Overcoming Self-Doubt, Sales Outreach and Becoming The First Ever Female Top Biller with Kate Hill

I will always say right time, right person.

If you catch them right at that moment, just being consistent with consistent what you're doing. Kate Hill, the top performer for Wiser in 2022 to 2023 and the first female ever top performer in the company's history. So how does she do it?

Your first year, you're still learning so much.

I'm probably halfway there, like, in terms of being an expert, but so this is what you're going to learn In this week's episode, the importance of world-class basics and why you need to understand your success metrics.

It comes back down to the basics again, just doing every little thing you can, even if it's not going well.

Why it's so important to have a niche and how to leverage your network to grow your recruitment bets.

I worked on an account and it was such a hard account to crack at first.

Once you're in it and you've like cracked what they like, how to unlock your self-confidence, and why Kate initially struggled at the start of her recruitment career. And lastly, her most effective new business generation techniques and how she landed her best client that generated over £100K worth of fees. Let's get into this week's episode. Kate, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks.

Looking forward to breaking down this 4 and a bit years of a journey you've been on. Uh, obviously we've met a couple of times. You've come to the— I feel like you've come to the— obviously you came to the last live podcast event because Lewis was on the panel. Yeah, obviously had to support this.

Yeah, I had to.

And then did you come— I feel like you've come to one before. No, the last one in London. I feel like some of the Wiser team—

I don't know, I don't think I was there, but the Wiser team probably would have been.

Um, so today we're going to talk about this, this journey you've been on. Yeah, right. Um, so just to give everyone the career highlights, uh, of, uh, your career so far. So been working— the only job you've had in recruitment is with Wiser Elite.

Yeah.

So your world is tech sales.

It is.

And I'm just going to give everyone— let me know if any of this is wrong, by the way. So, uh, over the last couple years, obviously you started as a researcher, right?

Yeah, right at the bottom.

Right at the bottom, sourcing a bunch of different roles, just doing the work for everyone. Yeah, doing the work for everyone. Yeah. Okay, cool. So I've got here, so We started with 2021, right? 20 to 2021.

Yeah.

Your billings was $110K.

Yeah.

21 to 22, $200K. So broke the $200K mark. And then last year, um, the last financial year, 2022 to 2023, was $210K.

Yeah.

And that meant that you was the top performer that year. Let's go! The first female top biller. Let's go! First female principal as well.

Yeah.

Proud of those ones, aren't you?

Very proud.

Should be.

Up the girls.

So we're gonna unpack this, this journey that, uh, you've gone on to get to that point, because I know it's, it's been difficult, it's been challenging, you've learned along a lot along the way. But let's, let's start with the million-pound question. Let's hear your take on what you believe to be the, the common characteristics and traits that make up a highly successful recruiter in today's market.

Yeah, I mean, I think with the, with the state of the market at the moment, the main thing— and I'm sure everyone would say this— is that grit, determination. But on the other side of things, like having that patience as well within the market. Like, at the moment, there's times where you just want to get shit done basically quickly, and you actually have to sometimes take a step back and, and think, right, what would actually be the good decision in this situation? Because it's easy to just go straight into it. But also as well, that creativity. Like, at the moment, standing out in recruitment and being the one that clients want to speak to and candidates want to speak to, you need to think of ways to like cut through that noise and be creative with stuff. So I think it's the combination of competitiveness, grit, determination, but not going hell for leather and taking a step back and being patient with it.

Yeah, I think it's really— sometimes you're like forced to try different things, right, if things aren't working.

But because you're used to, especially in a good market, you're, you're used to just doing just doing it day by day, the same stuff. And then when you actually get pushed back, you actually have to take a step back and think, wait, how can I change what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to like break through and win new clients, get candidates on the phone in a different way?

What some— let's just talk about that then. What are some of the things that you changed over the last 6 months or experimented with that have worked, haven't worked?

Yeah, I think it's easy to just sit behind your laptop and go on LinkedIn and just message people What I've been trying to do, and Wise really as well have been trying to do, is use different methods. Like, I've been sending videos to candidates and clients instead of just a message, um, or voice notes as well. Like, we're not really a cold calling type business. We do a lot of our stuff more strategically, I suppose. Um, so I've been sat there in a booth trying to do these videos to clients like, hey, it's Kate. Um, so like Looms or Videyards or whatever, just literally I've just been doing it on normal— my normal camera, and then just sending it on LinkedIn on direct message, right? Um, and we've had some really good feedback. Even if they're like, we're not hiring right now, they've been like, love, love that video, love what you're doing. And then at least in maybe a few months' time, when I reach out to that client again to, to bring them on, I remember Kate sending that video. That was really different from, from other people.

It's crazy, right? Because video's been around for a while now, I think. So the fact that you're still getting those sorts of responses is, is a bit wild to me.

Yeah, I think like it's what you say and how you come across in the video. I think it's easy for people to have some scripted response to it all. I think if you're just yourself and even make a bit of a— go on their profile, see something on their profile that it's like they've been to something recently, you comment on that. Or you can see they've got a picture with their family on LinkedIn, reference that. Like, do something that's not just, hey, see you hiring. Can I help you?

Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask you then what we like, because it— you often— I've found when I've done video outreach stuff, like the first couple, the, the first few that you do when you start doing them are way worse than the ones towards when you've done like a lot of them.

Yeah, definitely.

What, what did the ones sound like when you first started? Like, what was you— yeah, because I'm— and then we can get you to share like how the— how you sort of structure these now. I know you said you might reference different things, it depends on what you see. But when you first started sending these, what, what was you trying to say in the message? Was it just, hey, are you hiring?

Yeah, I think the amount of times as well you'd be like, get halfway through and then you go, shit, I do that so many times. Um, but I think, yeah, it, at first it was quite forced and, and don't— hey, it's Kate, we're WiseRelate, we do this, we're tech sales— quite robotic. Whereas sometimes now I'd like slide into the camera and be like, hey, nice, bring some fun to it. Yeah, bring some fun to it and relax into it because people will like find that funny. And you feel like sometimes you need to be serious all the time. It's actually like sometimes even sending them— I've done it before where I've sent them the actual bad version.

Really?

And sent it and then gone, hope you, I hope you found that funny, noticed you're hiring account executives.

That's quite cool.

And then just done that and like people.

When you first started, very like serious, quite like serious. Yeah, just stiff.

Yeah, quite stiff, like, you know, just keeping it very basic. Um, and now it's more just go with the flow, have a bit of fun.

Did you find yourself— because I think sometimes why people don't lean into that is they think it's just going to take ages to do because they're always going to want to redo it. Did you find yourself doing that?

I think If you take some, if you have it in your diary, for example, like to do an hour of just some videos or voice notes or whatever, you'll be disciplined to do it. You don't have to do loads, but if you just have that time weekly or whatever to do it, then you'll get it done if you have it in the diary.

And I don't know if you approach it the same with the voice note, but what's like your typical structure? Because I feel like if you're sending a voice note or even a video, I don't think you should start it by speaking about yourself personally.

No, I think it depends what you're voice noting them about. Sometimes it depends if it's on the candidate or client side of things, because I do it to both. If I'm sending a voice note to a client to try and win new business, then I think the most important thing is trying to solve a problem for them straight away. So something like, it's hard to attract female talent in, in SaaS. Are you experiencing that right now? I'm working with someone at the moment that and go into it with like something in the market that's happening right now that is a problem, and they can then switch on to that straight away.

Yeah, that might be top of mind for them.

Yeah, exactly.

That's smart. So yeah, so you're leading with some— you're basically trying to make a bit of an assumption they might be running into.

Yeah.

And it's either like, are you struggling with it, with this, and I might have a solution for it? Or if you're not struggling with it, then yeah, you're still coming across like, oh, like Kate understands.

And yeah, at least you sound like an expert in, in the market, or reference like something that's going on in the tech market right now You always want to be known in your market as an expert. And so if you make that clear right at the start and they're not like, who the hell is this girl, then they'll trust you more.

Yeah, I love that. Just, just as you mentioned it there, it come— it comes up a lot. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because I know when we were looking through the notes, some of your like challenges early on was like really understanding the dynamics of the, the market and being confident about that. How long do you think it takes for people to become a market expert. Like, you, you may not be able to put a time on it, but I think it's important for people to know it's not going to be a couple of months. Like, what— how long do you think it took you to be quite confident to comment, uh, comment on the market dynamics, what's going on, and have that confidence around being an expert?

It's a, it's an interesting one because I think you'll never feel like you are. Like, you're learning every day, especially in the tech market. There's so much of it going on, and sometimes like What does that mean? That's terrible. But I think, yeah, I'd say your first year, you're still learning so much. I think it's helpful for us because we immerse ourselves in that industry all the time because we host regular events, webinars. We have our communities that have loads of tech salespeople in them. So when I'm listening to webinars and being at events, I'm learning constantly. And that's what I would actually advise to people in their space, is go to events of the industry that you're working in because you're constantly learning and speaking to the people that you're trying to help. Yeah, but I'd say I genuinely don't think there's a time on it because I still feel like I'm, I'm probably halfway there, like, in terms of being an expert. But, and I, I think it's an outside looking in, I'd be an expert, but you can be constantly learning new things about the industry.

Yeah, I think that's the right mindset to have, right? But I think, yeah, like definitely 12 months plus.

Oh yeah, 100%, for sure, definitely.

So you took a couple attempts to pass your probation, which you told me.

Yeah, yeah.

What was you struggling with? Why, why did it take a few, few attempts for, for Kate to pass probation in that first year?

I think it was— well, I think coming in I was already quite nervous because of the— my interview situation where— which didn't go quite well, but they saw something in me, so they were like, right, we'll bring her in. There's some— there's traits within that girl that I think could be good. Um, I think for me it was like the discipline of recruitment that I couldn't get my head around. And in Wiser Elite as well, we're very like not strict on do these KPIs, do this, but just like having that discipline. And I think at first I was a bit kind of just whispering through like, okay, um, Uh, and also I just found it really hard to get my head around the tech market at first. Um, but once I realized that just talking to people and being yourself and trying to help them and understand what they're looking for, that's actually the whole thing you're meant to do. You're not actually meant to be the genius tech person.

You're just that— your, your job is to really understand what's important to these people.

Yeah. And I love talking to people, and so when I actually realized that this job is all about helping someone and making them find their, like, dream role. And if you really unpack that and understand it, then you can always ask people around you, like, questions around— I've found out this about this person, who do you think they'd be best suited to? In your early stages of your career.

So if I'm, if I'm someone listening and I've entered the recruitment industry this year, which might be just, uh, a lot of people describe it as like a typical market or like a challenging, a typical challenging market where you've, like you said, you've got to commit to try and stand out. You've got to work hard to get the opportunities that you want. Like, what would your advice be to them? What would— what should they be really committing to becoming better at? What should they be doing in those first 6-12 months?

I think the biggest thing for me was to throw yourself into situations that you don't want to do. So one of my worst things to do with, with like managers and stuff is like role plays and stuff. Oh, it's just so stiff. Yeah, it's like you, when you have to do that and you're like doing a pretend reg call or like trying to talk to a candidate. But I think it's one of the most important things you can do is like put yourself out there to be like, can we practice this as if I'm on a candidate call? Or can we do like, can I pitch Wiser Elite to you because I'll have to do that in front of clients soon? But also go and ask to go to meetings and ask to listen into candidate calls. In my early stages when I'd go to meetings with Jack or Lou or whatever, I'd just sit there and like just take it all in, soak it all in, like everything that they were saying. And you even start to realize you said— you then start to say certain phrases that you're saying. I was like, oh God, Jack says that.

Yeah, you start picking up on things.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this then: what did Kate's regis, uh, candidate reg calls sound like in that first year compared to how they sound like now?

Oh my God. It used to sound like I was literally sat there like, "And what are you looking for in your next role?" I think now a big thing for me is that I just have— I always at the start just want to have that normal, friendly conversation with them about what they're doing at the weekend, what they'd done last week. But it's the flowing nature of it now. It used to feel very, this question, this question, this question, this question. Now it flows. I feel like it flows in between. Um, and just the tone of it now seems so much more chilled. But if you go into it like I'm just talking to a mate at the pub, then you can, you can go with it more.

What about— I feel like oftentimes what people have to get better at is not taking the first answer for what it is.

In what way?

So like, if I say, okay, talk me through like why we're here today, like what is it that prompted you to, to come back to me? And you say, look, they've set unrealistic targets, I've had enough of it, which is why I want to move.

Yeah.

I feel like a lot of people when they're early on would write that down, tick, reason for leaving is that, and then move on to the next question. But it's often the like why behind that, or the, the third why that you ask, that really helps you understand what's important to this person or why this person is doing what they're doing. So have you had to get better at that?

Yeah, I think it's a really easy thing for candidates when you're on the phone to them to say And I— when you say, it's really interesting to know why you're actually looking for a new role when you've only been there for 7 months, and they'll go, I'm just curious to know what's out there. It's like, you're not curious to know what's out there. You wouldn't be on the phone to me if that was the case. And then just really trying to dig into that. So I said, I'll say, is there anything now in your current role that you'd change? Like, is there anything now in your current role to change? And then you stay— start to say stuff where you're like, ah, so that's what it is. Um, like they've not mentioned at all before that they go into the office 5 days a week, and all of a sudden they're like, oh yeah, I mean, I'm, I've got a wife now and I'd quite like a bit more of a flexible role. You never said that when I asked what you'd want. So I think, um, like getting them to like pull it back again. And a good question I always think to ask when you're asking them what they're looking for is, is there anything that I could put in front of you right now that you wouldn't like? Because people go, I'm really open, I'd look at anything, and then you start to put opportunities in front of them They're like, no, no, no. I said, I thought you were open to anything. But if you say, for example, in the tech space, I'm working with martech companies, HR tech companies, would you look at them, or you more on the cybersecurity technical type opportunities? They're like, oh no, actually, yeah, I think I'm more on the technical side of things. I was like, oh good, because I was actually just about to tell you more about HR and martech. So actually saying what do you not want as opposed to what do you want.

Yeah, nice. That's, that's great. That's a great point. Uh, like, just curious on this one for people specifically in your space, how have you had— how have you got better at seeing through the bullshit of salespeople? Because that must be hard.

They do bullshit a lot because you're dealing with people that, that sell.

It's, it's a skill. It's something that they're— if you're, you're dealing now more at the senior end, the account executives, so yeah, they should be pretty good at their craft. So you'd like to think I bet you tell me otherwise, but you'd like to think that these people are quite effective at selling themselves. Yeah, I'm sure they oversell, inflate their numbers, whatever. So how, how have you got better at like cutting through sometimes the, the mirage of what they give you, of like, yeah, I'm the fucking top salesperson, I'm the top AE, and you're like, are you though? Are you? How have you got better at that?

I think the, the good thing about talking to salespeople is that they're great to talk to, like as in in comparison to maybe some other industries within recruitment, they are great to have a conversation with. I think in terms of knowing whether they're chatting shit is, um, if you're— this comes back to the expert in the market thing. If you know the market well, you are aware of companies and what they're doing. So for example, you might have spoken to someone from the same business and they've told you that all come— all the reps are underperforming. And you're like, oh really, that's funny because you're saying you're on 110% of target. But that only comes from experience and talking to loads of people all the time, which is why I'll always say, even if you've not got roles for the right people, constantly be speaking to AEs, like weekly, like 5, like 10, 15 good solid account execs, and try and pull market information out of them even if you don't have any thought, anything for them right now. Because you'll find out that then you can when you're on calls with the people, you'll think in your head, this guy's, this guy's not chatting the right stuff because I spoke to someone last week from the same company.

And then have you found yourself being more comfortable challenging people on, like, if I, if I say to you, okay, look, like, everyone's underperforming, I'm, you know, I've got a team of SDRs that aren't getting me leads or whatever, and you've picked up the information that actually I'm not sure that's true. Have you had to be more comfortable challenging people?

I think I feel it's one of those things on a call, it's hard. It would be hard to be like, oh, you're wrong actually, because I heard that from someone last week. But I think it's more from your side in the trust of the candidate and whether you'd want to put them forward for that role, because you'd be like, um, I don't think, well, this guy's trustworthy.

Yeah, fair. So obviously the, the year just gone was, was a big year for you, right?

Yeah.

Obviously I think what people always interested to know is like, what, what did you do different? I think you clearly had— you went from— you, you broke the 100K mark, but then, you know, 2 years, uh, back to back, you then managed to break the 200K mark. So like, if I was to put you in the shoes of— you had that year where you did 110.

Yeah.

And you're looking into the next year and you're thinking, how can I break— how can I get double what I've just done? Like, when, when you were in that position, what were some of the things that you were thinking that you needed to double down on? Or like, how was you thinking about getting to that next point? Because I think that that's interesting, right? Because when you get to that point and then you're like, fuck, right now how am I going to get double out of what I've done?

And yeah, you go back to zero and you're like, oh, here we go again.

Exactly. So like, how did you, how do you think about that going into that year? Because then you've managed to maintain that. So how, how do you think about that?

I think the best way to think about it is not thinking about the end goal. Like, I'm really— I've started to really try and teach myself. It's really easy when you, like, when you're, you're top and then you go— everyone goes back to zero again on the leaderboard and you're like, oh, we start again. And it's my— what I've been trying to think, um, and what I was trying to think then was if you take day by day instead of like thinking about the end, so day by day, week by week, then you'll get to where you want to get to. So in the day, what can you do in that day to win? Is that that you have to do one more extra call, reg call? Is it that you need to like just reach out to two more clients? And once you've done that in a day, you've done everything you can do in that day. If you do that 5 days, you've won that week, and you just keep doing it.

So breaking it down, break it down.

Yeah. And that's, that's one of my, I'd say, biggest things is if you win the day, you win the week. If you win the week, you win the month. If you're in the month, you're in the year.

That's how you like to think about it.

Yeah.

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I probably wouldn't know exact numbers, but I think it actually again goes right down to the first thing, which is speaking to the most people that you can. I always would say that my reg stats, like candidate calls, were always really, really high. And the reason that that was beneficial was because if I didn't have anything for them right at that moment, yeah, it seems like a bit of a waste of time. But then a month later, we'd bring on a role, and I would go back to my talent pool. We have talent pools of candidates, so 0 to 2 years experience, 2 to 4, and they're all in our CRM. And I'd go back, my— all my stuff would be organized there and be like, right, I think these 3 could be good for that, get in touch with them. And without having to do a fresh search So it's like using— doing everything you can and thinking about what roles you could bring on in 2 months' time, but speaking to that candidate and thinking it's still worth your time in that moment. Because it's so easy when you're working on certain accounts to be like, I'm only going to speak to people that will be right for this role. You need to think outside the box and think, but in 2 months I'm not going to have these roles, they're going to be gone. So I need to speak to people that are going to be potentially good for other stuff.

That was really interesting to say that because in this training session that we did. Yeah, because we broke it down in like the things I was just saying. So, um, number of CVs to jobs, jobs on, like the different like core things. And I said to Alicia, who did the session, like, what, what do you like, what would you always want to make sure you're like smashing every single month? And she said candidate meetings and client meetings. Because of what you just said, it's what you're also saying there is by you always making sure that you're doing that every single day, every single week, you're gathering information, you're understanding more about the market, you're understanding about the people.

Respect you. Like, people respect you for doing that. I've had calls this week where I've said, look, I don't really think from just looking at your profile that we have anything for you right now, but my job is to connect with high-performing account executives in the market, and I'm really keen to have this chat so that we can just understand what you'd be looking for. And when it comes through to us, I'll drop you a message and just leave it like that. And they actually really appreciate it. They're like, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak to me when you might not have anything on.

What do you try and— curious then, like, what do you try and do? Like, take one of those calls for example. Yeah, because I feel like people listening might have had a lot more of those conversations this, this year because they haven't had as many jobs on. Definitely. What, what are some of the things you always try and do on those calls that make— when you get off them, you're like, you know what, that was a good call? What are some of the things you're always trying to, trying to do? The experience you're trying to create, the types of things you're trying to showcase in that call to that person?

I think initially when you're speaking to them at the start, you want to give them, uh, I suppose like who— like give them the intro about who you are, not just straight into, right, okay, so what have you done? I'll always be like, just to give you a bit of a background about me, um, being at Wiser for 4 years or whatever, um, I specialize purely in account executive recruitment and I'm always just really keen to, to chat to, to people in the space, network, um, and hopefully partner together at some point. Whether that's now or in the future. And then we'll do a normal reg call, like, you know, understanding their numbers, targets, what they'd be looking for, why they're looking to leave. And then when you speak to them again, when you might have a role, they like how you can reference back to what you've said. So you're like, I remember when we spoke 2 weeks, like 3, 2, 3 weeks ago, you were saying that, I don't know, the targets were unrealistic. Like, have they changed at all? And people are like, oh, she remembers that.

That's it, that's great. Well, it makes you— it makes them feel like you actually listened.

Yeah, because sometimes it's easy, especially in recruitment, to just feel like people are just like on the other end of the phone, like typing away. And also, there's— I bet there's a lot of people out there that just want to speak to people that are relevant for them right at that moment. So in that time, if you have a nice 10-15 minute comp— you don't have to keep it long, like sometimes a reg call can be 30 minutes, but if you don't have anything for them right now, you don't want to waste their time too much and then get to the end and be like Yep, we have no roles for you. But, um, I think as well setting that at the start though—

yeah, that's why that intro is important.

That intro is really important, and making sure that you've done that right at the beginning so you don't get to the end and you've done a whole asking them about everything and then they're like, so what have you got at the moment? It's like, nothing, nothing for you. Yeah. Um, so, um, I think people when it comes to it, when they're actually as well in their future career, when they're looking to turn to a recruiter to partner with they'll remember you for doing that.

Yeah, because I feel like as well, when you've— because now I'm sure you've got plenty of stories where you spoke to that person, didn't have anything for initially, but then 3, 6 months later you did. So you can then also start referencing that in your introduction, right? It's like, look, I'll be honest, oftentimes I don't always have something for you immediately, but a lot of the people that I do end up partnering with, it's actually 3, 6 months down the line.

So you could even reference like names or like say place— like placements that you've, you've done with that, or like even just being like, oh, it's funny because I actually had a place to guy last week that I spoke to like 6 months ago and now I'm working with him again.

Exactly. So how do you— what, obviously, like, surely then with that approach, which I think more and more people need to just be on top of, definitely. How, like, I think where oftentimes people do miss a trick is one, if there isn't anything for them right now, they then sort of may not end up speaking to them again, or I think we've all seen those LinkedIn posts where people have said like, just felt like that, it's very transactional. And it's like, I only feel like Kate speaks to me when like she's got something for me rather than, um, when she doesn't. So like, what, what does your follow-up look like? You said you put people, you like put people in talent pools, but surely you've got to be mindful of, you know, you've just spoken to someone that right now you don't, but you're very confident that 6 months down the line you probably will. Yeah. So what are you doing in those 6 months to stay front of mind, to add value?

What does that look like? I think, um, what I always say at the end of the call is, um, understand that we don't have anything right now, but I'm always happy to answer any questions on the market, salary advice. Um, I'm also happy if you're in any of the processes, like, let me know if you want to ask any questions about it. Like, and I think that would stand out from a lot of other recruiters, that why would you want to give advice to, like, to someone that's not in your own process kind of thing. But Also making sure your presence on LinkedIn is strong and they're seeing your posts all the time and adding value in that way. We've also just recently produced a salary survey, um, at WiseRelate, and it's better for clients obviously because they can see what to pay, um, people. But also we released it to quite a few people, and, um, a friend I actually know from school, um, I sent it to him. He was like, oh my God, I'm paying— getting paid so much less than the average account executive, um, which actually then is actually adding so much value for them because they're like, I can actually get a job at X instead of— so I think constantly just adding value for them, whether that's the salary survey, inviting them to our events, because you might speak to a candidate and then we're like, we've got an event coming up, it's, um, all about how— we did one recently on how AI can affect the sales process, come along. And then they come to the event, you meet them in person And then you've had that personal connection with them as at our events too.

What— so on, on your best year, what, what was like the most effective way that you landed clients for you? What, what ended up being— you spoke earlier about being open to trying different things this year, that's been really important. But like, what, what has ended up being your most effective way? Like, what— how did you land your, your best client in your best year?

Um, I think it's funny because sometimes it's like the most like cold outreach you can do and it's so, so dull. And what we always say, it's literally all about timing. Like, I think you could literally say, hey, you're hiring, to a hiring manager and they might have 10 AE roles and go, yeah, we are actually looking for an agency, it's really good timing. Or you do the most creative campaign to them and they're like take me off your mailing list. So it's like, I genuinely don't think there's a right or wrong to it. I will always say, right time, right person, if you catch them right at that moment. And also just follow-ups, so important. Like, I even think sometimes a good follow-up is just, bad timing on this one, John, or whatever. And then a lot of the time they'll actually come back and say, even if it's a no-go, 'Uh, it is actually bad time at the moment, Kate, but reach out to me in January,' and give you like a time. And at that point, I'll put it in my diary, reach back out to John in January, and remind myself that. But I think, I genuinely think it's, I think it's a timing thing. I don't think there's a rhyme or reason, really. Yeah, just being consistent with consistent what you're doing. And like, as I said, I think it just, if you're a hiring manager, a VP of sales, and you're sat there and in your head you're thinking 'Right, I really want to work with an agency and we need like specialist sales recruiters.' And then all of a sudden my name pops up on the phone, like, and I'm like, 'Hey.' And it doesn't have to be a big message, like, 'Hey, I work on AE recruitment, noticed you're looking for AEs, I'm working with X candidate at the moment, send a little spec in.' And they're like, 'Perfect, just who I was looking for.' So is that how your best client came about then, just a cheeky, cheeky little message? Yeah. And then also, it's, it's, I suppose it's important as well to look at like when you're actually trying to hunt for who you want to BD is like look at the share amount of roles that are on, on LinkedIn. Because like if you want to, if you want to bring on like a big project, then they have loads of A roles. Like you want to go for that stuff rather than— it's always, it's good to go for the single role, but you want the big juicy stuff.

We'll get back to the episode in just one minute, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, Firefish, the recruitment CRM that accelerates data-driven growth. They have just released their 2024 Recruitment Agency Report based on insights from over 200 agency leaders. The report offers unbelievable insights into forecasts for the year ahead, enabling you to refine your strategy based on data rather than intuition. Here are some of the stats I personally found interesting from the report. Although industry optimism has declined for the third year in a row, growth signals remain positive, with 84% of agency leaders expecting year-on-year sales growth this year. 47% of agency leaders plan to use a contingency recruitment model in 2024, and 70% of agencies plan to use social sourcing as their main candidate attraction strategy in 2024. You can access your free copy of the report and start making data-driven decisions about your business by clicking the link in the show notes. And whilst you're there, if you wanted to check out how Firefish could help your business grow this year, they very kindly offered a unique offer to our community, the Recruitment Mentors Podcast, that's going to save you up to £1,000. And this offer is only available until March 31st. You can click the link in the episode description, and you can also head to firefishsoftware.com/rmp. Why did you— why did you find yourself niching down even more, right? Because I think, yeah, that, that's quite interesting about what we ended up doing, because a big how you can influence becoming a top performer is definitely looking at the market you're serving, what your average deal size is. Because your, your average deal size that year was what, between 15 to 20K, right? Yeah. So that means you had to average one deal per month to get to where you got to, right? So what made you niche down into that? How did that come about? Because I feel like that, that's quite interesting, and people can take what you learned from that into their own markets. Because if you can increase your average deal size, that has have such a huge impact on the amount that you can earn and bill.

It honestly changed my billings and my career. Yeah, I— we worked— I worked on an account, um, and at one point it was like solely that account I was working on, which shows you you don't have to have loads of accounts. You can have one account that's just like— you're just like boom, boom, boom, um. And it was such a hard account to crack at first, and once I knew what good looked like, which I say is one of the most important things. Once you know what they think good is and you can send that through— but the enterprise side of things is all about high percentage over target, strong tenure, loads of experience, um, but it takes time to, to crack what that, what that is. Once you're in it and you've like cracked what they like, you can just like be speaking to those enterprise people all the time, ask for referrals from candidates. Like they might say to you 'Not interested, Kate.' But then you go, 'Do you have anyone— do you have a friend in your space that's looking?' They're like, 'Actually, yeah, I do,' because they're like in quite a close network of these like enterprise salespeople.

So it sounded like it happened actually a bit by accident then, the— what, the— the ended up being in an environment where your average deal size was a lot larger? So yeah, you just came from working with this one client, it went well, right? I'm going to focus on that. Yeah.

And then they had commercial roles as well, like like, like ones that were lower deal value. But they all of a sudden were like, we want 6 of these. Like, and I was like, um, and, um, help them basically scale their whole UK team. Um, but it just shows you that when you bring on something like that where they're looking to maybe build out a UK function from the US, for example, and they need to, to scale by 6 to 10 employees, but those average deal sizes are $15 to $20K, you can just work on— you would just need to work on one client.

So you built the entire team? Yeah, I must have got hard.

Yeah, it was hard, it was hard. But once I got into the swing of it, um, and also things like they wanted me to do things like find female talent instead of male talent, and they wanted diversity, and it's also having to crack all of that. Um, but once I got into it, I knew exactly what they wanted. And that's from like really knowing the client. And I think it's so important as well. My point of contact was the internal recruiter over there, not like the head of sales. Um, and sometimes internal recs can just not like external recruiters, but I got a really good relationship with her, made sure I visited her in person in their offices, like went for, for a lunch and coffees and stuff like that. And then we became more of a partnership than, uh, I'm the agent, you're solving her problems. Exactly. And helping her out as opposed to her just— because sometimes they don't like to work with agencies. Yeah, of course.

So I think where sometimes a lot of recruiters fall short is they, they have that experience and then they don't leverage what they've then done. So I'm assuming now, how are you leveraging that case study, leveraging what you've done to continue to land more opportunities like that at that enterprise AE level? How are you now doing that?

Yeah, so in terms of like winning new business?

Yeah, because I feel like that's where Sometimes often people like, they don't, they don't do enough of that. Oh yeah, we really try.

And it's actually interesting you say that because we have been really trying to do that at the moment creatively, um, in ways that— say I'm doing business development, I'll send them, and I noticed that they're hiring enterprise AEs, um, we've built like a bit of a really like nice looking like deck that is a bit of a reel of the placements. That I've made, um, the kind of profiles that I've found. And it's actually just on one slide, and it's their faces, their titles, and like it just shows you like the 6 hires that we made for the brand, which is a really strong company in the SaaS space. And I've been just sending that out to enterprise sales directors being like, hey, I've just scaled our tables team here in the UK. Here's, here's, uh, here's, here's an example of the placements that I've made.

Do you show anything else in that in terms of like the important metrics on like time to hire, how long it took, or not really? Yeah, showcasing. We—

there's actually another slide that we've got, um, because we're actually expanding into the US now as well, but someone else is doing that. Lauren? Yeah, Lauren. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so we've got a slide that has the placements and on the right-hand side has number of hires, time to fill, and how long we were working with them for. And if you just have it on that one slide So when clients can open it up on LinkedIn, don't have to like download a file or anything, they can just see it visually right in front of you. They know exactly what you've done.

How, like, what's been the response from that? That seems like quite a smart thing to do.

Strong. And also the visual aid is good. Like, it's easy enough to say it in a voice note or say it on a message, like, I helped scale by X and stuff. But if you look, if the, if that just came into your inbox and it's just a picture in like a nice like creative way with the photos, very like, like simple writing of what we did. They can just look at it straight away and it's had, it's had strong feedback.

Yeah, if you're, if you're listening right now and you haven't created any assets like that, like this is the perfect time to do it. Like looking back at the year, I'm sure there's going to be some successful placements that you've done. Like it's just so— rather than, yeah, me relying on Kate's word, like there's evidence, there's things that you can point out to go, I've done this for companies like yours. Can I help you do it for you?

Yeah, another big thing that I'd like really recommend and has gone really well is getting the hiring manager to do a little video for you. So like Kate or Wiser Elite were great helping us scale here, and we were really struggling with diversity of hire, etc. And I've got one of the guys to do one for me, and I just was sending that out to clients and being like, this is what we've done, but this is for it's literally from the horse's mouth. Yeah. And that's a really good thing to do.

So this leads me quite nicely then, as we round this out. I think— I don't know about you, but when you collect stuff like that, evidence almost, yeah, for me that quietens the self-doubt. Like, you know, when you have someone saying, Kate, help me do this. Yeah, yeah. When, like, sometimes when you wrestle with self-doubt, self-confidence, like for me personally I just have a folder of like testimonials and things that we've done, and like that, that is like the best. You can look at it when— yeah, like that is the best anecdote for me. And I think the— but also if you think about it in real time, when you're reaching out to these companies, how much more confident are you going to be going into those conversations saying, look, you might not need my help, but I, I am the person that can partner with you to do this. I've done this for X company like yours.

Yeah, it's so true. It is a nice little confidence boost. Yeah, 100%. I was like, because it's not you saying it, it's the evidence. Yeah, like when, when And when I, when I look at it back, I'm like, oh yeah, I did that. Um, but it's, it's true, it's a, it's a, it's a good thing to recognize like what you've done apart from just making the placements, to hear it from the client, hear them saying you've literally helped us scale here in the UK. You're like, that's unreal.

Yeah, I did. Because talk— the reason why I said that is like, talk, talk, share with us like your, your journey with your own, um, mindset, right? Because I know that's been a real journey for you in terms of self-confidence, self-doubt. And I— such a journey. Yeah, just to like just add some more context where I see this more prevalent in my experience from the people I spoke to is definitely more women, for sure, in recruitment. So the fact that you were the first female top biller, the first, um, principal— female principal— what that also means is that Kate, Kate had no one to look at to go, oh, she like, she's done what I'm trying to do. Yeah, you had to be the, the, you know, the first person to do that, right? Which in itself presents a challenge. If I'm in your business, I can look at Louis, I can look at Noel, whatever, and go, they're, they're me. Like, I, I can get to where they've got to. Like, yeah, I've got like a role model there. Yeah. Which is why 50% of the women that I reach out to to come on this podcast will respond of, I'm not sure I'm credible enough, I'm not sure. That's really sad. That's just been my experience. Whereas 100% of the time, if I reach out to the male version of Kate, the same experiences, they're like, yeah, of course, let's get me in. So talk to— share with us about that and like how address all that, how you've become better at making sure that that internal voice isn't extremely loud. That— yeah, yeah.

And I honestly think that was— that in my career is like the biggest thing that probably does hold me back, is just that like self-doubt. Um, but, uh, I think you just gotta like trust yourself. And things that— when you're like doing well, there's a reason it's happening. You've not got— I genuinely— there's a stage I was like, it's all luck, it's all luck. Really? Yeah, I actually thought it was. And, um, then I started to realize I don't think it could keep happening and happening if it was all luck. Um, I think— why did you think it was luck? I don't know. It's like, I was like, sure, like, I was like, surely I can't— I couldn't have done that well. I don't know. I don't know. It's just a weird thing. Um, I think though, like, you need to— you need to take— when you hear stuff from people, it's like what you said before about um, noting everything down when it's good. I actually did a similar thing where I wrote down like all the good things, not even just in work but in life, that had like gone well, and wrote them down all on my notes page. And I look back on it like, oh, actually, if you can remind yourself of that, it's so important. Um, also sitting down with your manager and getting them to talk you through what you've done well. Like, it's easy to just it's apart from in reviews and stuff, let that slide. But actually, if you want to be like, I really want to know what I'm doing well at the moment, as well as obviously asking for constructive feedback, but then when you hear it from them, you're like, oh, that's good. And it just reassures you because—

are you, are you quite self-critical? Yeah, because I'm the same. Because like, for me, what I remember if I have a conversation like that with my manager, what I remember are the things that I can improve on rather than the things that I did well.

Yeah, and, and you need to sometimes like battle through that to actually get them to tell you what you're doing well. Um, and I think it's sometimes— it's actually sometimes quite a hard question to ask because it's like, tell me what I'm doing good.

But actually, sometimes you need to hear it from other people.

You do need to hear it, and it's not a bad thing to do that. Or just ask like your like mate at work or something, like, do you— what do you think? And they'll be— they'll bet they'll tell you, and you'll be like, I didn't even notice I was doing that well. And they'll tell you something.

Do you think— this just popped into my head, like, I'm just curious— like, do you think, in your experience, do you think, uh, women build each other up more or tear each other down more?

God, that's interesting. Um, build each other up, do you think? Yeah, I actually do. That's what I experience in my company anyway. I don't know about others, uh, but I can only speak from experience. But we're all very close at Wiser, and it's very— because we've got Making Moves, the women in tech community, we're just so big on encouraging and, um, like motivating women. So in my, in my experience, we all boost each other up.

Yeah, I just— the reason why that popped into my head was I was thinking of an Instagram reel I was watching with, uh, my partner from Grace, um, Beverly, who— yeah. You know her? Yeah, yeah. And it was just a video, it just, it just sort of popped into my head because she was— it was a video, I can't remember the video that she was referencing, but it was like this successful woman built a business or whatever, and then like the comment section was a lot of women tearing, tearing her down and, and these types of things. And I just thought, because I'm just thinking like, do guys more often like big each other up and stuff like that? But do— I don't know, do women do that? When Kate gets to a point where I think, oh no, she's just way better than me, I'm gonna—

I don't know, I don't experience it. I, I like We're— Wiser Elite are very much like, we want each other to win, uh, and I, I definitely wouldn't say it's the other way around for sure.

Yeah, I just thought— because I was thinking again, when we're thinking about like self-doubt and these things, is it like, you know, do women face out a bit more where, I don't know, they get like those little snarky comments from people? I don't know if guys get that as much because guys are like, yeah, fucking go on, lad, you're smashing it, mate. I don't know if— do you know what I mean?

Yeah, it is interesting. I, um, It's great actually at my company because the, the men as well are like, when I, when I got top biller, they're like, go on, yeah, let's go.

Yeah, I love it. That's class. That's what it's about. So good. But I just, I just thought, I was just thinking, no, it's interesting if that impacts the things that we're talking about. Yeah. So what, what's ahead for you then? What are you thinking going into next year? What are you doubling down on? Obviously, how are we feeling about maintaining the top biller status?

What are you saying? I'm like looking at my name on the board like, oh God. Um, no, I think it comes back down to do the basics again. Like, I'm— it's hard at the moment, and everyone's at quite like a similar level, um, in terms of billings, etc. Um, but I think as well it's easy to fall into a trap of when you've not made a deal in a couple of weeks, you start to just be like negative and like, oh, put yourself in the— like, you're just like, I'm not going to get a deal, and you get a bit grumpy about it and stuff. And it's like, you actually can't do that because it just puts your mindset in such a bad state. Um, and it just comes back to, right, Kate, come on, like, do what you do best, which is like speak to good candidates, work well with your clients. And also, if stuff's not going right with the client, put in regular catch-ups, like weekly. I think it's easy to, like, when you're not being able to send them candidates because you can't, you're struggling to find them, is to shy away and not speak to the client. But actually, we found that putting in 15-20 minutes weekly even if you have to go on and say, look, I've not got anyone at the moment, but this is what we're experiencing, the market. They actually really appreciate it. So just doing every little thing you can, even if it's not going well.

Yeah, no, it's a great tip. All right, well, uh, look forward to finding out if we, uh, reign the title. Yeah, I'm sure you will.

I'll hide away if it doesn't happen.

But no, Kate, thank you so much for joining me. I think kudos to you on, you know, like building your self-confidence, getting to the point where you've got to, like, just— I'm sure you're feeling like, yeah, like, what else you're capable of, right? Which is really exciting. It's what's great about our industry, like, you can really push yourself and really question, like, actually, if I can do this, what else I can do? And I think that's one of the, the great things about our industry. Definitely. Thank you so much. Awesome.