencies where they might have demonstrated elsewhere, like in competitive sport or, you know, being president of some society at university. I'd say most of the graduates that we represent are, they're like the elite level graduates in terms of they've done tons of internships, they've had loads of client customer-facing roles. They're not just your bog-standard graduate. So drawing, presenting that experience and addressing things that might be a red flag. So sometimes, um, like I said, if someone studied a degree in law, why do they want to be an SDR? Like, the client will just look at that and think no. And if that person had applied to an advert directly, they would have just immediately been rejected because you've got no relevant experience, done a law degree, like, how is this relevant? So I think really articulating in a very simple way why they are relevant and why they are right for that company using those kind of buzzwords that the client has relayed to me on what they're looking for. That's resilience, someone who can explain quite a technical concept in, you know, really engaging way, like that kind of person, someone who's got the right kind of raw soft skills for sales. We do also use video presenting sometimes. Sometimes it depends what— I mean, yeah, if it's a new client and they, they really want to kind of see what our candidates are like before sort of entering that partnership with Timacy, then sometimes we do that. Um, I'd say most of the time I present like an initial shortlist of candidates whilst I'm on a call with a client. So I talk through why we think they're good, why we think they've got potential, on live on a call. So we'll look through the candidates together because it's so easy to dismiss a CV just for not being relevant.

Totally.

Yeah.

Okay. That's, that's really interesting. And then I guess just on the final bit on the, the delivery consultants then, if you've done a lot of coaching, where, where has often been where people like slip up, or you find yourself— what have been— what's been the most consistent remedy, do you know what I mean? I think that might be helpful for people. Most consistent, like, what have you found yourself repeating yourself on, whether it be, you know, even the placement year or younger people that you were helping last year to this year? What's always ended up being the things that you've you've really tried to drill down on for them to get good at quickly, which would be really, you know, helpful. Because I'm sure there's something that they always make— people typically fall short, and it might be just digging deeper, or like just being order takers, a bit like, oh yeah, you want to relocate to London? Okay, cool, great. And then on to the next question. I don't know if there's anything that you found that sometimes people just sometimes slip on, slip up on.

Yeah, I think a lot of people, especially when there's pressure to fill jobs. Like, we're saying to them every day, we need more CVs for this job, we need more candidates, and they're like, oh shit, I need to get more candidates. So they can skip things. So not cutting corners. So sometimes I'll go back over their qualification and there's lots of things that they've missed. I think also not just hearing what you want to hear. So someone might come across well, you know, they're bubbly, they're bright, etc., but do they really want a career in as an SDR? Like, do they really know how tough it's going to be. Can they really deal with that rejection? So getting them in that second qualification call to demonstrate— come, the candidate has to come with examples of why they've demonstrated that. So not just hearing what you want to hear with a candidate, because sometimes a candidate will be like, yeah, they want a job basically. They're a graduate, they're sitting at home on the sofa, they're like, I just want a job. So they'll tell— they're speaking to a recruitment consultant who's their age, and they're like, yeah, like, this sounds great, but it's, you know, do they really want that? So, it's about having that. I think it really comes from experience. It's digging deeper and understanding what the candidates really want. What are their values when it comes to a job? Like, why are they doing this? Is it because they want to buy a house or support their parents, or are they just a really competitive person? Like, really digging deeper into who these people are as a person, not cutting corners in the qualification and Yeah, just not, not just hearing what you want to hear.

Yeah, I love it. Commission structure then, how have you approached that? How have you structured that? We've had people on the podcast before where I think oftentimes, like, when you say I'm a delivery consultant, that's viewed as, uh, not as good as a 360 consultant.

Yeah.

So sometimes that can be reflected in how people are incentivized. Like, we've had people on the podcast before where they had to change the commission structure because the delivery function, which they literally described as the engine room of the business, um, were earning probably too much less than compared to the people that were doing like bringing on the clients and these things. But they were the people, you know, providing the shortlist and the candidates. So how have you approached that? Curious. How have you structured what, you know, what people get? How much of the, the placements goes to the delivery consultants? How does that work?

Yeah, well, first of all, I've never really understood that kind of, you know, there's so much emphasis on, you know, we need good BD consultants and they're often like put on a pedestal. And yeah, I kind of get that. Obviously you can't fill the job if you don't have the jobs, and that is a skill in itself, especially, you know, it's more kind of experienced consultants tend to do that. But the delivery is such a skill in itself. Like, if you win the jobs and you can't deliver on them, then what's the point? Like, you're just disappointing your clients. So I think in my eyes, they're equally as important as one. They're two sides of the same coin. But in terms of commission, so if someone's on a placement, you know, they're doing an internship, so they don't get the same commission structure as like a permanent consultant. So they'll get like a bonus per placement, which can be anything from £200 per placement to £500, depending. It's like a—

how many—

a scale of, you know, there's different thresholds. Permanent consultants, it's 50/50. Really? Yeah. So If, for example, if I bring on, or if George brings on a client, and then the, the delivery consultant, if they're permanent member of staff, fills that, then it's split 50/50. So yeah, we kind of put equal emphasis on, we reward them equally. Um, some of the placement students as well, they go on to that permanent commission structure before the end of the year if they're doing really well. We want to reward them because they are treated— the expectations are so high for these placement students that we want to reward them. If they're good, they've got potential, we reward them, and then they come back and they're on, they're on that same commission structure as a permanent. Okay, well, they come back as a permanent member of staff and it's 50/50.

This podcast is proudly partnered with Vincere, the all-in-one recruitment agency software that over 20,000 recruiters trust daily. We're also partnered with the award-winning 1UP Sales, the sales and motivation platform that enables you to maximize the potential of your teams. We love partnering with both of these organizations because they share our mission in helping you get the most out of your people and your business. You can get exclusive offers because you listen to this podcast and get up to 10% off the usage price forever. Use the link in the show notes to get your hands on that. Let's get back to the episode. So let, let's talk about— like, I know we went really granular there, but there's so many, like, interesting things on people thinking about the delivery function, how to set it up, how to approach it. Love the researcher insights in there as well. I think that's so powerful, and I'd be surprised if more and more companies don't try and at least build a function like that because it's so powerful and time-consuming.

Yeah.

So to have people dedicated to that is so powerful. Like, if we were to talk about new business then, which I know you've um, had to do more and more of more recently. Let's bring the delivery function into it. Like, how has then having these two functions— the delivery consult, the delivery function, the researcher function— how has that then— how do you feel that has then impacted yours and George's sales process or ability to sell? Like, because that— because I feel like that, that would be— I'd be really excited to get in front of clients and say well, this is how we work. We have our researcher function who are doing this, we have our delivery consultants that are doing this. It's not just, hey, I'm the consultant you should be speaking to, I only speak to SDRs all day, every day, like, you should trust me to fill this position, like, I will— yeah, do you get what I mean? Like, that, that— how does that impact your sales process? Because I feel like that could be pretty powerful.

Yeah, well, I think first of all, it's freed up— it frees up a lot of our time to focus on bringing on high-value clients. I mean, there's tons of SEO jobs out there. Even now we're seeing the market shift, there's even more jobs being advertised. I think it, it was a bit of a lull like earlier this year, but, um, yeah, it frees up a lot of our time. It gives us a lot more confidence when we're going into that delivery— sorry, that, um, like discovery call with a, with a prospect. Um, I normally split the discovery call into two parts. So there's the initial maybe 30-minute chat, understanding a bit more about their business goals, you know, if they've received recent funding, what are they using that funding for, like how does this hire fit into that bigger picture of the business goals. Well, it depends who you're talking to, but you know, whether it's an SDR manager or a CRO, like you're going to want to understand their role in the business and, and the goals that they're trying to meet. You know, is it they need to hit a certain ARR by next year, and how is this, you know, building that SDR team going to fit in with that? So understanding their business goals, some of the issues that they've had around hiring, whether it's time, budget, quality, all that kind of stuff, all the usual stuff. And then in the second, more sort of in-depth discovery call, would understand the specification a bit more detail and kind of map out that process. And we can be really granular with mapping out that process. So though it's— people think entry-level jobs, it's just quite— you fire a few CVs over and it's, you know, the jobs fill. But we still take time to kind of— it's almost like project management. Good delivery is project management. So we work with the— we kind of describe how we, how we work, how we're different. Not going to do that.

Sorry to butt in, but so just do you— so you said discovery call there. One, not every recruiter knows what that is, by the way, or like conducts those. Just so, like, so do you split— so when you said discovery call business goals, is that a separate call? And then you say, okay, well, from what you shared, from what I've learned today, we've helped companies like yours, these are some of the companies that we've helped, so I'd actually really recommend that we book in a further time where we can go through Timberseed, how we work, how we're different, and, you know, how we could potentially help you achieve X. So like, do you separate it?

Yeah, exactly. So I'd probably spend maybe 5 minutes at the end of that first call just talking about— just giving them a very brief background on Timberseed and why this is— they're trying to call it—

qualify them in, in that.

Yeah, I'm not trying to sell, like, sell them Timberseed really. I mean, a little bit I am, but, um, okay.

So yeah, that's the first part of the sales process, is that this, this The initial discovery. Yeah, just curious then, how, uh, how would you— what is the purpose of discovery call in your point of view?

Um, I think it's to really understand those pain points and dig deeper into those, because sometimes there's pain points that they don't even realize that they had that you're uncovering. Um, so making them kind of understand that pain and how we could be a solution to the problem that they have. Um, and yeah, I think just really understand how this hire that we're going to help them with is going to help them meet those goals. Just is a lot of making them realize things, always sometimes educating them on— sometimes they think they need one thing, but actually we've worked with other companies where something else has been more successful. So sometimes, for example, a client will come, a prospect will come to us saying, we need an SDR with 2 years experience. It's an entry-level job, but we need 2 years experience. So Um, so making them understand that it can't— someone with— you don't need that experience, you need someone with the right potential and is gonna kind of grow with the business.

How— so how do you sell— how do you sell the discovery call when you've got a client that's basically saying to you and other recruitment companies, Alex, I've got— I need to— we need to get to a million annual recurring revenue, and in order to do that, I have, um, I have you know, 5 SDR seats that we need to have filled ASAP. Here are the job specs. Can TimberSeed help? Like, how are you— like, because I spoke to someone who operates in your space, Lewis. We were talking about this and their process, and he's saying sometimes, like, these people just want, like, Alex, can you just, you know, start getting CVs over to us and, and like just start working on these opportunities? For you to then go, yeah, no, no, no, hang on a minute, we need to take— have a discovery call, 'You need to tell me about your pain, about your challenges, and then we'll have another call where we can talk about how we can help.' How do you navigate that? Just curious. Curious.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough to find that balance because there's the sense of urgency. You need to have that commercial awareness that these jobs need to be filled, or the client's saying the job needs to be filled. So sometimes it can almost send you into a bit of a panic, like, 'We need to see these now.' But, um, I think just taking a step back, and we can still have a very quick turnaround time. So just helping them to understand what those next steps will look like the realistic time frame. If they're saying we need people to have started yesterday, okay, well, you know, what's the next best thing? You know, because people generally, if they're in a job, they're going to have a notice period, or they might, you know, it's going to take you at least 2 weeks to do the interview process. So helping them to understand what that time frame would look like. I mean, we've got candidates normally ready to go. We've got, because of our delivery function, we've got a bank of really strong candidates who we're kind of representing. So I can say, okay, we can book in that second call tomorrow where we can go through these active candidates as well as mapping out the process. So kill two birds with one stone. It doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out process. You know, we're not recruiting for a CFO here, we're, we're recruiting junior people. So, well, you can have both. You can have the in-depth discovery and a deep understanding of the client's need whilst, um, providing that kind of quick service for them. So yeah, you can have both.

Would you say, would you say no, would you not work with a customer if they weren't willing to do a discovery call?

Yeah, I feel like I wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't work with them.

Would you say like, no, like, this is the— this is the reason why we have this process, is if we do this, it's going to help us in the long run, sort of thing?

So yeah, I mean, I haven't— not for— it hasn't happened for a while where people have kind of refused to take that time. Obviously, people are extremely busy in the businesses that we speak to, and everyone's busy all the time. But, um, I think just helping them to understand the value of that conversation— if they don't have time, they just want me to putting a few CVs over, then I'll just say no. I can send them some— a case study and some example candidates of people we've placed recently so they can have a look before they decide to go through with that call. But, um, yeah, it needs to be a partnership.

Yeah, no, I love that. So then do the discovery call, you learn about their challenges, what they've tried so far, their business goals, what might prevent them from getting there. You have all that information. How do you then use that information in the next call then? Like, what, what's fundamental in this next call on the on the sales process?

Um, so aside from going through like the candidate and role specification, because it's not always exactly the same, yeah, job brief, all of that kind of stuff. Um, but I think sort of almost playing back their problems to them. So in our previous call, you mentioned this, this, and this. Sometimes I'd even almost do like a mini presentation of, okay, these are the issues you're having, this is how I would solve it, and these are the candidates I think would be a good fit. Be good to get your feedback. Um, so yeah, I think just going through things in a bit more more depth in that discovery course or playing back the, the previous call and mapping out the next steps.

As part of that, do you— because I know you've been working a lot more retained— do you have different products then that you sell and present in that?

Yeah, so we actually created a product because obviously we sell into the SaaS sector, so they can relate to having like a product. So recruitment isn't normally seen as a product, it's a service. So, but we tried to make it kind of relatable to people in, in SaaS sales. So we kind of created this product that we call CX Plus, so Client Experience Plus. So we have like a product document that we created with like a pricing sheet and everything just so they can be like, okay, this is like what we sell in a way. So we kind of present that to them. So that's our kind of retained service. These are all the extra things you get as a part of that compared to compared to contingent or exclusive. Yeah, we tend not to work— it depends, really depends on the situation, the role, the scope of work that it's going to take us, um, and then we'll kind of weigh it up whether it's something— if they really don't want to go retained on that first role because it's completely brand new for them, sometimes they don't want to do that. Um, but just highlighting the importance of that exclusivity and how it's going to benefit them rather than, oh, we want you to be exclusive with us because it makes our life easier. Like, they don't care.

What, what's in, what's in Customer Experience Plus that isn't in Exclusive?

Um, so I think it's just having that more structured process. That's one of the things. So we'll still structure that process in, in Exclusive Project, but it won't be as much of a priority. Like, we, we won't spend as much time having these kind of check-in calls and presenting candidates. It's not like we'll have a set date to have a long list. It's like, okay, we'll work on it and we'll try and get your candidates ASAP, whereas it'll be much more structured processes CX+. They also get a priority with the market mapping report, so the movers and leavers reports. They also get the, like, salary benchmarking reports, and they also get access to, like, discounts for, like, sales trainers and stuff, like people in our network will introduce them to, and they'll get a discount discount on that.

Um, oh wow, so you've, you've like created a whole thing around it.

Yeah, exactly. And they also— yeah, and it depends on what they're looking for. So if it's like a key hire, um, there's different like pricing packages. If they're looking for like a— we call it a key hire, that's like one person— or a team build, team build, then they get some kind of maybe incentive on that, like a slight discount if they're looking to hire like 5 people at once.

Do you do anything around— because you have all that data on— do you do anything around like you're creating them like a— because when we've asked, when I've asked people about this, what's quite common is you start working with them and you're presenting them the candidates you've spoken to, the reputation in the market. You're building like a bit of a talent pool, might be on a spreadsheet or whatever. Do you sort of do something similar to that where you're always building that, showcasing that with them in the check-in calls, and that's data that they get to keep?

Yeah, absolutely. So we'll build that initial long list of people. These are people in our network which we're going to reach out to. Yeah, they can keep that, um, and like the market insights. Um, but yeah, just there's generally just a lot more touch points in, in that process and a lot more sort of feedback throughout the process as well. Any—

was it difficult for you to start selling that if you haven't worked like that before?

Oh yeah, I've been a contingent recruiter my whole life. It's a mindset shift for sure. It's having confidence in what you're selling is, is, you know, it's a necessity for, for them and it's a high quality product. So, and we still, we still have challenges with this because some hiring managers will say, well, we've never worked like this before, like why do you need a retainer? It's a whole sort of re-education type thing and a mindset shift within yourself and having confidence in going out there and selling that service. So yeah, I'd still— we're still ironing out that, that process is definitely not perfect. And I think it's more about it will evolve over time and you kind of build confidence with that. Once you've won a few retained projects, then they all seem to come at once. It's like buses, like, it's, um, but getting that first few is, is the biggest challenge.

And how does it— what do you then do when you're pitching a customer? You're pitching them to work retained, but then they speak to one of your competitors and they don't go retained— they don't— they're not pitching retained, and then they go with them. Well, frustrating, right?

Yeah, it can be frustrating. It does happen. But then it's probably— we've got to look at how well we've sold our product and our service, um, and maybe they're just not the right client for us. Like, we're really picky in the, the type of companies we work with, so we're assessing whether they're the right fit for us, whether they're in our ICP, whether it's someone we can see ourselves partnering with, and vice versa. And if they think another agency is a better fit for what they want and that they're just looking for the, the cheaper option, or they're just looking to save money, then obviously that's their priorities. We're not the cheapest, like, we're never going to be the cheapest. So if they want that, if they want a different style of service that's going to work for them, then that's absolutely fine. There will be other customers out there that this does work for them.

And just interested then, what— because I'm sure you've thought more and more about this as you've refined it— what have you found that your customers have found to be the most valuable, bar getting the people placed and in the job, you know, the things around it? Like, what have you found that they've gone, you know what, yes, you know, Timberseed helped us get our SDR team, which is absolutely amazing, but they also provided this and we absolutely fucking love that. Has there been anything quite common that you found that they've really appreciated out of those, the things that make the whole offer?

Um, I think the market insights and the market mapping and presenting that to them, because they don't really have an understanding of the talent pool. All they can see is who's applying to their job adverts, and you know, some months it's got loads of people applying, some months there's no, no one applying. So understanding, um, Yeah, just having that kind of insight into— more insights, I think, is what they find valuable.

Yeah. Wow, we've gone into a lot of details, haven't we? Yeah, you broke that down so, so well though.

Yeah, and I'm by no means an expert in retained recruitment. It's still very new to me.

It's a whole learning that you shared there. It's more about like, I've been on my own journey. This— I sell a training product, it's a 12-month contract, and I've really— for anyone that really wants to dive into this, don't know if you've come across his content, but Like, I'm a huge fan of, um, Alex Hormozi, and he has this book called $100 Million Offers. And basically it's all centered around creating like an offer that you feel stupid saying no to. And is it all centered around, uh, you know, having products that solve the product, uh, the problems that, you know, your customers likely have? And that's obviously what you're doing, right? You're— yep, people problem, but then also, you know, insight and understanding problem of are you paying the right things? Um, do you have the right benefits? Um, also, um, you're probably going to want to get these people up to speed, so we've also got trainers that you can tap into. So like, you're, you're like crafting that. So that's like really helpful because at the end of the day, a retain piece, like, if you are going to consistently sell it, it isn't about you and getting money up front and that being great for you. It's about what— how it is for the other person receiving it, right? And what problems are you solving for them?

Yeah, and that needs to be evident when you're presenting that and during the discovery. Like, it can't be like, okay, well this is just better because it is. Like, you need to really make the— make sure they understand the impact, the positive impact for them. Um, you know, all about the, the general experience for them, the impact. You know, these people are probably going to stay longer if we, you know, if we take this approach. Like, you're gonna have better retention. Like, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of recruiters don't see themselves as salespeople, and I didn't really see myself as a salesperson before I started at Timbersheen. And I started working in the SaaS sales sector. So even like just understanding like sales thought leaders, following them, there's obviously a lot of information out there, there's lots of books, but trying to see yourself as a salesperson and, you know, start reading these books and following these people, like sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, but just taking inspiration from that, not just, okay, how do I recruit well, it's how do I sell.

How do I sell?

Yeah.

Solve problems, be outcome-focused, solution-focused. Yeah, I love it. So for people listening then, the— okay, so let's just sort of round this episode out with, with these, uh, one or two last thoughts then. I know we haven't covered absolutely everything we want to speak about, but I feel like the things that we have spoken about will be so helpful for people. So I guess firstly, if you were to, uh, for people listening that may not have a delivery function or like a function that is solely focused on the candidate part of that recruitment cycle, uh, if you were to, you know, build that team from scratch, how would you go about that? Like, what would be the, the fundamental things that you would go about getting in place at the start to really hopefully have the best chance of this delivery function delivering as quickly as possible?

Out of interest, that's a tough question because I've never built a team from scratch.

Um, okay, so why don't instead then, what do you think, like, for people listening to round out, what are like the fundamental things that you think need to be in play to make a delivery function, like, successful and for it to be the engine room?

So what we've found effective this time around, because we're quite lucky in that we always get to do things again, if, you know, we're hiring placement students, obviously the permanent members of staff are, you know, they're here, they're part of the furniture, but we always get a fresh start every year. So what we've helped, what's helped this year in building this delivery function from scratch is having what we call it the Timbersede Bible, like the delivery Bible. So having all of our processes in place and making sure they're trained on, okay, this is the Timberseed way. So having those processes in place before you start bringing on the people. So from day one, they're very aware. Yeah, the playbook. Yeah. So, um, what goes in the—

what are some of the things in the playbook?

Well, it's about this thick, so a lot of actual printout. Yeah, we printed it out, which was— yeah, it took forever. But we also have it on you know, on Google Docs.

But, um, so what is it like? This is how you qualify a candidate, this is how you add them to the system.

Yeah, literally everything. It was painstaking to make. So me, you make it. So me and my colleague Anna, who manages the other delivery team, um, and Kalia, who helps with the kind of onboarding, um, so it was kind of a joint effort. But, um, and it took ages. But now we've got that and we can keep adding to it, you know. It's a live document that is gonna I'm going to keep— so we put in— we also help them to understand from day one what, obviously, what their targets are, but what does performance look like and what does the bare minimum look like. So there's always these kind of, yeah, I guess the sort of, yeah, the upper mark and the lower mark, what excellent looks like, what kind of, you know, just standard looks like, and helping them to understand that from day one so the expectations are really clear. I think when hiring young people or new people who are new to recruitment, you can't underestimate the value of structure in the job. So, I think when I was in my previous role, I used to, when I was doing like one-to-ones, etc., I used to let the one-to-ones just run. Like, we'll just have a chat, you know, how are you getting on, any problems, etc. But now I have an agenda, we have a structure, and I think having that from day one, having that structure, not just on what good looks like in terms of numbers, like CV sendouts and calls, stuff like that, but also what, what does good look like in terms of the attitude you bring to work every day? Because a lot of these people have never worked in an office before, they've never worked in a recruitment firm before. So what, you know, what the morale and the sort of motivation and determination you bring to work every day, how do you support your colleagues if they're out of office, like how do you present yourself like in client meetings, etc. All this is in the Bible. So what does performance look like outside of just your numbers? Recruitment is more than just a numbers game, it's a mindset thing. So yeah, I think having that from day one, making sure— because I think people, um, well, young people especially, if they're new to the role, they will kind of push, try and push boundaries a little bit. But, um, you know, if you have that structure and that really kind of clear expectations from day one, then they've got all the structure they need to go and perform, basically.

I love that. So many recruitment companies don't have that.

Yeah, and I've never had that really. I mean, I've had great managers who've trained me really well, but I've never had that structure. And I think, you know, everyone's always saying you need to be more organized, like recruiters need to organize their time better, but no one teaches us how to do that, and no one gives us that structure, those systems, those expectations, those processes. It's just, just figure it out and be better.

Again, this is like normal in SaaS, right?

Yeah, exactly. To have those processes in place, and there's a lot more structure, I think, because there's people who are more technically minded that are working as part of that company, not a lot of the founders. So that's just, you know, there from, from, from day one, whereas recruitment companies, it's more about— yeah, it's just a bit all over the place.

And it's so like, we've got all of ours built in Notion, so we use Notion, and then we've got a sales playbook, we've got a customer success playbook, We're building a marketing playbook. And, you know, in the sales playbook, which is where I often find myself, is we've got our most up-to-date talking tracks, you know, the opening to cold calls, what we use, the problem statements that we use. We've got our case studies in there. We've got, you know, the common objections that we're running into. It's just more of like all the things that you said. And then also, how valuable is it to be able to go somewhere? So Alex has said, this is how we do things. This is, you know, what really world-class candidate qualification looks like. Um, and also in our Timbersy Bible, it's documented for you. So next time when you're coaching me and you're listening to one of my calls and you give me a remedy and it's like, oh, you know what, I could have done that way better, let me go back to like what world class looks like again and I can refer back to it, use it. That's so valuable. I wish I had that in recruitment because all I got given was a couple of printed out sheets or candidate qualification sheets and that's it. Yeah, there's nowhere for me to go to understand currently up to date what good looks like and what's working for people, which is why the Bible, the playbook, whatever you want to use it is a really valuable thing. It takes a lot of upfront time and effort, but then as you said, I'm glad you highlighted that because you've put that upfront time and effort and that's clearly been impactful in helping this time around.

Yeah, absolutely. And we're currently in the process of building like a sales playbook, like a BD playbook, but it's difficult because it's really just me and George. But eventually there's going to be more— the junior consultants are going to progress to doing that kind of more client BD type role. So they'll need a playbook for that. So it's like, okay, I've got to do another one now. But it's, it's worth it. It saves you so much time in the long run. Like all the little questions, they can refer back to their—

but also I found it— I don't know about you, it helped me as well. Oh yeah, I still look at the, at the book, but like actually creating it helps because like it helps you think about the how. You're equipping your team of how to do things.

Yeah.

And that's like way more powerful rather than like, do, do it because I've said it this way.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it really gets you thinking about the how. Okay, covered a lot. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, uh, look, Alex, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You really articulated things so well there in terms of breaking things down, and I know there's going to be so many things that people are going to think, hang on a minute, we could maybe implement this or we could do that. So yeah, Alex, thank you so much for coming on the pod.

Well, thanks for having me, it's been great, I've had a lot of fun.