Stop Selling, Start Influencing: The Recruiters Playbook with Jack & Zac from We Have A Meeting

Jack, Zach, welcome back to the pod.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

In person, in London.

In London.

How often do you two venture to London?

Maybe once or twice a year.

Yeah, I was gonna say, not often.

We actually used to live together in London.

In London.

So when we come back, there's a bit of a— I don't want to see anyone that we know.

Really?

Did a lot of terrible things.

Bad memories.

So obviously recently we did— for anyone listening that hasn't listened to it yet, but we did an episode remotely. I said to both of you, really enjoy the content that you put out there. I think you're doing a really good job of that. I've also attended some of your, like, training sessions. There's so much sales content out there, but really enjoy how you guys deliver it. I think you do a good job of, like, packing it up, making it really simple for people to understand. So I was really excited to get you involved in that first episode, and we just focused on questioning, discovery, and how to get good at that. But today we've sort of planned this with you being in London. We're trying to make this a bit of a special episode, one that maybe will be timeless almost. That'd be pretty cool.

Yeah.

Lovely.

And the goal here is anyone listening to this over the next 50 to 60 minutes is gonna walk away with tactics, strategies, things that they can use to get better at sales. So a one-stop shop on getting better at sales and developing their sales skills is, is the goal.

Beautiful.

So the way that we've sort of categorized this, and there may be some other areas that we go into, but we're going to talk about a bit of an introduction to sales. Are you just starting out? How can you get better at sales? Is it sort of, are you born with it? Are you born with this ability to be good at sales or not? Psychology in sales, which is a big part. Questioning strategies, we're going to touch on again. Cold calling, obviously. Closing and staying in control. And then again, sort of mindset in terms of like, How can we ride the roller coaster of sales or get better at that? And that's sort of what we want to cover.

Beautiful.

So should we start with the intro to sales? So should we start sort of, I guess, speaking to people that might have joined the recruitment industry, they had some sales experience, or they're early on in their sales career as a whole? How do we first feel about this sort of idea of like nature versus nurture then? How do we feel about it? Because I fell into sales, I sort of discovered it. When I had to sell bar crawl tickets in Magaluf for commission only. That's when I discovered it.

Brutal.

I was like, oh wow, this is actually something I can get better at. But yeah, how do we think about that?

So I think people automatically assume that you're gonna be good at sales if you've got the gift of the gab. Mm-hmm. Okay. So a lot of people that might be listening to this might actually be introverted more than extroverted.

Mm-hmm.

Now, just because you're an introvert or an extrovert, it doesn't really matter You could, you can still be good at sales. I think what you're looking for to start with is do you have the ability to listen? So do family and friends around you say, actually, yeah, that's somebody that listens. They actually relate to me. They can make me feel heard. They can communicate effectively. Obviously we're, we were talking off camera about like the generation at the moment and the younger generation coming through. A lot of people communicate via text and WhatsApp and written, like, so can you actually hold yourself in a conversation? And I think the third thing for any recruiters that are maybe getting into it and having that intro to sales, are you willing to put the work in? And I think sales is a very dirty word at the time, but it's to actually to serve and to help people. So thinking about the other person at all time and helping them get from A to B, and your job as a salesperson is to find out what A is and where B is.

And can those things be— Zach, do you think those things can be learned that Jack just said? Like listening or—

Yeah, I think there's one of the things I've been— because when you start looking and teaching this to people, you go back down your own life and think, what qualifies me to be able to teach people? And one of the things that I think back on, my stepdad's a taxi driver, right? But he's a very beloved taxi driver. People really love him and request him. And when I think back when people were in the taxi with him, It wasn't him going, what are you up to today then? Oh, right. How long you doing that for? He was going, what are you into?

Bloody, are you?

Oh, what?

How long you been doing that for?

Honestly, what got you into doing that? Like, he was so interested in what people have to say. And I think that's something that I took with me as a— I didn't think it was a skill until I got in and saw maybe what I was up against with other salespeople. But that ability to go into a conversation and treat people like they've got a big sign on their front that says, make me feel heard, is a really powerful thing to come in with. You definitely can learn it, but there's always gonna be propensities. Like if we interviewed someone and they said, oh, I was studying drama at university, or I wanna be a comedian, you'd go, there's something in this that actually would cross over quite nicely. But like Jack was saying, we also have had people who are incredibly extroverted and almost become more of like the therapeutic role. and it's a very, almost like a Louis Theroux thing of I'm no threat to you, so you can open up to me. It's just kind of finding your place, especially in recruitment. Are you finance bros or are you Android developers? Like there's a path for everyone.

Yeah. And then to build that in, we were talking before we started this about your hiring for your businesses, you're bringing on an academy. So I'm sure again, it'll be an ongoing process, but I guess Jack, from your perspective, what you might have figured this out, but to get better at hiring, you do need to make it less emotional and more scientific. So like, you must both think about this a lot. Like, what are like your non-negotiables in terms of that these people have to have or things that they have to tick in order for you to go, we're going to be confident offering them a job? Have you sort of figured that out?

Yeah. So I think one of the big things that we look for, and I sometimes feel rude during like interviews, is I'll switch my camera off and people are probably thinking he's just nipping to get a coffee, but I'm just sitting there with my eyes shut and I don't want them to see that I've fallen asleep during the interview, but I'm listening to their voice and the tone and the tonality. And you're thinking, if I was on the other end of the phone and I take away all kind of body language and the way they look and all of those things, do they sound interesting? Do they sound interested? Like, is it something that's gonna send me to sleep? Is there, is there kind of a bit of that je ne sais quoi about it? So the first thing is, can they kind of hold their own voice and use that as an instrument, as probably deep as that might sound for a sales interview when looking for people. It, there are things that we look for, but there's probably more like non-negotiables in terms of like, that's a bit of a switch off in terms of we see a lot of young wantrepreneurs coming through in terms of But that magpie thing where they've tried dropshipping, they've tried something else, they've tried something else, and then they're like, yeah, now I want to get good at sales because they've watched one Alex Hormozi podcast. It's like, what, why do you want to get there? I think they're the big things for me. What about you?

Yeah, there's that one there of can you cultivate habits and skills over the actual how long it's going to take you to do that and what your expectations. Happiness is expectation meets reality, right? So someone comes in and thinks, I'm sick at sales already because I've watched Alex Hormozi. I actually, I'm just going to apply those podcasts I've listened to here. That first bit of rejection could be make or break because they are going to get it at some point and it's going to be a humbling experience. One of the things I think is maybe more actionable for people is we do a role play as part of the interview. And sometimes what's true in real life is true in sales or recruitment, right? So the way you deal with people in your own life is probably how you're going to deal with them in the workplace. So the role play we do, it's a bit awkward for some people, but I say— sorry if she's listening— I said, I think my wife's gonna leave me. And I just leave them with that, right? Oh wow, you literally just— what? No, I said we're gonna do— no, I said we're gonna do a weird role play.

All right, I was gonna say you do tee it up a bit. I was like, last question.

But I, yeah, so I tee it up, I tee it up first, and I say, I think my wife's gonna leave me. People who maybe haven't naturally got it will go, right, what you should probably do is take her out for a meal, tell her how much she means to you, promise her the world, and you know, you'll move through it. It's a nice response. But the natural salespeople say, what makes you think that?

How long have you been feeling like that for?

Okay, have you tried anything to fix it? What stopped you? And I'm tallying up the questions that they ask me. If I'm getting to 10, I think this guy's got it. This guy's got it. Another thing that we do is Sometimes we tell people that we don't think they've got what it takes. I know it sounds a bit brutal. And see if they push back.

In the interview.

In the interview. Now, often what can happen is they can go, yeah, I think you're right. And they leave. But if they stay and they go, no, no, no, I have, I have. And I think you're probably thinking that because of the way I answered that question. If you asked it me again, I'd probably answer it this way. And they go back a bit. So we found these little things actually from doing our own podcast where we've asked people for advice along the way.

Yeah, I like that.

That we've just taken and just chucked into the approach. And some of it's worked, but now we've got a bit of a formula for just finding out, are you naturally curious? Have you got like a skill set-oriented mind? They're pretty obvious things, but how do I find them in interviews? Probably a different question altogether.

Yeah, I'm just wondering how many recruitment companies are going to add that. Let's do a bit of a role play. I think I'm going to leave my wife after that. Might be happening.

Probably quite common in recruitment.

Still sticking on the intro to sales then, Jack, curious to get your thoughts on this. Obviously you, we were talking like what's ended up happening in your business is you're hiring typically, not always, but younger people. They're starting their sales career or they're still early on in their career, there's a lot of, there's like a lot of information coming in, right? When you're starting a new job, particularly in sales, there's a lot of variables. So I guess it'd be quite cool to hear both of you share, like if there were a couple of things, a couple of habits, a couple of things to be laser focused on really getting right, focusing on getting good practice on these things that you think in the long term would be beneficial, would help these people if they were to still have a sales career or still be working in sales in whatever time period? Like, what are some of those early things that you think people could, should really focus on that could really help them in the long term, do you think?

I think that the top one that all salespeople should just really kind of zoom in on and, and hold on to throughout their career, their sales career, is curiosity. So what happens is people typically, you think of Dunning-Kruger, but people typically come in And because they know nothing and they're kind of, they're idiots to the industry, instead of like going into calls or sales calls or whatever, they'll just, they'll ask questions because they think, actually, if they ask me a question and I just talk and I tell them all about the product or the service, I'm going to look like an idiot. I'm going to be exposed as a fraud because it's my first 2 weeks on the job. So what I'll do is I'll just ask lots and lots of questions. So having that curiosity of like Zach was saying there, what does that mean? Why? How long have you felt like that? And just trying to pad your way through just by being curious. And it's about like, there will be many different paths that you can take during a conversation, and we'll probably touch on this later, but can I stay on that emotional path and the interesting path rather than kind of focusing on the logical, boring side? Okay, well, what, what system are you using? That, that conversation always ends up in send me an email. So how do you focus on the, the pain? And we, and we want people to have that curiosity around that initial thing. If you can keep that throughout the career and you've always got that curiosity, I think you're gonna go on to be great because you're trying to uncover what the genuine problem is. What are they saying? Why are they saying it? What are they really saying? What aren't they saying? All of these different things. You get there, you think about, um, I think it's like a philosopher said it, but you should be asking why 7 times. And that's what you wanna do in a sales environment. But not just ask the question, why, why? Then you'll sound like you're an interrogator, but you really wanna like understand people and try and understand people's, the reason people act the way they are. I think that psychology kind of falls into it as well.

And do you think, I know it's not as simple as this, but to be sort of tactical, obviously Zach, you were saying you was jotting down and counting how many questions you're being asked, but in the early stages, I think it's different in the longer term, and it's like not going into conversations assuming what you think their pain is and stuff like that. But early on, is it as simple as like really trying to lean into asking more questions? Just ask more questions.

Asking more questions, but making it feel like you're not bombarding the other person with questions. And that's where the art of mirroring and labeling can come in, and you can really— wait, you just said that, tell me a bit more about that. Yeah, rather than what— and that's where tone plays a huge part as well. So how do you extract information without feeling like you're extracting information? We had a guy on the phone once that was taking them through the process, asking great questions. And then I think they asked one very basic, like, what's the impact of that? And the guy went, well, I see. I forgot I was in a sales call. Just send me an email. And it's like all the lights come on and they're kind of stood there naked. They're like, I actually know what you're trying to do here. Let's, let's call it a day there. So it's, can you make people feel, like Zak said earlier, feel important, feel heard, and that they're part of a conversation without feeling like they're being sold to? That is the best thing that salespeople can do is to sell but not be what your cliché salesperson is.

Zak, what comes up for you? Curiosity might be well up there, but.

Yeah, I'll take a different tack to my pedigree chum over here. I think If you think, one of the things I've been thinking about recently is the difference between an amateur and a professional. Right? So one of the things that you think about the amateur, maybe like the guy who's kicking a ball around with his mates on Sunday, or the guy who's doing a bit of jiu-jitsu in the morning or whatever, very different than the person who's at the top echelon. 'Cause they're quite happy to go and have a drink the night before, come in and like, it doesn't really matter if I perform or not. I'm having a laugh. When you're a professional, every other aspect of your life has to make sense around it. So I know that in recruitment there's a culture around it of what goes on outside of work, and oftentimes you can maybe get away with that when you're younger, but there comes a point where if you want to take it seriously, you have to start putting those habits in around it. Can't just expect that I show up, walk through the door, pick up the phone, put my headset on, and I'm there. Sometimes there's work that happens before that, before you get there, to turn those lights on. And it's something that we hire a lot of young people, like you say, that I'm trying to Some people can do it and there's people, there's people that I'm trying to guide through. Last week when you were doing amazing, what was that about? Well, I slept enough. I did, it's pretty obvious trite stuff. What happened this week? I broke into a festival on the weekend and got hammered with my mates and I've had no sleep and I've shown up just thinking it's gonna work. I'm not really paying attention to anyone. It's connecting those dots with if it was a professional high performance pursuit, which it is, how would you treat all the other assets around it?

I like that. And that isn't you trying to get everyone to start a run club or stop drinking, right?

No, no, at all. I'm trying—

like, I get, I get what you're saying. It's like wherever you are in your career, but at the early stages, are there some of the things that you can do to set yourself up to win when you get into the office versus just rock up there and be like, I'm sure I'll be right?

Exactly. Me, like, me and Jack have got a very wanky morning routine that we do every day.

Okay.

But we do it not to like shout about it on LinkedIn, to actually just show up and be present for the team and for the clients. 'Cause if I didn't, I wouldn't know. It'd be a total roll of the dice. Some days I'd show up, some days I wouldn't. Whereas if I do something beforehand, I can guarantee that I'll show up.

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I think there's no self-development without self-awareness. Someone much cleverer than me said that at some point, but that is where the real growth happened. Um, we were talking about kids off air. That's when I got better. When I knew there was a child on the way, I had to have a very objective look at my skill set and go, I'm good at this, but actually I've never been good at this. And having that look and doing the groundwork to get better. And obviously when you look at any skill set you start off with, the whole thing needs to be refined from the top up. And I think that's— I've got issues with like the SDR role and having it not 360 anymore. But one of the great things about it is it lets you just focus on, can you open a door? Can you perfect an intro? Why didn't the tone land? Why did that question not land properly? It's almost having that ability to really have that very self-aware look at where am I, what needs work, what needs developing. That's the best place to start.

I think, and again, that's like the best salespeople will always be willing to do that, won't they? In terms of to actually, yeah, I do really like that. Tip, to be fair, in terms of if there's certain things that you find yourself good at early on, don't just find yourself doing those things. Yeah, like actually be willing to go, you know what, I'm really rubbish at updating then the notes or writing good follow-up emails, let's just focus on that. So yeah, fair, love that. Psychology and sales, who wants to start on that then? Obviously it's key in it, in the sales game, psychology and sales. Where do we want to start this off? We had biases, How people make decisions.

Where do we start?

Where do we want to start?

Well, I think just to kind of give some context to the conversation, sales isn't anything. So for me, the way I see sales is a breakdown. It's like sales is the umbrella and underneath that is like a few different elements. You've got mindset, you've got communication, you've got psychology and really to be good at sales. There's so many sales books about like how to write the perfect LinkedIn message or whatever. But really, if you want to be really, really, really good at sales, you have to understand how human beings act and why they act the way they are. So I think this is where a lot of deep fascination and curiosity from our point of view has come from. Like, how do we understand why people are the way they are and why different people may be from different cultures and things like that. That's definitely something we've learned, like working with different markets. So let's start with biases is maybe a good place to start. There are very many different biases. As human beings, we're an amalgamation of all these different human biases that over time we've developed to keep us safe. So you think back to the prehistoric times where we were monkeys roaming around and we'd look at a bush and we'd say, is that a saber-tooth tiger or is that just a bush? Well, I'm gonna assume it's a tiger and I'm gonna run away cuz that's gonna keep me alive. So over time we've developed, we've still got all of these kind of fight or flight mode within us. So when we are, when we are selling to people, as you think of cold outreach, reaching out to people, the majority of the time people have got this negative bias. Okay. So 60 to 80% of information that people can consume, they've got this negative bias towards it. So they're not hearing all the good things. They're automatically thinking, what's the bad thing? What's the danger? Are they gonna bore me to death? Are they gonna sell me something I don't need? And their job is to stay safe at all times. So your job as a seller is to try and diffuse these different biases. So the negative bias is probably like, the one that stands out the most. What are some of your favourite biases to talk about?

Confirmation bias is a common one. So confirmation bias is basically just, I'm actively searching for information that confirms my own set of beliefs. So in recruitment, it might be, we don't work with recruiters, never worked for us, we did it in-house. The reality of that bias is I tried to work with a recruiter once, he ripped me off, I've never worked with them again. But just having one relationship doesn't mean I go celibate for the rest of my life. So it's that awareness of what is a bias. And a bias is just a shortcut, just a shortcut, like Jack says, to keep you safe. What is a bias and what is reality? Like what's true? Confirmation bias is another one. And I think in the seller themselves, one that we always talk about with our team is recency bias. So I could have 10 good calls.

They all go well.

Maybe they don't end in a meeting, but they go well. The 11th call could be someone saying, fuck off. I could be like, oh, fuck this job. It's absolutely shit. No one likes me today. That's recency bias. That's your brain trying to protect you by picking the most recent bit of information and going, there's your excuse to not do anything. And these are always happening all the time. Don't want to hijack your point, mate.

No.

Yeah, the recency one, that is hard because like that can easily slip into your mind when you have that bad month or It's so easy to forget, like you just said, those 10 great calls. Yeah. Or the 10 great months, and then you're like, I can actually do this. That is a hard one, to be fair.

The brain will come up with explanations for everything to make things make sense. So the questions that you've got to ask yourself, and this is why psychology in sales is so beautiful because we're thinking about it from me as the seller, and I'm thinking about my own mindset and my own recency bias. But then you're also thinking about the person that you might be in a discovery call with, or you might be on a cold call with, or you might be reaching out to, and they've had an awful experience. So all of the, all of this psychology is kind of split down the middle in two. How can I question myself and my own beliefs? And when I'm talking to people and communicating with people, are they, what biases might they have? And how do I get there first? How do I kind of counteract those different human biases?

How do people make decisions? I really liked this one. I think another, like, I think you just explained that really well, Jack, in terms of like why people listening should care about this stuff, because then you can actually maybe just understand why people might, like you said, have like a knee-jerk reaction of like, well, we don't use recruiters, these things. But because, you know, sometimes people might be saying that just because of that one experience. You're, you're going to be maybe more comfortable challenging now, or at least just sense checking that. Like, you— is that you saying that you've used one recruiter once and then they— you like, it went terribly? Or you— are you saying that that is generally the, the case? You might not word it like that, but that's how you might start thinking, which is why it's, it's helpful to understand. But I think this even more so, like, delving into like, how do people actually make decisions? Where— like, what do you think about this then when you speak to people in your team around Explaining how people make decisions, where do you normally start?

Yeah, so there's a framework to follow, and it's a framework that we stole from therapy, so we didn't make it up, but it's deep thought, emotion, action. So when someone thinks about something deeply, they tend to attach an emotion. So I'll give you an example in recruitment. Someone reached out to recruit and they say, we're looking to hire a salesperson. Okay, what are you looking for? What kind of package do you want? Okay, that's a very logical type of conversation. But if the recruiter instead says to them, okay, that's interesting, why now? That's a totally different, totally different part of your brain. If I say to you, what did you do on the weekend? How was it? All good. But if I say to you, why did you do that? You go, what do you mean, why did I do that? Yeah. It immediately lives in a totally separate part of your brain. So being able to get someone into a state where they have to think deeply about the problem that you solve, that's step number one. But it's not just being there as a mouthpiece to go, oh yeah, OT, 70 grand. Like, it's not doing that. It's why. That's what I'm trying to find out. Why? What's the intrinsic motivation? You can't think deeply about something and not attach an emotion. And that emotion might be excitement, might be frustration. There'll be some sort of emotion that comes behind it. And then when you have an emotion, you'll act. Human beings make decisions based on emotion. So when there's an emotional feeling behind something, then I will act. We're all slaves to the amygdala.

That's like proper— like the way that you just framed that, I just found that really interesting. The bit before what you just said.

What?

What about all of it?

I really like how you put that. So you can't— you just said you can't think deeply about something without emotion. Right.

Yeah.

If you think about like, you know, you know those, you'll have calls like this. You ask someone a question and they sit back in the chair and they go, it's a really good question. And they have to think for a second. That's deep thought, pausing, like tone, changing tone. There's little telltale signs that it's happening, but when it happens, you have to really think about something. Why have I let this problem exist for as long as I have? Then I attach an emotion and that emotion will enforce You're making the decision.

And it's important to try and get there versus just at the surface, because then that's actually when we can get to what the problems are, what the challenges are.

Yeah.

And if they're not emotional about them or not emotionally, and no, if they're not as emotional as they need to be, they're not going to take action.

Yeah. We talked on the last podcast, I think, about this idea of, and Jack mentioned it as well about one of our guys, asking someone what is the impact of the problem? Impact doesn't exist in real life. That question, I've never said to one of my mates, what's the impact of that problem in your life? I never talk up to people like that. But if someone brings something up that's a problem and instead of going, okay, well, here's the solution, you go, okay, but how do you know that's a problem? Then they have to go, well, because it takes me fucking ages, because this is going on, because there's risk, because there's— and they'll start layering up. And when they do that, that's getting into that deep thought. I'm having to really think about why this is a problem. Here, and you are there to guide someone down that path, not tell them.

Because that's what I mean. Like, where does influence versus persuasion come into that? Like, if we've got good at that, where does that come into it? Because I think a lot of people, when we think about the negative bias, a lot of people think salespeople like force me to do things or persuade me to do things that I don't want to. They're gonna make me buy this thing that I don't actually want. So how, like, influence versus persuasion was the other bit that we put down here.

So one of the questions we ask a lot on our podcast to guests is, can you persuade somebody to do something? And what was the lovely quote that you said on the tube about holding a gun?

You can, yeah, I got that from Andrew Bustamante, shout out, we'll put his Instagram handle in the comments. No, but he was basically saying like, as a CIA agent, you can get someone to do something at gunpoint, but they'll only do it once.

Hmm. So you can take a horse to water, like you can persuade them, but then Once they're kind of free from that sales call, this is typically where you might end up with like counterfeit yeses. So like persuasion is like such a, it's such a funny word, but like when we think about influence, I wouldn't think about influence and persuasion. I sometimes think about influence and manipulate.

Mm-hmm.

And that's typically when we're thinking about the emotional path and we're taking somebody down that emotional path, they, they can buy, but then if it doesn't all make sense in their head as well, that's where like buyers remorse comes in. So when you, when you check out of that and the emotion is kind of, you go home, you've got a £400 pair of shoes, but it was an emotional purchase, but the logic isn't there to back it up. We think about like when, when you buy it emotionally, does it logically make sense as well? And is the credibility there? So one of the things and one of the tactics that we do is like, can we take everything off the table? So like, here are all the things that you could do so that Logically, you're emotionally invested because you're frustrated by this pain or you're excited, but actually the, the only logical thing to do would be to work with us. And if there are other ways that you could solve that problem moving forward, great. Then you've got to remember that in sales, you, you're not for everybody. Mm-hmm. And I think like that, having that mindset, and we can touch on that later when it comes to influencing, that there is definitely a status thing of like going into it of I'm not attached and you are using your skills for good. Influencing is the intent of I want what's best for you. If by the end of this conversation I feel like I'm gonna shine a light, I'm gonna ask you some thought-provoking questions. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna get you to a place of deep thought. I'm gonna find out where you are and where you want to be. And if by the end of that, that I feel like I can genuinely help you, I'm probably gonna influence you into our solution, what I think will be best, and I'll present something. That's it. Manipulation and persuasion is trying to push something that is maybe not necessarily the best fit for them. There are so many salespeople all over the world that are like trying to push a square into a triangle shape. One of those, you know, those wooden toys that kids play with. It was going so well. But, but you know what I mean? Like, you can't bend, you can bend someone's arm, but it's always going to end in tears.

Yeah.

Now recruiters feel that the hard way when they get— they maybe do that with someone that has shared their concerns, but okay, I'll go along to the interview, these things, they get offered the job and then they don't accept the job, right? Um, so I guess, Zach, just to like underline that out of interest, like if not everyone listening to this will be as interested as maybe you guys are in this sort of stuff, right? But if there were like non-negotiables, if we were to put non-negotiables on these, that if you were to understand these elements around when it comes to psychology and sales that would just help you hopefully become a better salesperson, because maybe you understand how people make decisions or you understand the key biases, what would be some of the non-negotiables on the psychology and sales? I'd like to think people listening to this would be curious about, but not everyone will be.

Yeah.

What would be like the bullets on it you think in terms of if you do anything, check these things out, understand them, and it should help you day to day.

Yeah. So, uh, firstly, someone's favourite subject is always the same. So is themselves. So if you can get the conversation onto them, it will feel very natural. Soon as you start talking about yourself, there should be a little bit of wiring that you're building into your brain that's, I need to get out of this quite quick. To Jack's point before around negativity bias, confirmation bias, when you talk about you're an award-winning recruitment agency with lots of experience in whatever, they just go, heard it before, same thing as everyone else. They will not be interested in that piece. The key conversation is people prefer ideas that they've been involved in building themselves, called the IKEA effect. So if you know you're in a saturated market in recruitment and you're dealing with someone for the first time, you should be saying, well, look, you've worked with other people in this space before. Why would you come work with us? And they'll say, well, I've heard that you do X. Okay. So it sounds like X is quite important to you. Yeah.

Yeah.

X is quite important to us. And you'd never found that with— and then they'll build a picture of what they want in an ideal recruitment company. And you'll just simply say, okay, and if I said we do do all those things, what would you want to do next? It's an idea that they've built themselves. So two things there. One is try not to talk about yourself too much. And if you need to, try and do it in a way that gets the other person to build the idea for you. That's the IKEA effect, right? And then I think A rule that I think just for life in general, I'll tell my kids this, is you should go into conversations with the idea that people have got that sign on them that says, make me feel heard. There's a very different conversation that's had between people who go, okay, great. Next question. Okay, great. Next question. Okay. And someone who goes, okay, I've not heard that before. What makes you think that?

Wow.

And how long were you doing that for? There's a very different style of, I feel when I'm delivering it like that, that you get the impression that I'm really listening to you. So those are just— there's loads, but you're looking for just a couple to take away, those would be the ones.

Yeah, I love that. I was that guy in my friendship group, which is why I got sort of labeled with— everyone used to just call me a journo. That's the only thing your kids might have to wrestle with. You're a fucking journo, mate, leave him alone, stop asking questions. But like, yeah, which is interesting, then ends up starting a podcast and we're saying like, I love being an interviewer and asking those questions and being curious. Let's get into cold calling just because I think let's just get into the bit that I think people on LinkedIn love, people love learning about because it means they're not having to do it themselves. I think I've always, whenever I've watched some of your live cold calling shows when Ben's been involved, I think he always makes a joke around like, this is great, you're all meant to be cold calling, but you're watching them instead.

You know what I mean?

Jack, what is the purpose of a cold call?

The purpose of a cold call for me, and maybe for you and for our team, but other people might disagree, is to find out if somebody has a problem that you solve. And more than that, are they motivated to solve that problem? So we work with a variety of different clients. The way I like to think of it, and one of the kind of analogies I give, is I say to some of the clients, I say, You are the doctor, you are the technical wizard. You are, you've got the PhD on the wall, you've got all of the prescriptions in your cupboard. You're a genius. Okay. But what you've got is you've got this empty doctor surgery. We act as the proactive receptionist. So we are gonna go out to the market, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna find those people, those patients to come in and sit in the waiting room and sit down with you. So we're gonna ask questions like, do you have an itchy, throat? Do you have a runny nose? Do you have sore ears? We're looking for those. Okay. And then we're gonna go, how long have you felt like that? Because what we're trying to work out is, have you felt like that for 10 years and it's a lifestyle choice, or have you felt like that for a day and actually it's probably gonna be gone tomorrow? So I'm trying to sense like, if the problem exists, what, what is the problem affecting? So like we came down to time, money, risk. Oh, it takes me ages to do this. Oh, it means I'm not sleeping well at night. Oh, it means X, Y, and Z. How long you've felt like that to test if there is a genuine motivation. So one of the things with motivation, one of the stories I tell is I've got a cassette player in my car. Okay. And the cassette player broke. Now that means that a part of the car is broke. So I've got a problem. We can agree that I've got a problem. Am I gonna buy a new car because of that? No. I bought one of those £15 fancy dongles where I can just connect my phone via Bluetooth, but there's no motivation to just because somebody had a problem. Doesn't mean that they're genuinely motivated to solve that. So what you want to do is you want to get it like a flagpole in the sand. Yeah, you've got a problem. Now I'm going to push it a little bit, see if it can stand on its own and see if there is that genuine motivation. If there is that genuine motivation, that's when you can start to book meetings. And that is the purpose of cold calling, obviously, with the goal of revenue eventually. But do they have the problem? And are they motivated to solve it? One of the big things I'm passionate on about the moment is not all meetings are created equal.

Mm-hmm.

And we know that. So, uh, an inbound lead, a referral, a cold call, an email, a LinkedIn, like the, the first question to ask is what is a lead? Like everyone's got different, um, deter— like everyone will have a different explanation of what a lead is, but not all meetings are created equal. So make sure that whatever meeting you are having from a new business standpoint, what do you want to get out of it? And for us it's do they have a problem? And are they motivated?

So where, when you're explaining like that, like where do you think people go really wrong when they think about cold calling or even like doing cold calling? Because I feel like when you, when you think about cold calling with that frame of mind, it makes a lot more sense than how you, why you would approach it in a certain way in terms of like rather than calling someone talking about yourself, your product solution or whatever, which is what I still get. I'm always interested to pick up the phone and sort of see what people have to say. And the ones that make me feel the worst are ones where someone literally just starts talking at me about themselves. And then I think on par, to be fair, is then when it's like just so, so, so irrelevant. So like with that frame of mind, with what you just explained, like where do you think people go really wrong when it comes to cold calling?

I think where people go wrong, so if people are calling up and saying, we're an award-winning CRM, we want to get you in blah, blah, blah. That's probably not, we know that SDRs, a lot of them are 20 to 30, they're young, they might not be experienced. That is the problem of the leader, first of all, like we can't blame those SDRs, they're probably naive, but we talk a lot about like, what are they being rewarded on? So for us as an agency, it's like when we look at the calls and we look at the notes, do they have the problem? Do they have the motive? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah, you've got that. But then you're rewarded on like meeting sat, like, are they sitting down? Is it like a good quality conversation? I think when the metrics are different and you are just rewarded on get me in front of as many people as possible, you're gonna, you're gonna do whatever you can to, to get people in, in front of them. I, I've been working with a company on the consulting side and they hired a guy and his strategy was, we're calling from X, we do this, I want to get 15 minutes in your diary. When's good for you? Right. And, and it was just straight down the line. And when I was consulting, I said, look, What, what, what are some of the detriments that might have? I was like, one, it could like tarnish your brand, like, and it can have that knock-on effect. Like you are talking a year-long sales cycle for these, this kind of company. It could drive a real knock-on effect to, well, I don't wanna work with them. I've had a negative experience. Remember that negative bias is coming in. And also like if it is the 360 role, like we say, like it, it, it should be, you are wasting so much time. Like remember sales is 50/50. It's about you helping people solve problems, but they've gotta come to the call with the problems. Like if you turned up at doctor's surgery and you were like, nothing's wrong with me, but I thought I'd just, I'd just come down today to see what's going on. The doctor will be like, get out of here. What are you doing?

Mm.

So it's about valuing your own time or the AE's time or your boss's time, your sales manager. It's 50/50. So like people are going wrong because they probably don't see it as like, um, a value exchange of I only want to sit with people that I can help. Like, I'm not trying to convince you that you've got this problem. Like, you've got to acknowledge that you've got some sort of problem to come to the table. Like, we have conversations where people come and go, I don't really know what I'm here. Go and sell to me. I'm like, no, that's not how we do this dance, love. It's all right. If you don't want to play the game, you can go. I'm not going to, like, preach at you about, like, case studies. It's stupid.

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. The problem with most recruitment CRMs is that they are just a database of records, meaning they become just one of the many tools that recruiters use every day. Like with all systems, the records are only as good as the data being captured. Our sponsors Firefish know that for agencies to win faster Data needs to be at the heart of their business, making your CRM the single source of truth. With over 10,000 records created and updated every day and 85% of placements from existing candidates, Firefish enables recruiters to enrich and engage their data, equipping you with real-time insights needed to win faster. To learn more about Firefish and take advantage of an exclusive Recruitment Mentors Podcast offer, make sure you click the link in the show notes. And mention the Recruitment Mentors podcast when speaking to the Firefish team. Yeah, now that, that doctor analogy is really powerful to like hammer that home. Zak, let's get into the actual intricacies of a cold call then. We're talking about the objective, the purpose of it. I think people, I feel like sometimes, to be fair, probably more Jack than you, Zak, but I see Jack, um, in the comment section just giving people some beef about openers. And because a lot of people got a lot to say about openers, and yeah, like it's If you're gonna create a TikTok that does well, then talk or do like openers. Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing. But I've got here 3 most used openers by your teams: permission-based, can you help me, there's some recruitment-specific examples that we can go through, um, Bridget, uh, bringing the objection to the front. So do you want to just talk about— for me, I don't know what you guys think. Have you thought about why people are so interested in the opener or so like hooked on that? Have you thought about it?

People think there's a magic bullet, right? Yeah, that's why people think I can say something to someone on the phone and not have to do any of the other work. And we've had people who come to say, I know the opener, I know the opener, but what about the other 10, 20 minutes of the call? What about being able to have an adaptable conversation with someone? But the opener, I mean, regardless, if I rang up and said, hi, Zach, how are you today? That might work. It's not— there's none of them that are silver bullets. There's ones that are maybe slightly more effective. The nuance with this is what personality type do you use which opener to? And I don't think I hear a lot of people talking about this enough. So the, look, I'll be honest, this is a cold call. Do you want to hang up or let me have 30 seconds? That is for cocksure CEO, self-made person who doesn't have much time on their hands. If I do that to HR caring soft skills person, they might go, I'm all right. See you later. I'm fine. So I'd use a totally different opener there. Now let's say it's a recruitment example, which might be, I, you know, I've got an advert out for a full stack developer. Let's say I'm going to go, let's go down that road. And you know, I'm a technical founder looking to build that skill set out in the team. I could ring up and say, I've seen you're looking for a full stack developer. I've got a CV I can send over to you of a guy that's just finished working at Instagram. Would you be interested in having a chat with him? Everyone's doing that. What I could instead do is say, well, I'll be really honest. I've seen you're looking for a full stack developer. I might be able to help you. Could I have 30 seconds? Okay. Yeah. What's it about? Well, normally what I'm seeing when people are looking for full stack developers, they're worried that maybe they won't stick in the job long enough. They won't understand the project or they won't have a skill set that you can really build the team around, but I'm guessing that's not why you're looking for them. No, some of that's true. Okay. Well, again, I don't know if I can help you out of what I said, A, B, or C, which one would you say most applies? But I'm not coming into it like, let me persuade you. Let me kick the door. I've got this developer over my shoulder that like no one's got access to. Cause the reality is people don't trust that. If you're looking to hire someone that's an amazing developer and you're in recruitment, no one believes that they haven't got a job. They know that you're going to have to go and kick some doors down to get them, and they should be treated with the respect that they get it as well. And so, yeah, so it's like, it's probably not the most amazing clickbaity answer.

How do I, I think what would be helpful for people, cause you're right, like how, how do I get good at crafting that second bit? Cause I think that that's where. A lot of people maybe could do some work or improve? Because I think you just, you just delivered that straight away because you're obviously good at this stuff and do a lot of it. But I think if I was to be doing a training session with recruiters right now, they'll be able to do the opener bit probably quite easily, but then it's that, it's that like ABC bit. Yeah. And like, these are the, these are some of the challenges that you might be experiencing, but I might be way off. Like, let's just talk about that for a sec because I think that'll be really helpful for people, and then I'll just ask you something to follow up on that.

Yeah, so there's two questions you can ask yourself. One is, um, what problem does someone need to have to work with you? Right? And that's not where the magic happens. The magic happens in if they had that problem, how would they know about it? So how would they be noticing day to day they had that problem? If you ask yourself that, that'll be where the magic happens. Well, they're noticing it because they can't find anyone with that skill set. When they do find someone, they tend not to stick with them long because they're going out and negotiating other salaries with other companies. They'll find out those bits. You're asking that question. And it's, it's again, it's that therapy question. It's How do you know that's a problem? Once I have that, I then need to refine it down and filter it to match what we call pub speak, which is, could I say this to someone in the pub without them looking at me going, what are you talking about? It has to be so simple because when I've got someone in that 30-second opener, they're in fight or flight mode. They're not using all the intellectual capacity of the brain. They're using it in its most simple form of, is this a threat? Is this boring? Should I be here? So keep the language simple.

Yeah, really simple. I had to do that with mine, and that can just be a bit of iteration. You're like, ask for 30 seconds, and then you're like, fuck, I'm like 75 seconds in here. So long. You're like, yeah, I need to— when you listen to it back, it's like, oh shit, that takes way longer. Even when you practice it, but when you're actually in the moment, you might take a bit more longer because you're trying to deliver the tonality, the pauses and stuff. What about— would you mind just sharing? You was intentional with like how— I can't remember exactly how you worded it, but it was like But I'm guessing you might not be experiencing that, or like the no-based thing. Do you mind just sharing like why you're quite intentional with that?

Yeah, um, I think everyone's been on a cold call before, or a sales pitch where someone's— let's say someone stopped you in the street and gone, you care about blind dogs, don't you? Yeah. And you've got a spare fiver, aren't you?

Yeah.

And you've got it every month, haven't you? Yeah. And before you know it, you're giving all these counterfeit yeses and being forced into something. The, there's a great book called The Chimp Paradox. I'd recommend everyone reading it. You've basically got this part of your brain that is referred to as the chimp. It's all your ancestral wiring, right? Given no room to run, it will react. So if it feels like there is pressure, there's a thing called reactance, which is I will go purposely the opposite direction. So I feel like you are putting loads of pressure on me, you're backing me into a corner. I'll probably say either yes to get out of the call and never speak to you again. Or react and say, fuck off. Right? Giving room to say no is the best thing you can do for that part of the brain. So if I say to you, here's some problems, but you might tell me you don't have any of them, that part of your brain doesn't react. It has room there to run free and go, well, no, hold on a second. I do have some of that. And it's a much more comfortable place to start a conversation than there's first pressure question, there's second, there's third. Ooh, can I get away with fourth? Like old school '90s selling belongs back there in the '90s. The shit suits.

No, I love that. I think, I think that'd be really helpful for people. And then just to tie this all together, the bit that I think I took it from some of your content, to be fair, when I was seeing you do actually your live cold calls where I was going wrong, I felt like I did a good job of the, the sort of free pain points or like the way that you framed it. I did that in pub speak, I delivered that well. And then I did the— I gave them like a way out and then they would just give me like a one-word answer. And then I used to sort of freeze a bit. I was like, shit, like, what do I sort of say next? But what really helped me there, which I think would be helpful for people, is if they do a good job of what you just said, they map out those pain points, they script that up, it's in pub speak, they have that, uh, they'll end it in that no-based way, um, and they get hit with like 'Yeah, you're probably not far off,' or, um, 'No, none of those are, um, relevant at all.' But if I do say some of them are relevant, what's really helped me is then to go, 'Okay, well, you know, you said some of those are relevant. Which one out of those stick out the most?' Before, I used to just sort of be like, 'Fuck, I don't know what to say next.' But that was all— I'm sure that's also intentional when you do that. So like, just talk to me a bit about that, because I think if people listen to this and actually they implement just this first bit, they'll have more conversations and they'll open up more doors if they get that first bit right, like you've said, but then if they ask that follow-up question rather than maybe just, I don't know, like they might just freeze or whatever, or like just go into the pitch. I think that'll really help people. So what's the intention behind there?

Yeah, so I've hit someone with my 3 pain points and they say, yeah, some of that applies. Well, that probably applies to most businesses. My job then is Robert De Niro's got this great line, which is when you watch me in a scene, You don't look at me and think that's the one who said that line a million times. You look at me and think that's the first time I've said it. And this is a skill that I think everyone should have. So you can't go, okay, out of A, B, and C, which one applies? You have to go, okay, I probably wasn't expecting you to say that. Okay, well, out of A, B, and C, which is totally different. The way it feels is more authentic, like we're having a two-way conversation. Now, when they pick the problem, and then I start going into asking for an example, there's a bias called a heuristic bias, which is the more real-life examples I can give of something in my world, the more I'm gonna start persuading myself.

Okay.

So it's not me having to persuade someone, it's the more they can start talking about the problem in their world, start painting a picture of the last time it happened, the most painful time it happened, how often it happened. That's them persuading themselves. Old school selling would say, I'm sure that happens to you quite a lot, doesn't it? And the last time it happened was pretty quite painful, wasn't it? That'd be old school selling. I'm saying let's have a nice, therapised, open conversation where at the end of it there's room for you to say yes or no.

Yeah. I think if people implement those things, then I think they'll be having way more conversations, which is why I wanted to focus on that. Let's get into closing and staying in control then, because I feel like that'll play a bit of a factor of If, like you just said, I've just asked that follow-up question, Jack, what's key next? So I guess maybe to sort of frame this, if I'm getting good at what Zach has just demonstrated, I'm getting them talking about some examples maybe, but then I'm not quite getting them over the line, even though if you were to listen back to my calls, you might feel that they did have a problem, they're actually quite motivated to fix it, but I wasn't quite getting to the point where they, we both agreed it was a good idea to book in a meeting or go to the next step. Like where, where do you think are going to be some of the things that maybe I'm struggling or where you're going to look to maybe help me improve to get to that outcome if that person is motivated and has the, has the problem that potentially we could fix?

Well, so like, like we were saying with openers, there's no silver bullet when it comes to closing. There's not like one magic, what's the magic close that I can do that's going to get more people across the line. Typically, if you get to the end of a call and you're closing, like, all the magic of closing happens upstream. It happens in the questions that you're asking, the listening, making people feel heard, all of that. All of that magic is what happens to the close where it feels like that is the only logical answer to sit down and explore it further. So if you get to that point and you've kind of lost them, Typically it's because you've said something that you shouldn't have said, or you didn't say something that you should have said at some point. You didn't question them or whatever. A lot of the time it's because you didn't take them down the emotional path. So there's two reasons typically you lose them is one, you will enter into pitch mode so that they might, you might lose that element of control where they start saying, well, tell me what you do. And rather than switching it back and using the IKEA effect or things like that, you'll be like, Okay, well da-da-da-da-da-da usually results in send me an email or you're taking them down this path. You're getting examples. You're finding out about the impact you're getting. You find out the root cause, you're finding out where they want to be, but then all of a sudden you might take a left turn and you're on logic lane. And then you're trying to tick the boxes of like the logical questions and you're taking the less interesting path. And then that's typically where you lose them as well. We go back to that deep thought. Okay. So before kind of going for any kind of close, we want to make sure there's some element of emotion there. So maybe that could be an emotional question. So provoking something like, can I ask a bit of a direct question? Yeah. Have you given up? No, no, no, no. Okay. Have you got your diary there? So once you've got that emotional element, then it's a case of like, this feels like the next logical step. Or, okay, let me just summarize that for you. You said X, which means Y. You're spending all your time wasted, which means you can't see your, your wife and kids on, on the evenings. You've not been able to do a bath time since last February. And then I guess, is there any reason if we, I don't know if we could help you yet. I don't know if we could help you solve that problem. I'm not going in with, I'm gonna be able to solve this. I'm gonna be able to fix this. I'm gonna make you a millionaire. So look, no promises. I don't know enough about you yet, but I guess based on that, is there any reason why we couldn't sit down at some point next week and explore this a little bit further? I'm not talking about time. I'm not saying 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 4 minutes in the diary. I'm not trying to, I'm trying to keep it just as this agnostic thing. And I'm saying just explore it further. Is there any reason we couldn't? Is that fair? I might get that element in as well. Um, so I don't know if that answers your question, but there's a load of things.

Yeah, I think what I'd be— either you can jump on, Zach, feel free to share your thoughts on this— but I think that staying in control piece is, is hard for sure, because it's like, again, people want to— the other person on the receiving end wants to feel in control, right? So I've been hit with that a lot, a lot, where it's like, just tell me what you're selling, or like, what is it exactly? Because they just want to be in control, right? And I know a lot of people listening will experience that. So like, how, how do we get better at staying in control? Because I almost feel like, I feel like this is only something that you get better at when you're doing the reps, when you're in the moment. Because there will be— I don't know what you think about this, but there will be a line where like if that other person is going, 'Look, just tell me exactly how you can help me, what you do,' and then you just bat it back at them like, 'Fuck,' you can just push them away even more or frustrate them. So how do you think about this, staying in control? And we can maybe start specifically with when you get maybe that initial pushback of like, look, is that just tell me like what you're, what you're trying to sell me or whatever? Yeah. Like, how do we think about that? How do we get better at it?

Yeah. So the first thing is you want to acknowledge the elephant in the room. If you feel it, you should say it. That's a rule to live by. Okay, definitely. So if you say that, look, I'll, if I answer that question the way most recruitment consultants would answer it, you're going to think I sound like the rest of them, aren't you? Yeah, that's the elephant in the room. So I'll tell you what, you can probably help me answer it. So have you ever noticed how when you work with other recruitment consultants, problem A, B, and C sometimes happens? Yeah. Okay. And have you noticed because problem A, B, and C sometimes happen that sometimes there can be this impact, or maybe you might tell me it's something else? No, no, I see some of that, but I also see some of this as well. And we're back to this idea of you're building it with me again.

With them. Yeah.

But the elephant in the room is always like, I don't want to sound like a salesperson here. And there's loads of different ways we can do this. The short one, the Socratic one that Benjamin Dennehy uses would be like, if I said I did X, you'd probably tell me you weren't interested. Which again, some personality types, that cocksure CEO that's going to push his buttons, he's going to go, well, no, I would say that. But your maybe technical founder, that's the development background, might need a bit more, let's build this together.

So the main intention around doing it that way is that you get them back sort of build. That's the key bit, basically, to understand.

Yeah.

And why you're doing it that way.

Like email objection handles, any kind of pushback questions that feel like traps like that is how can I loop you back onto a problem so I can deal with it in a way that's non-avoidant and loop you back to a problem. Can I be honest? If I answer that question, I'm gonna sound like every other salesperson, I'm gonna sound like every other recruiter. Typically the best place for us to start is if you, if I said A, B, and C is normally things I get focused on, you're probably gonna tell me you don't have any of them.

Right, okay.

So I deal with the elephant in the room first. I acknowledge, like, I know why you want to know this, but then I get you back on a problem.

So it is a big part of staying in control is like, if you feel it, let's say it, basically, which is that. So if you start feeling like— yeah, okay, that's, that's really helpful, to be fair. Where, um, we also spoke about that, the, the sort of bamfam piece, or did we want to talk about— is there anything else to build on what you were just saying that people can use when sort of managing more of the sales process as a whole and like feeling a bit more in control of that? Like, is there anything— I don't know if you want to build it on from what you were just saying, but how can people listen to this just keep, um, feel like they have more control throughout the, the process versus not?

I think understand every question is symptomatic of something. So if you randomly get out of the blue, let's say I'm helping you fill a position in London, and you go, can you help me with a position in Manchester? And you say, yeah, you've missed an opportunity there to diagnose a symptom. If you instead say, ooh, that's interesting. It feels like you've asked me for a reason. Yeah, we've got this role that's opened up. And if I just go, yeah, they go, yeah, okay, you can't help me. Oh, I might come back to you with something on that. Totally missed your opportunity there to understand something. So any like questions off the— if we were talking about selling software or something, Is it blue?

Feels like there's a reason you've asked.

Well, yeah, we're looking to rechange our branding. Okay. What led you to want to rechange your branding? Everything is an opportunity to be curious. Curiosity is a habit. So just make sure you cultivate that.

So if I was to feel like I was less in control, I wouldn't be doing that. I would just be taking things on a—

Yeah. The person asking the questions is the one in control.

Okay.

Do you, can you help me in Manchester? Yeah. Okay. Could you help me with this development role? Maybe you'd have to tell me. Okay, good, good to know. I'll jot that down, right? People will do that and then they'll come back.

Yeah, but then if you go back the way that you're saying, I'm gonna feel like I'm more in control throughout the process because I'm actually also understanding like why they've asked me that. And you can get even more information, which then—

in the habit of— it's a, it's a real skill because you can come across like a bit of a knob if you don't do it right. But be in the habit of, I want to understand the purpose of the question before I answer it. And that comes from using your best GCSE drama skills before you run into things.

Do we want to just— Jack, you want to hit bam bam real quick? Because I know I love bam bam.

Um, book a meeting from a meeting. Okay, so we, we keep a very lean pipeline when we look on Salesforce and we look in our CRM and we can go through and we go, I've got a meeting with that person on that day, I've got a decision on that day, I've got that. If, if there's no next steps, then typically you're gonna lose that opportunity somewhere. It feels like something's gone wrong. You've ended that conversation with, yeah, I'll get back to you. Okay. So a lot of people feel like we do the upfront contract of if we get to the end of this and you feel like it's not a fit, you're happy to tell me. Yeah. And if we get to the end and you are happy, what would you want to happen next? And then we're getting some kind of expectations. If you get into the end and they're saying, yeah, let me think about it. It's probably a no. Okay. Now, as a salesperson, if you accept that, I'd say that you've probably failed your job. So it's a case of like aligning on what the next steps may be. Obviously, there are very different complex sales cycles with different decision makers. We know that there's probably around 8 different decision makers in most organizations. So it's, are you leaving that conversation with concrete next steps, whatever they may be. If not, then you failed. One of the pieces of advice is don't be afraid to give a no for somebody. If you get to the end and somebody's not willing to give you that yes or no, and they're like, yeah, maybe I need to think it over. Okay, well, can I be really honest with you? Yeah. Typically at this point, when somebody wants to think it over, it's just a polite way of saying, I don't want to give you a hard no. I'm a salesperson. Listen, I can, I can take rejection. I've had many knockbacks in my life. You can just tell me no. No, no, I just want to think it over. Okay, well, I think that at this situation, the best thing to probably do is I'll sit you down as a no. I won't chase you. I won't be that needy salesperson. Obviously, if I don't hear back from you, then, then that's fine. But if you do come back, then it is a happy accident. Is that fair? Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're in control. You're not the issue. We're talking about this a lot at the moment, me, Zach, and It's a bit like a spring clean of keeping your pipeline so lean because all of a sudden if you've got ops and you're like, yeah, that's gonna come in in 6 months and you're moving the bar and it's moving it along a little bit. Not only is it taking up time where you chase it via email or you chase it via a call and you, oh, I wonder what that, but it's that mental capacity. Be, be the minimalist salesperson. It, it's taking so much energy and draining you when you go into work and think, oh, I wonder if that guy's gonna get back. Oh, I need to do that. And you're constantly thinking about it. Keep it lean, control what you can control, and make sure that there's some kind of next step. So we say bam, bam, book a meeting from a meeting so that you've actually got that next step in the diary to move forward.

And can that also— would you also be happy if I was in your team if that was like a placeholder of that person that we agreed to sort of speak then or resync then on X decision? Like, is— would you be happy with that even if it's like a placeholder or if you were honest about what it was.

If I could tell it, so I couldn't put it in as a meeting, right? Okay, so you could have it as a callback.

Yeah, that's, that's what I mean. But like, you're saying that— but you're saying the meeting is in like, I'm gonna have another meeting with them, or— okay, because I was just saying, would it also count if I— again, rather than if I've done the things that you just said and then I was like, okay, well look, what I'm going to do is I'm going to stick a placeholder in and like, let's agree that we're going to speak by this point, but if I don't hear from you, then I'll take it as this way. Sort of thing as well.

I mean, sorry, Jack. Sorry. I normally have this line. Jack likes this line, that's why I'm saying it. But they get to the end of a meeting and I always go, you know what, I'm a sucker for a next step.

Okay.

And then I just leave it there and they go, yeah. And they pull up the diary and they pick something for me. The, I don't mind like an assumptive, look, I normally would put something here, just me saying, look, I'm a sucker for a next step. So what do you want to do next? Just allows the other person to pick what needs to happen. Now, to Jack's point, if they then say, well, I need to go away and talk to this person, to that person, we're shopping around a little bit. I'll, I say, do you know what? That to me sounds like if I put you in a no and I'm not gonna chase you and I'll just leave the ball in your court, that's probably the sensible thing to do. They fight me on it, then they're interested. If they go, yeah, yeah, you're right. Let's, let's just leave it there. Then cool. I've got a, like Jack said, I've got a very honest CRM then. Eradicate hope from your CRM. You should be trying to do.

I love, I love the, what would you like me to do now?

I was going to say, I was just going to underline that. I do really like that.

Yeah. So I say to you, okay, brilliant. So great to talk, I guess. What would you like to do next?

Okay.

Let's move forward. Great. Tick. Top of the top tier. We've won. Uh, well, yeah, like just, just fire those pricings over again. I'll come back to you. Okay. Well, I, yeah, I can definitely, I can fire over the pricing to you like you said. And then what would you like me to do? But it's playing the idiot a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Well, just leave it with me. Okay. Yeah. And then what should I do? Well, and then, and then typically you'll get there, like, like Zach said, suck for a next step. You've got to leave with something. But what the reason we're so harsh on it is you see so many salespeople that will come out of a meeting and go really, really good. What's happening? Oh, I don't know. I've just given them a free 30-minute consultation and we don't know where it's gonna leave. It's like you've lost all control. It's like, how do you stay in control at all times? That is your job as a salesperson.

And I do really like the point that you both made out around like, it's also the mental capacity as well that you're spending on, oh, I could hit my target, or actually, is that going to come in or not? What is the intention around what would you like to do next? The whole IKEA thing again, or is it different?

No, it's the same. It's the same thing.

Again, they're basically built, they're building it, right? They're like, they're building a sales process. They're building how they're going to buy it, how they're going to work with Exactly.

And you got to think there that there, any objection, any issues, any pressure is either shared or only on one side. So next step is not like, oh, I've got this big follow-up thing to wonder what you're going to do next. Actually, the process is we know what's going to happen next. What most people hate about recruiters and about salespeople is the neediness and the follow-up. So if you handled that at the end and they built their ideal sales process, Who can get offended by that? Mm-hmm.

And then, and even like asking, can I ask a really honest question?

Yeah.

How do you like to be sold to? Some people are so busy, they love to be chased and they don't mind me texting them on their work phone at 6 o'clock because that's probably the best time to come back. Well, some people like to be left. What do you like? Like you write the rules, you be, it's that element of control, isn't it? You feel like you're writing the rules, but I'm, kind of giving you a, and then taking that.

And then Zach, how does the— we put here mutual agreeing crossroads, you can get off the ride at this point. Do you want to talk a bit about this? Because I quite like this as well.

Yeah.

So letting people know that there's clear moments throughout the sales process where we can both get on with our lives or you can carry on. So you give me that clear yes or no. So it should feel like that at different elements of the process. So, you know, the common one is the cold call. I'm starting off straight away with 30 seconds or no. Okay, now we book. Okay, and when we book and we sit down, usually into that meeting we agree one of two things. One, you're interested, you want to move forward. Two, you're not interested, wasn't quite the right fit. I don't know what I'm talking about. That's another opportunity to say no. The bit that we were just talking about then is I've had the meeting, we've talked about maybe my expertise as a recruiter, but there's a bit of, well, I haven't got anything open right now, or come back to me next month, or our hiring windows are here. Whatever it may be. That's then when I'd get that next meeting booked in. Then I give another opportunity and I say, if you spot that in your diary and you think, actually, Zach didn't know what he was talking about, actually don't want to work with him, we've put a freeze on recruitment, whatever it may be, feel free to just cancel the meeting and email me the word no. You don't even have to explain yourself. No, I wouldn't do that. I'd explain. Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So I'm always letting people know every interval. There's an opportunity here for you to walk away. There's absolutely no pressure from me.

And that comes back to control, doesn't it?

Comes back to control. And I mean, if you think, right, so let's say, you know, I wanna make this as recruitment-specific as possible, but let's say I'm a recruitment business. Recruitment companies typically are in a quite saturated space. So if I said to you, right, write on a whiteboard why, what makes you different? You write on a whiteboard and I say, right now, if I rub out your company name and put one of your competitors' names, does all that match up? And they'll go, fuck yeah, it does. So the only thing you've actually got that's in your control is being different than them. So how many recruiters are like, actually, you can say no to me if you want. I don't need you. It'd be nice to work together, but, and that's the way it feels. There's no pressure. If the other 5 recruiters are putting loads of pressure on, who do you think they're going to work with?

Yeah, no, really well put. I do, again, I just love this idea of like the big benefit of approaching things this way when it comes to sales, which can often be very stressful, challenging is like that, that should become a lot less the case and lowered, right? Because you're being in control with these types of things. Jack, let's get to mindset underpins all of this, right? When we think about becoming great at sales, the really cool thing about it is you can develop skills and you can get, keep getting better at those skills that help you perform in sales. But what's absolutely crucial is the mindset piece. Obviously, your favorite saying, remember we will die. Like, let's maybe start there, because I'm a big advocate of Stoicism, and I think it's, um, I, yeah, I just really like that framing of remembering in an environment where, yeah, easily daily you can be like, what the fuck am I doing in my life? Rejection, it's horrible. Having good phrases like that and to get into that sort of mindset that you need to be successful in sales is really helpful. So talk to us a bit about mindset.

The mindset— mindset gets a hard time, doesn't it? Because it's such a buzzword. Everybody's talking about it. Well-being, being woke, all these different things. But it's, it's how you take the knocks and how you get back up and get over it. I think salespeople that are in a recruitment job, You're, you're actually lucky. Like, and it's about being grateful. You're, you're in a job that probably pays you a decent basic. There's an opportunity to work towards mastery. There's probably people around you that you can learn from. It could be a lot, lot worse. Like, don't get me wrong, sales is really fucking hard, but it could be a lot, lot worse. And I think it's about staying in those moments of gratitude. I always talk about memento mori and remember you will die. But it's not about death. It's, it's nothing to do with death. I'm not a, a grief counsellor that I'm not a funeral director, none of that. It's all about life.

Mm-hmm.

And, and it's that little catchphrase and, and you, you hear quotes in, in life that will change you and you'll think about them. And we've adopted it as, as a bit of like, um, a, a, an analogy and a catchphrase of, of the business as well, because it's about not sweating the small stuff. Like in the early days where it was like, are we gonna make enough money to pay ourselves this month? Are we gonna be able to survive? Can we make payroll? All of these different questions is like, at this present moment, I have a choice of I can go to bed worrying about it and I can be panicking, which isn't gonna help the situation because in the grand scheme of things, fast forward, hopefully 50, 60 years, we'll all be dead. And actually none of it really matters. I think it's about remembering that in those moments where you're getting rejected through and through. Um, one of the things I think about as well is it's— we were kind of on it there— is it's counterintuitive, but it's that— I hate it in sales, but like the sales psychology, it can very easily be compared to dating. And it's that thing of the people that are hard to get, you typically like, oh, I'm interested in them. They've got a bit of something about them because they're not needy. The people that are banging on your door, you're a bit like, yeah, all right, whatever. But it's like that hard to get, that kind of elusiveness by being that recruiter that isn't just, we, we'll work with any, we'll, we'll drop our pants, we'll do it for 5%. Let's just get this one over the line. Actually, my negative bias is screaming, oh, I don't really wanna work with this person, but actually by leaning into that mindset of abundance and there's enough business to go out for everybody, and if you put the work in, you'll get it. And just being like, this is what we do, this is how we do it. And being confident in you're offering, people are more likely to be like, yeah, I like, I like what they've got. They've got a bit of something about them. Like a guy came to me the other day and said, um, he was referred by somebody in America and he said like, I, I was referred to you over, uh, I'm, I'm speaking to 4 other American agencies, but I was referred to you. Why would I work with you over an American agency? I was like, I, I can't possibly answer that, but, but there's, there's a, a reason and without sounding cocksure or arrogant, but like If you've, if you've reached out to someone and asked for referrals, there's a reason that you've been referred. So I can't answer that question. Like you have to come up with that conclusion, but it is really counterintuitive because it's hard when there's nothing in the pipeline, there's no deals coming through to sit back and be abundant and be like, yeah, something could work out. But we've had it and we just like remind each other, we were like, we'll find a way to work it out. Cause, cause we always do. And it's having that confidence. And it just leads back nicely to death. Cause in the long run, say, say we didn't find a way, say you, you're a recruiter sat there, you've got 3-month probation, you're on your 2-month warning, you've done nothing. You'll be okay. You'll, you'll find another job. Like you, you're, you're not going back to birth. You're not going back to zero. Like in the grand scheme of it, it will probably work out. And if it doesn't, like. It's not the end. You're not going to die. There's a long way to go. So I think it's how do you remain in control? How do you have gratitude for the present moment? And how do you not sweat the small stuff when it's existing in your world?

Yeah. And having those like reframes is so powerful. Zach, I think a big part of some of the things you were just talking about on staying in control, approaching prospects and people that you have in your sales process in a certain way really goes hand in hand with like detaching from the outcome, doesn't that? Because I feel like if that's sort of your mentality, you're going to find that a lot more easier. Whereas if you're putting everything on that deal closing, you're probably going to find it a bit more harder to be like, look, if you don't think this is going to be a good fit, then don't worry. Then there's plenty of other people that I can recommend you to. Do you know what I mean? So do you want to talk to us a bit about 'Cause I think this is another really good habit and frame of mind for people to get into, which is the whole, like, you can't lose a deal that you never had. Do you know what I mean? And detaching from the outcome. Yeah.

Yeah.

And look, the through line throughout this is, is the psychology, right? Mm-hmm. So we're always talking about the, the psychology of us trying to sell to someone, but you are at the mercy of your own psychology as well.

Mm-hmm.

And your own psychology is you are someone with an inferiority complex that also has a superiority complex at the same time. And that's the wrestling match that's going on in your head all the time. So when the deals don't work out, it's their fault for ghosting you. When they do work out, they work out because you're amazing. That's the story that you're going to tell yourself throughout. But if actually you get yourself in this state of, I'm not really involved, I'm just the facilitator of the conversation. And whether you end up at a yes or a no doesn't really affect me. But if you do end up at a yes or a no, I've done my job properly. That's quite a liberating place to be because then the only failure you can have as the salesperson, as the recruiter, is hitting a think it over, hitting a maybe, hitting a might do. If you see your job as just, I'm going to take you through that phase of deep thought, emotion, action. And in doing that, if you end up saying, no, I don't want to work with you, that's fine. If you end up saying, I do want to work with you, that's also fine. Both outcomes are me doing my job. It's not just about the yeses, it's also about getting to the nos as well. And that, just having that outlook on it, is, is a really liberating place. And people will be able to sense it when they get on a call with you.

And again, I think that just makes recruitment sales just a lot less stressful, hopefully. Do you know what I mean? Like having these sort of frames of mind and approaching it this way. And also, I'm sure you've seen it, or maybe in the people that have interviewed, or it's come up, but I think also A sort of, if you was to describe typically a high performer, you, they're not gonna be the people that are like absolutely erratic at the deal board, putting in all of their deals, jumping up and down. It's normally the people that are quite, not all the time, obviously. I'm sure they're gonna make time to have those moments, but over the long run, they're probably gonna be described as like pretty level-headed. They don't get too highs with the highs, too low with the lows. And it's sort of this that we're talking about that I think enables that to happen.

Yeah, you're probably looking for quite a, like a gentle indifference. That's what you're looking for. It's a very level pegging route. And I've been there before. I think most people have been there where you get very, very high. Oh my, I've got all the deals in the last day of the month. I've really smashed it. And then back to baseline again at the start of the month because you've got to build up your pipeline again all the way up and you're just not managing your expectations. Really, it's a through line of if a deal comes in, it should come in. That's your job. If it doesn't come in, that's fine as well, because that's your job. It's all part of you. It's all expected. That's what it should be. The boxer doesn't get in the boxing ring and complain about getting punched in the face. Gets in the boxing ring and expects the rules of the boxing match to kick off. The same with selling. There's going to be good and bad things happen. You're going to be getting knocked out, but you might be getting back up. There's times where you win, there's times when you lose. It's just accepting the rules before you start.

Let's round this out then. Jack, if I'm listening to this, what, you know, we've spoken about a lot, what, and like, I'm really focused on hitting my target for, um, at the end of the year, I'm willing to learn, I'm going to take on the things that you guys have spoken about today, what would be the sort of one thing that you think I should consider maybe really doubling down on or focusing on, being laser-focused on getting right doing really well that you think would help me get to my goal or achieve my goal? But if I don't get there, that's fine. If I know I've done a good job or whatever. But you know, like, what, what do you think people should really double down on from the things that we've spoken about today?

We've spoken about so many good things. Can I throw one more out there that we haven't spoken about? Is that illegal?

No, that's fine.

Yeah. Okay. Um, I would, I would reverse engineer everything. So like, if you're sat there, I know that this probably doesn't come out the start of the year, but whatever, let's say it was the start of the year. And you've got a hefty target to hit, break it down and reverse engineer it. So my average order value is— so I've got a target of $100K, my average order value is $10K. Okay, that's 10 deals. So I'm actually going to plan to hit over target. That's 15 deals. Okay, what goes into a deal? How many opportunities go into a deal? How many meetings go into an opportunity? How many conversations go into a meeting? How many connections go into a conversation? How many dials? You can work things out from a law of averages so that all of a sudden it's not just, oh, today I'm gonna pick up the phones for an hour, but I've also got this bit of admin to do. And then actually today I don't feel like cold calling, so I'm gonna email instead. And then actually I'm, I, I wanna focus on this. I'm gonna take a big holiday here and I'm not gonna worry about it. Like everything should be planned to, to, to the moment, to the second. Like you should have your cold calling blocks like in position that, you know, so that way when you look back at the year and you go, Oh, I didn't hit it. It's not just a case of, oh, I didn't hit, oh well. It's a case of, yeah, I didn't hit, but I did that. Okay, now I can look back. The input was there, the skill's lacking, right? Let's look back and let's really analyze. I was losing people on the conversation, or I didn't get enough meetings in so that there's an element of cold calling that I need to focus on, or I was losing people at the opportunity stage. Ah, there was no bamfam. There was no like next steps. Because it's very hard to say, like, where do I focus? Like, we've spoken about so many things today.

You probably—

people want to focus on all of it as this round thing. But in order to get under the microscope, reverse engineer where do you need to be, what is the outcome, and what input needs to be put in to get that outcome. So I would work out the maths. I would kind of ask the listener to go away, work out where they want to be, and that applies to everything in life, not just recruitment, not just sales. It's like, what do I need to do? Okay, in order to do that, that person did that. I'm gonna follow their path. I'm gonna reverse engineer. And it, it's the little things that you do daily that compound into the big thing. So don't just go out and try and get a white whale on your last dev quarter that's a $100 grand deal. Work out what the little things are daily that are gonna compound to give you the results that you want.

I think you answered that perfectly.

Didn't like the way I answered that.

I really like—

I don't like you very much, but I like the way you answered that.

Zach, what do you want to— do you want to leave with anyone, like, what they should focus on? I think you answered that, like, really well. Like, if you do that, then you're going to understand where you need to focus and improve, like you said. But like I said, just like to close out, we've covered a lot. What do you think people should sort of double-click on or focus on?

I think just have a very— it's going to sound so trite, but have a very strong reason why you're doing something in the first place. I, I, if I'm really honest, only got good when my wife said she was pregnant. That is the honest truth. That's the only time I got good. I started my business when she was like, I only really doubled down and got good then. Without a strong why, you won't push yourself to do certain things. You will tap out at certain moments. So I think like really try and find out why you're doing something. And if the answer is I'm trying to learn something so I can talk about it on LinkedIn or tell a stranger, that's not good. It should be a very intrinsic why that will carry you through something because it's gonna be tough to learn any skillset. It's gonna be hard. Do you need to find out what yours is and double down on it?

That, Jack, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having us.