This Guy has helped hundreds of recruiters raise their prices Generating millions more in revenue….

Hey guys, welcome back to yet another episode of Top Billers Toolkit, where me and my twin brother interview top billers from all around the globe to unlock the secrets to their success. Today's guest is John Brooks. John is a pricing expert who's helped hundreds of recruiters collectively charge millions and millions more for what they do. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the psychology of buying and where most recruiters go wrong when it comes to pricing. We're also going to be diving into specific pricing strategies that recruiters can use both on and off the sales call to close the feel at the price they want. We'll also be talking about mindset and belief, or lack of belief, and how this can be one of the key elements to getting pricing completely wrong. So grab a cuppa or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this, and let's get into it, shall we? Hello John, how are you?

Hi Sam, good to see you. Ben, good to see you both.

Likewise, John.

Great to have you here, mate. I know you are an expert in everything pricing, and if there's one thing I think recruiters need a lot of help with, or some anyway, pricing and how to better price their service, their products. So thanks for joining us, mate. Really excited to speak to you.

Yeah, always happy to talk pricing. That's, that's all I do.

Awesome.

So we, we start off with this question with every guest: what's the most, um, powerful tool in your toolkit, uh, John, whether it be a mindset, a strategy, or piece of software? What would you say?

Yeah, for me, and I think for all recruiters, in terms of pricing is the mindset of understanding how valuable recruitment is. So I think we can get lost in how to do recruitment, how to sell, all of those tactical things, but we've got to remember just how valuable we are as recruiters. So if I go into that for a second, you know, clients, all of our clients to be successful, to build successful businesses, they need people, and we help them find people that they otherwise couldn't. So we help them grow their businesses and build their businesses to be more successful. So that is the value we provide to our clients. So it's so important, and once you've got that, once you believe that, once you go into negotiations understanding that, you're in a much better place to then think, well, how am I pricing my services? How am I negotiating? And how am I going to work with my clients?

Absolutely love that, John. And it's such a great point. It's like people are the foundation of every single business. And so recruiters can literally make or break that business. Like, there's— and we're not saying that with, with any small fee. It literally could. And so why do you think why so many recruiters forget about that value they provide? Do you think it's like they need to keep reminding themselves? Do you think it's like low belief systems? Why do you think that's such a big thing that recruiters stop reminding themselves of?

That's a good point. I think, yeah, as recruitment leaders, we can think, right, let's keep reminding people. That's something I do, and lots of other people try and do that on LinkedIn. So I think probably surrounding yourself with those messages is powerful. Again, if you're a recruitment consultant, make sure you're following those people and, you know, making sure you are reminding yourself of that. Um, clearly clients, certain clients, don't want us to realize how valuable we are. Yeah, or procurement comes into it, sometimes HR. They might say, well, hang on, we'd like to take you down a peg or two because that will help our fees, lowering them. And then there is also, yeah, there is so much to do, you know, 360 recruitment is literally doing everything. Yeah, we spend a lot of time with candidates. So that takes away from thinking about clients and what they're doing. So just, yeah, reminding ourselves, right, this is the reason we're here. This is the reason our clients talk to us. And maybe, you know, taking the rough feedback with a pinch of salt. Yeah, a client may be saying something in order to get us to agree to a bigger discount, but we're still providing really high value to them.

Really interesting. Given the fact that that is You know, mindset is so important, John. What are the telltale signs of recruiters that perhaps don't have the right mindset around pricing, do you think?

Uh, I mean, the obvious one is you look at the figures and you see that, um, yeah, the level of discounts. So, you know, recruiters can easily be agreeing, yeah, 25% off their, their, their actual fee, you know, the fee that's on their terms of business. That rate, whatever it is, you look at that data and you say, okay, so often we're agreeing 25, 30, even 40% lower than that as standard. Now, one behavior to look out for is when recruitment consultants are going into a client pre-discounting. So their rate on their terms of business might say one thing, but they just think, I don't believe in the terms of business, I don't value my own service. I'm nervous about the competition. That's a factor. So they go into a client and say, oh, my fee is this. Now, of course, of course, a lot of clients then say, well, can you discount? And you're in a slightly awkward position where you say, oh, I already have discounted. It's like, well, why did you discount? Oh, well, because I didn't really value what I do. I don't believe in my fees. Yeah, you're It's a really bad position to find yourself in.

Really interesting. And I think it's— I mean, I think at the beginning of our business, for being completely honest, I was in a regular routine of discounting. And then what I realized was actually it just completely lowers the value. As soon as you discount, it's like the mentality on, I think, the client's end, it's like, oh wow, you've just knocked off 20, 30, 40% that quickly. How valuable is your service? Do you know what I mean? And that's— that was a massive mindset shift for me. And actually, you know, sticking to your guns even if you lose a deal is so much more powerful. I think people actually respect that. Correct me if I'm wrong, John.

No, no, there's absolutely— and there's some— there's a lot of academic studies that back that up. Yeah, so there's data to show. You think about it, if anything you kind of consume, especially the high-end stuff, so nice wines, if they never discount, you appreciate that. When you then buy that wine, you think, well, it's a real treat. You might see a nice wine that is on sale for 20— sorry, the price is £20, but you can always get 3 for a tenner kind of thing. And you think, well, I don't believe in the value. The price is clearly not the true price. And therefore, what do I think of the product? Yeah, if you like wine, that's important. Same if you're investing in whatever you want, fancy trainers, nice clothes, travel experience, all of those things.

Yeah, it's really interesting. One thing we spoke about, because we had a pre-meeting before this pod, John, you mentioned choice being a key concept in helping recruiters better position themselves. And it's one thing that I haven't heard a lot about, even though we see it everywhere in our day to day. Like if people went about their day to day, remember you saying to me, we're offered choice on a daily basis, softwares, coffee, even high-end products, there is usually choices, plane tickets, there's economy, business and first class. Why is— can you just tell us a bit about choice? What is it in the recruitment world? And then why is it so important?

Yeah, and there's, there's a lot of factors that go into it, but as you say, we see choice everywhere. We have a menu of services so often, not just literally menus in restaurants. Um, the reason so many people use it, and the reason I encourage recruiters to use it in the right situations, um, if you only have one price and one service, then really you've got to hope that that service applies to everyone. And clearly it doesn't. We have, um, yeah, our clients are all different, and within that, each client has different situations. So if we take the, um, airline example, sticking with experiences we all have, um, yeah, you ask a lot of people they might say, oh, I usually travel economy, you know, I want to spend my money when I get to the end, when I get to my destination, that's when I'm on holiday, that's when I want to spend my money. I don't want to spend hundreds of pounds on a bit of legroom or, yeah, a fancy, yeah, a nicer experience. But that same person, if they're flying out to see a client in New York and they're only there for a day or two, They say, well, hang on, firstly, someone else might be paying. The payoff, I might win a fee that's 15, 20 grand. So that changes the perspective. And yeah, I want to turn up fresh. I want to turn up ready for that meeting to do my best. So even someone who usually would only pay for economy would go business sometimes. Honeymoon is another good example.

Yeah.

Would you, honeymoon, you think you'd definitely consider an upgrade?

My missus wouldn't let me go economy on a honeymoon, I don't think, Jordan. Exactly.

But exactly, it's a treat. It's a statement. Oh yeah, restaurants, you know, most of the time, a lot of people say, oh yeah, house wine, or, you know, a lower-end wine. But if you're about to propose, um, maybe that is the one situation where you, you buy the wine that's double the price, triple the price. So it's worth having that on there. You know, our clients have those situations. It might be they usually only use us for, uh, yeah, management level, but then they need a board-level director or there's a really challenging role they just haven't been able to fill that's key to their business and they say, look, I'm willing to pay more for this. If we've only got one price, they're not gonna ask to pay more. We've got that menu, they can say, oh yeah, I choose to pay more. Another really powerful thing it does is it creates a conversation. So as consumers, we often have the conversation in our head. So you think, right, I'm going to fly to New York on holiday. I can see the prices. Okay, which price is right for me? So I'm thinking that, and I'm— yeah, you make your decision, but you've considered what's important for you. Now, because we're consultants, we sit down with our client, and if we've got a menu They will say, well, okay, what's the difference between these approaches? Why do you have a menu? And you might say, well, is it, do you need this or do you value this more? So it's a much more engaged conversation about valuable things and the client tells you what they value. I don't need that. Yeah, the equivalent of legroom, additional legroom. They'll say, oh, I don't need that. They say, oh, I'd love more help with that. Yeah, if we put it into recruitment terms, they might say, yeah, actually, I wasn't going to mention it, but I've never felt really confident with interviewing. And if you've got something on a menu that helps me, you advise me, or you support me on the interviewing and assessment process, yeah, actually, I'll take that. So it's dangling that potential value out there, having that conversation. And even if they only go for the economy version, they can still see the value you can add, which can still impact how they perceive you as a recruiter and how valuable you are.

Really interesting. What I got from that, John— well, I got a few things from that, but the main thing was that, correct me if I'm wrong, every recruiter should have a menu of different packages or prices depending on what the client finds valuable, so they have options and so they can close deals that are valuable to both parties. Um, could you possibly give us some examples of what a typical package or price would look for, for an average recruiter? Let's say there's an average recruiter, they've only got one package at the moment, one price. Um, how would— how could he or she expand on their packages and their pricing on the next pitch, do you think?

Yeah, I think it's not something that an individual consultant should go off and do themselves. It's something that the agency should do, you know, as a team, you should be saying, well, let's think about our clients, let's think about our brand, our service, our values, what are we trying to deliver here? So it needs to come from the heart of the agency for me. Some things are more tangible than others. An easy one I think a lot of people have, will have played with in their time, even if they haven't set it out as a menu, is different guarantee periods, different rebate types. And again, if you've ever done that, you'll have some clients who say, oh yeah, I like that. Probably have some clients who will have said, look, we expect a longer rebate. So clearly they value a longer rebate. And if you, if you talk about taking their rebate off, maybe in exchange for a lower fee, some people will go for that. So even in that example, you can see there are different clients wanting different things. Now, if you've got clients saying, oh, I want more of that, it's better for you to be proactive and put that on your menu Rather than be reactive and have the client saying, I want this, this, this, and you have to say, you're slightly subservient there saying, oh, okay, well, we'll stretch that, we'll do that for you. It's much more powerful to say, look, these are our options. And actually, if you want more things, you pay for them, much like you would in a coffee shop or looking at nice wine or an airplane.

Really interesting.

One point I just want to go back to, because I found it really interesting, John, was the fact that your choice can start conversations. And by having those conversations, you can understand more about what your customers want. And I just, I think that's really valuable, because then I'm guessing if you have out of 10 customers, you could have 6 saying they want that. And then that gives you market research to say, oh, cool, this my clients are actually telling me they want more of that, and I can go ahead and build, make that product or service a lot better, and maybe even not worry about the other two. So focus more of my attention on the thing that people are asking for. But you never would have figured that out if you didn't offer a few choices. So I find that really fascinating.

Yeah, no, it's a great point. Um, yeah, when I work with recruitment leaders, it's, you know, the first version of the menu is you know, understanding as much as you can about the agency and what they're capable of delivering. But absolutely, it's that evolution of picking up that, having those conversations, really hearing what clients value, maybe for the first time or maybe more clearly than before, and realizing, wow, we can double down on this and actually, yeah, we don't need to worry. So Yes, it's not some static one-off, great, here's our menu and we're done, good. It's let's create the menu, let's learn from it and let's build on it and evolve it, which of course puts you further and further ahead of, you know, old-fashioned agencies who are just saying we recruit, it's X percent, the end. Yeah, they're learning nothing from those pitches.

Yeah, definitely interesting. And we— I probably have— I have a lot of conversations with recruiters, and I have to admit the pricing does range quite massively. Um, I would say most, most people kind of sit in between the 13 and the 15% bracket, or the 18 and the 20% bracket. I think that's pretty much, you know, where they sit. You may find, uh, you may find something different, John, but so I think finding the right percentage for the right package, I'm guessing, is an art and something that— or a process that you go through with, with a lot of your clients. How does one get closer to finding the right percentage? Like, how do you choose the right percentage for the right package, if that makes sense?

It does, yeah. It's funny, I think most people I work with, you know, come with that question, you know, what's, what's the right price for us? And then towards the end of the process, they realize actually it's all about understanding value, presenting that value, having those conversations with clients. The number at the end is almost incidental. Clearly you want to optimize it, but that's less important and less impactful than having the right conversations and really understanding what your clients value and getting them willing to pay for that value. I mean, less interesting to talk about on podcasts, but yeah, a big dive into the data is always useful. There are, you know, if you've got a number of consultants, you've got lots of data on consultants who don't discount, who discount less, discount more, understanding why they do that, understanding for which clients they do that. Obviously a lot of that is in the financial data, you know, pulling that off the CRM. And then I often do focus groups with consultants as well to say, okay, let's learn why you did that. So you've got the data, we understand that, you know, you talk about ranges, an individual consultant will have a whole range of rates they've agreed to. Why have they done that? What's driving that? What are their beliefs and attitudes that make that happen? And which of those are positive? Which of those do you want to keep? Which of those you want to bake into your strategy? And which of those actually come out of a lack of confidence or are things we can try and remove and instead focus on confidence and value.

Interesting. So I'm getting in my head, I'm picturing two buckets now. It's kind of like belief systems and then value proposition, kind of finding the— that understanding what the value proposition is. Which one of the two is harder in your experience to kind of develop with your consultants?

Interesting. Um, I think recruitment is Recruitment is quite a mature market, recruitment consultancy. I mean, we've been told it's been killed off every decade by LinkedIn and job boards and everything else, but it's there, it's clearly valuable. There's, I mean, I've got exercises I do with recruitment leaders where we go through and there's kind of, in my view, there's 7 areas or 7 stages of the recruitment process, and under each of those there's, you know, 5 to 10 steps that you can do within that. So you can really go deep into what's valuable, what are you offering, and what aren't you offering. So what is that value proposition? So there's huge depth to the value side, but I think maybe the more challenging side is the belief, you know, recruitment consultants, especially experienced recruitment consultants, are up against clients who will push back, who don't want to admit that they need us and they value us. You know, I've sat in a room with procurement people and ex-procurement people who say, oh yeah, yeah, no, I work out who my most valuable recruitment supplier is. I don't tell them that. I know exactly who I want to work with, but I make sure they don't know that. So yeah, while we want partnerships and we want partners, we can't take— we have to take what clients say with a pinch of salt. We have to have our own beliefs. So building that up is probably the more— is the bigger challenge, to answer your question.

Yeah, really interesting. I found, again, I'm sure everyone has so many different examples of what's best for them. I almost feel like for me it was like getting that support, like when we were going through, because I think every business will evolve and up their prices at some point and then come to a, you know, come to a happy medium. It was like beliefs. I needed the support to change my belief system initially. And then once I saw it working, I was like, oh cool, this is valuable, this is worth this amount. And it was almost like pulling off a Band-Aid. Am I right in saying that's like one of the best ways to do it? Like, is there any other, any other thing that you have in your pocket that helps to change that belief system? John, other than actually just doing it and seeing it for yourself, if you know what I mean.

It's a good point. I think a business like yours, yeah, you, you have to find a price to, to find your way into the market, right? And then hopefully you do, you grow in belief, you get different types of clients, you, you up your fees a bit more, and you realize that clients pay for it. So yeah, you described that very nicely. I think for Yeah, a recruiter turning into a recruitment owner. So if they're setting up their own business, they will often just take the rates that their previous agency worked at.

Um, makes sense.

And then they believe, well, the market works at those rates, I'm probably competing against my old agency, therefore I have to stay at those rates. So I don't think that happens very often in the recruitment industry. I don't think people say, hang on, I want to try, I want to go higher and I want to see what that's like. Um, so again, that would be a good thing to try and to test. Um, in terms of how you get, how you have that experience, how you create the chance to have that experience, um, I think when you have that menu of options and you have, yeah, if we're talking about airlines, you have that first-class service. Yeah, it's ludicrously expensive and there's huge amounts of value there. And most people would say, I'd rather save my money on something else. I don't need that. When someone then chooses it, you know, that first-class option from your own menu of services, that's often a kind of, yeah, the penny drops and you think, well, the thousands of pounds drop in this case. And you think, wow, some people, some of the time are willing to pay me a lot of money for this. Yeah, it's a real statement. And that can really help your belief in, am I valuable? Will people ever pay that amount of money? Once you experience that happening, you think, great, let's go find more of those people. Let's go and ask clients when they have those challenges and make sure we're the expert in those situations.

That's really, that's really interesting, John, what you said about, um, finding— how much does finding the right client, uh, play a part in pricing? Because there will be some, some people that no matter how much you try and match, no matter how much you try to say this is the results I get, this is how much value I provide, their mindset won't shift. There'll be other clients that are kind of already nearly sold because they know they need it, though in a specific amount of pain, or they see recruiters as a valuable asset and, and you don't need to do much persuasion. So how much does finding the right client play a part in your pricing and how you advise recruiters?

Yeah, absolutely. And classifying your clients is really important. Um, I won't go into all the details now, but if you've got cost-driven clients, that's a type of client from a pricing perspective. Labeling those experiences is really important. If you come up against the cost-driven client and they just drive you down on cost, you know, no matter how low you go, they want you to go lower. They ignore everything you say about value. They just don't engage. That's a horrible experience. I think we've all probably been there. If you then think, okay, that's what clients think in general, then that's really going to impact your belief in your value, um, in what you're worth, um, and in what you can charge. If you realize, hang on, that's a certain type of client with a certain type of mindset, they're always going to do that, they do that with all of their suppliers, but there are other types of clients then that means, yeah, you might decide you create a service for cost-driven clients. It depends on your strategy. But what you don't do is then say, right, I'm gonna be beaten down on price every time and lower your prices and then come up against someone who really values what you do, really wants everything you can give them you pitch low and they say, great, they're not gonna say I think you're worth double. So you never get that positive reinforcement from a client, but don't apply the negative reinforcement.

I'm guessing this is where choice can really be valuable in that sales process as well, John, and I'm sure you've already, this is part of your strategy, but If you're speaking to a client that is driving you down in price, if you have the choice, you can direct them towards the lower package and say, hey, you know, that's absolutely fine. But just to let you know, I have 3 packages. If you're asking for this, then that's that package. If you want more of my time and more of this and all of that, that's this package. So I'm guessing having that choice actually aids you in the sales call and you can have less, less of an argument and more of a, this is what I offer for those things. Am I right in saying that?

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it's not an argument, it's not a fight, it's logic. You pay less, you get less. Again, we all experience that as consumers. You can't go to an airline and say, great, I'm gonna fly first class, but I'm only gonna give you 200 quid. Like, well, you can either walk or you can sit at the back by the toilets kind of thing. We're not giving you a glass of champagne. We're not treating you nicely. So yeah, it's really powerful to do that. Yeah, we all live in that world where that's logical, that makes sense. And there's something else on that point. Yeah, another type of client from a pricing perspective is the value for money client. So they're looking for that balance of they want as much good stuff as they can get that they value, which of course depends, but they want the lowest price possible. Now, if you only have one service, the only way they can be happy, the value for money client can be happy, is getting the service at the cheapest price. That means the value for money ratio goes up. So that's all they can do. So they will negotiate as hard as a cost-driven client. If you have a menu, then you create a dilemma for the cost-driven client, sorry, for the value-for-money-driven client. They say, okay, well, I wanna reduce the price in order to increase my value-for-money ratio, but the value drops and they say, well, that's not great. I wanted the value and the good price. So We're playing a game that almost calls their bluff there. It's like, fine, let's talk about what we actually need and let's find the right price for it. And that comes into negotiation strategy. We might start asking for things that we value in return. And again, if they don't value— if they don't— if it doesn't feel like a cost to them, if they're relaxed about giving us exclusivity or agreeing to a testimonial, assuming we do a good job or things like that. If they say, yeah, great, I'll give that in return for reducing the cost or topping up a bit of value, then they're in a happy place. But yeah, if we've only got one service, then the only way is down in terms of fees.

I love that. I think that was really powerful as well, is like that negotiation piece of like, okay, if they're they're talking you down, what can you get out of the situation to balance the odds? I really like that. Because I guess if you can make that job as seamless as possible on your terms, let's assume you do reduce the price slightly, it can still be a good deal and you can still come out of it win-win, right? Yeah, it's really interesting.

Yeah, hopefully people know the stats on this, but yeah, if you can increase your fill rate there's— that's such a powerful way of increasing your revenue, business more profitable, as a consultant making more bonus. So your client has things that will help you, um, increase your fill rate chances. You want those things, you value those things. Um, so finding the right way to negotiate get those things, um, can be more powerful than, you know, an extra percent on the fee, for example.

One thing I'd love to speak about, um, John, which I know you're very good at yourself— I checked that, I love your content, by the way, I love your ecosystem that you take clients through, it's all really sharp and just clean, um, but branding. Can we— for a recruiter that just isn't in the branding world, you know, they And when I say branding, I mean like personal brand, releasing content in the online space. Um, for a recruiter that, you know, is just about to get into that, or maybe just thinking about it, what's the power of branding and pricing? How do they interlink, and why is it so important, do you think?

Yeah, I mean, so often the word that comes up is differentiation. And, you know, there's 30,000, 40,000 recruitment agencies in the UK alone. That's a big pull. How do you stand out? How do you differentiate yourself? And a lot of people don't know. Yeah, I speak to very experienced recruitment leaders, they've built their own agency, they've built their own brand, they say, what's my USP? I'm not sure. But finding ways to differentiate you yourself as a consultant or your agency is so valuable. In simple terms, just moving from one of the recruitment, you know, you're a recruiter. So moving from being a recruiter to being the recruiter for something is so powerful and clear. Well, I see it clear to me that makes such a difference in value of fees and the way The experience of working with clients. If they see you as the recruiter, the go-to recruiter, they're gonna pay what you ask. If they see you as one of many recruiters, then you're a commodity. Why should, you know, they should just pay you whatever they pay everyone else or the lowest fee. They say, well, you seem like everyone else. I'll agree to the lowest, you should agree to the lowest rate. But if you are the go-to recruiter, and that excites me, you know, there are so many recruiters that discover new recruitment leaders all the time, top recruitment consultants all the time, just on LinkedIn, if they have a little bio saying, I run the podcast for the, you know, insert super niche here. You think, wow, that's a ridiculously niche podcast. There's probably only about 30 people who listen to it. But how powerful that is if you recruit in that space. Yet you're clearly the go-to person for that. So when it comes to negotiation, you're in a much more powerful position from the start. You can say, well, you want to work with me. The only way to work with me, the only way to work with the best recruiter in this market, is to work for me. You could— you're— you have the option to walk away, and the client has lost out. Whereas if you were— if you're one of many, you know, if you're indistinguishable, the client says, I don't fancy working with you, your fee's a bit high, I'll just find someone else. So the more you can do to define who you are, what's— what makes you different, and why it's so important that your client has to work with you and choose you, um, completely changes your experience and of course your fees.

Love that, John. You've already given us one example of the podcast, but have you got any other examples? Because I know recruiters are probably dying to understand, like, how do I differentiate myself? Myself, or how have other recruiters done it? Have you got any examples of how recruiters have managed to differentiate themselves and therefore having a better ability to, to hire their prices?

Yeah, well, a big example, and then I'll apply it to others, but a big example, um, I worked at Reed for several years, um, I ran their marketing for a little bit, uh, and when I took over their marketing, we were literally saying Reed is a specialist recruitment agency. Yeah, this one of many idea. And we said, no, it has to be, we have to be the agency for something. Now we had the market research, Reed is one of the biggest agencies in the UK beyond. So we had the research to say, look, the Reed brand is the biggest most recognized recruitment brand in the UK. So we said, look, we are, I forget the exact term, but, you know, we're the biggest recruitment brand in the UK or whatever it was. We were making a statement. We were saying we are number one at something. And once you've done that, you can fill in the blanks on what the benefits are. But just making that statement, knowing what that statement is, is really important. Now for a lot of agencies and a lot of recruiters, clearly it's not going to be we're the biggest in the UK. But if you are doing.NET developers in Guildford, make sure you're the number one for.NET developers in Europe, in Guildford. Or if it's a crowded market, just add another modifier there. You know, the most connected or the most knowledgeable, you can showcase that in terms of the content you put out there or the fact that you host podcasts. So there's so many ways you can be number one. You can be, you know, if you do NPS scores, for example, you might say we're the highest ranked We give you the best experience. So we're the best agency to work with in that respect. So there's so many different ways you can do it. And again, that comes from, as I said earlier, that comes from the heart of the agency. So you have to really understand, well, what are we for? What are we doing? Why do we do it? And then how do we use that to present that to clients so that clients want to come to us, want to work with us, and are willing to pay the fees that we present to them.

Yeah, guessing sometimes you can actually get that answer from going back to the customers and saying, hey, what is it you absolutely love about my service? What is it that you think we excel at? And kind of going off that, because I think a lot of people— it's a really interesting exercise. We get our clients to do that and they learn so much just from going back to their clients and speaking to them. But yeah, really useful tips there, John. So thank you.

I also find that actually, when you— when me and Ben have sat down with a few of our clients, we found little points of differentiation that we can use in their branding. For instance, there was one that really comes to mind is two lads in the legal sector, but they both have military backgrounds. And we use their military backgrounds as their for their branding, and we said they're the only legal recruiters who have a military— something like that. But we linked that together, and the amount of conversations they started because they had that link to the military, people really loved it. And so I feel like there's, there's actually creative ways to differentiate yourselves as recruiters, um, just, just asking questions and looking back at your past. What have you achieved? What have you done? Um, and we even tie that into their content as well. So now they're kind of And what do people associate military with? It's usually discipline, hardworking, get the job done. So it all kind of plays into their brand. That makes sense.

Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say that value proposition probably becomes discipline, the organization. Yeah, really emphasizing those values. Yeah.

I saw a post of yours, John. It was how to avoid losing business for a few hundred pounds. Uh, can you elaborate on that? Because I didn't really know what you meant by it, but it sounded fascinating. Can you, uh, just elaborate on that, mate?

Um, I think it's really important to remember, yeah, we talked about negotiation earlier, but when you're in the heat of negotiation, you can lose sight of actually what you're talking about, how much you're squabbling over. So yeah, a client, you may say, oh, I'm going to come down to 18%. The client says, well, another agency does 16%. I think a lot of recruiters worry about losing the business and maybe don't have the confidence to justify that difference in price. I mean, that's why we need to talk about difference in service and perception, value perception, then that can lead over into difference in price. But it's important to, rather than just say, fine, I'll match someone else, they're going to, the client is going to spend at least 16%. You're asking for 18%, and hopefully you're justifying why you're worth that extra. But it's also important in the heat of negotiation to step back and say, okay, what is that difference in fee? 'cause a client might be thinking, oh, that's quite, it looks big. I don't want any difference there. But you translate that and go, okay, that could be £400. It could be £800. And that's a, for example, salesperson who's targeted on bringing in £1 million a year. So rather than just getting sucked into the minutia of the negotiation, just having the confidence to step back and say to a client, well, hang on, um, we're talking about, you know, £700 difference here, and you want to get the best person you can. And if you get the best person you can, they could be making you more than a million pounds a year. So let's stop worrying about this negotiation. I hope I can prove, um, why I'm worth this. But clearly the outcome could far outweigh any difference in cost. Because we do get sucked into those tough conversations, those tough negotiations. And then from a commercial aspect, hopefully we can persuade the client to part with those few hundred extra pounds. Those add up over time.

Pretty good, really good advice. Yeah, John, I love it. Yeah, sorry, go ahead, John.

At the end of the year, you're gonna build hopefully thousands of pounds more from clients again because you've held your ground, because you've justified your fees.

What I got from that, John, is, and it's so simple but so powerful, is when clients are squabbling over fees, and it could be £200, it could be £2,000, adding context to the conversation, you know, like you kind of alluded to. But if they're gonna make, you know, £500,000 from a new salesman, do you really want to miss this opportunity over £2,000? Like, that doesn't make any sense. So adding context is what I got from that, which is so, so important.

Focusing on outcome and reminding them of outcome. And I think that ties into belief systems, doesn't it? And I guess understanding of the business that they're recruiting into. Like, what impact does this person actually have on the business? I feel like— I don't know if you think this, John, but a lot of recruiters that I've met, they're so process-driven about recruitment, they, they forget about what they're actually doing for the business and the outcome. And so that doesn't really come into play in their marketing, if that makes sense. They're kind of more focused on the recruitment process. And it's actually what you said there, actually, you could make a million quid for this business, or You know, there's so many amazing outcomes that hiring good people can do. So yeah, that was really good advice. And if any recruiters are listening, focus more on the outcome. That will, that will help you a lot, I think, in sales and in marketing.

Definitely. And I think having a niche is so important there. You talked about understanding the outcome for the client. If all your clients are very similar and all the people you're placing are very similar, then you can talk with confidence about it. I know, even if I don't know anything about the exact client, I know that this type of candidate makes this amount of impact. Whereas the broader you are, the harder it is to say, oh, you know, I've got an R&D person here, I've got a salesperson here, I've got a marketing person here. I don't know how valuable these people are. I don't know how, what the is. If all you're doing is, I'll pick the easy example. If all you're doing is salespeople for a specific niche, you go, look, I know the margins on your product are X because I work with this industry. I know salespeople are expected to make a minimum of this because I worked across 20, 30, 40 companies that manufacture this thing and sell this thing. So you can be so much more confident in saying therefore a An average salesperson should be making quarter of a million a year. A superb salesperson should be making £1 million a year. And I can differentiate. Hopefully you've got the candidates or you've got the ability to find those candidates and persuade those candidates and sell them the job. Yeah.

And then £2,000 feels like absolutely nothing, does it? When you have that data and that knowledge, like they're not gonna argue over that. If anything, put your prices up again. John, thank you so much, mate. We're coming to the end of the podcast. Really enjoyed this conversation. I got a lot of value from it and learned a lot as well. Where can people find your stuff? Because this is such valuable information. Where, where can people start, um, understanding more about what you do and seeing some more of your content? Where should they go?

Yeah, so my generic stuff's on LinkedIn, so I hopefully add some thought-provoking stuff there, but just some ideas. It's a nice conversation. Uh, so John Brooks, um, I then have a Substack newsletter. So once a week you can get emails from me that you can just go into so much more depth. So looking at examples like the ones we've talked about and how you can use those. So again, sign up to that. The link to that is on my LinkedIn. So go to LinkedIn and if you're interested, sign up to those newsletters.

Awesome. Highly recommend it. I've been through it personally, and it's good stuff. Thanks again, John. Really enjoyed having you on, mate.

Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Ben.

Cheers, John.

Hey, bro. Hey, how you doing?

Yeah, good. How are you?

Yeah, fine, thanks. And that was awesome, wasn't it?

Yeah, I found that really fascinating. It's so interesting how much, how much psychology there is in pricing. Like, it's not just a here's my price, do you take it or leave it? There's so much psychology involved in persuading people. But you can do that with your prices and the choice. The choices was the biggest one for me, bro. I don't know if that was— especially using choice in your sales call.

Like, it's the—

it's one of the perfect ways to defend against someone trying to push you down. You just say, hey, you know, that's fine. If you want that package, that's this, got it laid out for you. Let me show you my website. If you want this, you've got the middle package. And if you want all of my time, this is the main package. That I found incredibly insightful.

Yeah, I've always— it's funny because I came into this call thinking one price is the most simple, the most effective, as long as you find the right client, who— the right person who values what you're offering. And then it's like, cool, that's fine, they value it. We're pretty much just bringing in the people that we like. So I still see the value in that, and I still think there's power in one price, one product, you know, um, one value proposition for the right client. But I can see why having 3 or, you know, multiple packages is very useful for recruiters. Yeah. Um, because, you know, they, they may enjoy working with— I've heard this so many times, you know, I don't mind working on lower level roles or for clients that are larger, but it's gotta, it's gotta be right. It's got to be seamless. It's got to be quick. It's got to be worth our time. And so it's like they still want to do the work, but it's just they haven't perhaps haven't found the right package to offer. So in that scenario, I can see it being very, very useful because that way you kind of get the best of both worlds. Yeah, makes sense.

And I feel like on your point, bro, when you figure out even if it's a couple package packages, you can make that model more efficient as well. You know, if they're just asking for one thing, create a better system and process around that just just that one thing so you could make it more efficient, and then, and then that's feasible to have a few different packages. You see what I mean? So I find like that kind of plays into it as well.

Um, what I think what ends up happening, because I've, I've seen this— I haven't seen it, um, that much in, on a recruitment perspective, but when I look at other people that have like 3 packages, for example, that's typical. It's like 3 packages, like, like we're talking about with flights. I think this is typical. It's like economy, business class, first class— 3 different packages. I reckon it'd be interesting to see the statistics, but I reckon there's always one package that gets like the majority of the, you know, of the buy-in and then the other two are kind of anomalies. And then the question is, okay, that's kind of the same principle as having one price. Do you see what I mean? But yes, the perception is they have more options.

Yes.

And that's where I was going to. I remember reading a study on this is that when people are given more options, they're more likely to choose something. I can't remember what it was, but when they're given the perception of more, you know, they're driven towards a certain—

towards a certain direction to just having one.

They're like, oh, okay, do I need that? But oh, that's really expensive. But let me go for the middle package because that sounds like something I want.

Yeah, it's like, oh, I don't want to pay £20,000, but I'll pay £10,000 because that's in my price range. And actually, because you've got a £20,000 product, this one feels more valuable now because I'm getting like the same deal, or, you know, an equally valuable deal. So definitely it's all about perception, isn't it?

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify. Tune in for another episode next week, and we look forward to seeing you again very soon. Peace and love.

Mm-hmm.