This guys Agency does $5 Million with 11 people. Here's how he wins new business....

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 Ted Helmut. Ted runs his own US-based recruitment agency, and he's turning over $5 million every year with a team of 11, and he himself is billing $500K every single year. The reason why I'm so excited to share this episode with you guys is because Ted speaks about some really unique and original BD tactics that he's used to make a lot of money. The one that really caught mine and Ben's attention was how he uses data and market insights and packages them into lead magnets, which he then uses to win new clients. In today's episode, we're going to be going into detail on 3 main areas: how Ted uses data to create lead magnets and the exact messages he sends in order to win new clients, how he's managed to turn extremely niche events and roundtables into some of his most powerful business development activities. And Ted's going to be telling us a bit about his mission, which is to be the most referred recruitment agency on the planet. And how he aims to get there. Guys, today is a really unique episode. Ben and I got so much value from Ted, a lot of stuff that we are going to be testing and implementing in our business as well. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we do. As usual, grab a cuppa or a glass of wine depending on when you're listening to this, and let's get into it, shall we? Wait a second, guys, quick question for you. If you could land a new client on LinkedIn in the next couple of weeks, how much would that be worth to you? 20, 30, maybe 40K? Well, we have a pretty crazy offer on right now. If you are a recruitment business owner, then we will work with you for free and write you 2 posts at absolutely no cost. And here's the cool part: other recruiters that have come through this free trial have managed to win new clients. They've racked up hundreds of thousands of impressions and started conversations with top-tier candidates. It's completely risk-free, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you're interested, the link's in the description below. If not, no worries. We hope you enjoy the podcast. See you later.

Ted, thank you so much for joining us today, my friend. How are you?

I am doing well. How are you guys?

Very good.

Yeah, really good.

Thank you, mate.

Really good.

I have to say, we were— one of our guests had cancelled and we were up against it, and then you came in last minute, which was amazing. And I had about like 20 messages in my inbox and then your one, one was one of the first, which was interesting, but two, you told me exactly what I wanted to hear in the DM like straight away. And I was like, this dude is definitely a good salesperson because he just knew exactly what to say. You told me how much you were billing, the benefits and what you can offer. And I just like, yeah, this dude, let's speak to Ted. He knows this stuff. It's something so subtle, but like that first interaction makes such a big difference when, when someone reaches out. So anyway, Ted's here. Ted, thank you so much for joining us. And you've got a few points of difference that I really am excited to jump into today. Um, but before we get into that juicy stuff, let's start off with, um, the first question as always, which is what's the number one tool in your toolkit, whether it be a mindset, strategy, or software?

Great question. I, I, I love this, and I've, I've listened to enough to, you know, at least have a general idea of what most responses look like. What I'd love to see at some point is a histogram of the responses to date. My assumption is mindset probably wins.

100%, like 80% of the time it's mindset.

It may be more like 90%. Yeah.

I'm going to throw a small curveball and say I've seen employees that have had the best mindset on the planet. They come in every day locked in, they have a growth mindset, they want to win new business, and they want to operate at a high level. But without proper strategy behind that, it's like being stuck in a cave without the lights on, right? They're just feeling their way around, hoping to get— hoping that the tunnel that leads them out, you know, is somewhere around the corner. Conversely, with you, I've seen the most brilliant strategists in this industry who look around the corner, they know what's coming, they've got a framework, they are dialed in, but every day their mindset for execution isn't there. And so they can't produce at the level they need to to get up to the top performer, you know, echelon, whatever you want to call it. So my answer, I guess, is twofold. It's strategic mindset so that you're coming in with the right attitude, energy day in and day out. And mindset changes, right? It's fluid. It's— my mindset changes between morning and afternoon some days. And so the North Star that sort of pulls me in the right direction gets my mindset in the proper format is, is that overarching strategy. And so, uh, so I guess I'd say like I'm gonna cheat and answer both.

That's a great response. Um, it's interesting because I think the mindset and work ethic and execution feels more easy to understand. The strategy maybe not so much. That, that for me might be a little bit broader. So what if we could go like deeper into the strategy? What Have you got any examples of what a good and/or bad strategy would look like, Ted, in like, in that, in this context?

100%. And strategy is ambiguous. I think the first thing is having a north star, right? What is, what gets you out of bed in the morning? What can steer you in the right direction? Then you find the north star and you build a framework around it. So for us, We want to be the most recommended recruiting firm in the world. And so that's a flag that we've planted, and that's the, the star that we're chasing. And then each team, sales and recruiting, has a framework around how to deliver on that, and it guides our decisions. We can have a situation come up, and, you know, however our mindset is that day or hour or whatever you have, you— we know our goal is to be the most recommended. So we know how to deal with that situation, to treat the candidate the right way, to treat the client the right way. And then you start getting recommended, you get referrals, and everything sort of points towards the, the North Star. So I'd say like having that North Star, it could be different for everyone. It could be, I want to feed my family, I want a new house, I want to, you know, so, but something is making you get up out of bed and do this every day. And you gotta know what that is.

I love that, Ted.

That's so important. Um, I'm fascinated about your North Star and like how you arrived on that, Ted, because, uh, you know, you could have chosen anything— most profitable, the biggest, uh, the best culture— but you chose most recommended. I'm just curious how you landed on that. And, uh, yeah, that'd be really interesting to know.

I wanted something irrefutable, that no matter what the situation was, there's no way this is wrong. So most profitable, you're gonna cheat, you're gonna try to get away with something. Most, you know, fastest growing, you're gonna cheat, you're gonna take shortcuts. Uh, most recommended, you can't cheat on that. How are you gonna, you know, it is the perfect framework to guide every decision that we make.

Love that, dude.

That's really interesting. And my follow-on question from that is, I'm guessing if that's your North Star, you've had to dissect to some degree how you get recommendations. And this is one thing every company probably wants is, you know, more recommendations because that is an automatic pump into the into the pipeline, isn't it? And a really good one as well because he's a warm lead. So I'm curious, have you found an 80/20 rule with how you actually get a recommendation above the kind of obvious thing, which is doing great work? Because like some companies do great work but still don't get recommendations. I'm wondering if you've seen any correlation between that.

It's twofold and it's also very simple. Do great work and ask. And a lot of people don't ask, and that's, that's one of the biggest hurdles. So if it's a recommendation on, uh, Google reviews that you want, you have to ask. If it's a survey response you want, you have to ask. If it's a net promoter score, you have to ask. If it's a referral to another client, again, you have to ask. A lot of, uh, clients and candidates, how shall I say, they're not thinking about you and your business every day, but you are. And so sometimes it's just a matter of simply asking. And but you have to earn it first. You can't ask for something that you haven't earned.

Yes.

How do you, how do you know if you've earned it? Or like, how do you know if you're doing great work? So I guarantee you, if I asked 100 recruiters like, hey, you good recruiter? And they'll be like, yeah, I'm one of the best recruiters. So I'm wondering, how do you distinguish that, Ted, in terms of like, how do you know if you're doing great work and how do you know when you're ready to ask? How do you know like the client is primed for that ask, if that makes sense?

Yeah, obviously a successful placement, that's a place to start, whether it's a candidate or a client. You help them, you help them find a job, you help them find a candidate. Ideally it was a good match and things are going well. So maybe it's that first You know, week 1 call. Hey, how's it going? It's going great. Hey, awesome. I'm glad it worked out. I had a question for you. We're, you know, maybe you're light on job orders today. We're, we have some extra bandwidth. Would you happen to know someone else that's hiring for a similar skill set? Would you happen to know another hiring manager that told you they're, they're struggling with, with a search? And then the wheels start turning. Sometimes they're like, not really, but I'll keep you in mind. That's fine. It's a win. Um, but you'd be surprised how many times they just had a meeting with a peer or VP at a company down the street that happens to be struggling with something, and they're— without the thought process, they're not going to recommend you. So you have to ask.

Makes me think about our business, Ben, and how many times we could have asked for recommendation, uh, and it just, you know, there's so many.

I'm sure there's definitely like a funny psychology behind it of why people don't ask, I think, as well, because like there's got to be so many great recruiters out there that do amazing work, but they don't ask. And there's this like psychological barrier, um, and I, I think it's because a lot of people are uncertain— and this is just speaking kind of fluidly now— they're uncertain if they've done great work or not. And this makes me think, okay, what would solve that? Like a survey or something? Like, how's that? Yeah, like, how satisfied were you?

Simple. Um, people send these 10-question surveys that you look at and you're just, you know, immediately like, ah, I'm not— I'm too busy. So 3 questions, 3 clicks of a button, keep it super easy.

So you're doing that now, Ted, I'm guessing, at the moment to clients and candidates for like after a search on the first survey call? Awesome. And so what are those 3 questions, Ted, if you don't mind me asking?

It's a great question. Director of Operations put those together. I believe— I don't— I haven't looked at them in a little bit, but I believe it's question A is, you know, how would you rate your experience with IQ Clarity at a scale of 1 to 10? How would you rate the match that was made with this particular candidate? Score 1 to 10. And would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? Yes, no.

Yeah, I mean, that's brilliant because then that's really good. Send that out to all your clients. You get, I don't know, maybe you get 10 back. And let's say, let's just say for argument's sake, that 5 of them is like 9 out of 10. And yes, I mean, you can just jump straight in and ask for a, you know, with, with no guilty conscience, just like, oh cool, he said he would refer me, let's ask for a referral. So that, you know, that's actually a really simple but effective way. So cool, thanks for that, Ted. That's, that wasn't expecting to go down this route, but this is actually a really great gold nugget for our business.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah, I feel like it's such a simple thing that I feel like everyone should be using. If anything, at the very least, you get great feedback from customers and you get to get like a sense check of how good you actually think you're doing to like reality.

If you get a bad one, great opportunity to follow up. Hey, what went wrong? What could we have done better? And you learn and you modify.

But yeah, it reminds me of one of the clients that we're working with said he did a survey, sent a survey to all his customers. And all of them came back with like almost perfect scores. But then his best customer, who he thought wasn't going to come back with anything, came back with this like long list of things that he could improve on. Not like in a negative way necessarily, just in a, hey, now that you asked, this is what I think we can improve on. So I think you also maybe get feedback that you weren't expecting that will allow you to improve your service. In ways that could just like skyrocket your business or skyrocket your customer satisfaction. So cool. Okay, well, we're only on the first question. I can't believe it. And let's jump to the second question, Ted. You built a $5 million agency and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're billing around $500K yourself, which is pretty amazing. And you have quite an interesting personalized outreach approach, which caught my attention because I haven't heard of this that often. Would you mind talking us through what you're doing and, and how it works?

Absolutely. We have 3 fundamental tools that we use to get hiring managers to respond, and they're, they're fairly simple. The first is events. So we host, cater, and create events for hiring managers. I can go into that in a minute. Second is data. So we are always capturing data, researching data, getting data into the hands of our customers that they care about. And that comes in the form of an annual hiring forecast that we put together. We're a tech-oriented, tech and creative-oriented recruiting firm. So all the roles that we fill, we sort of highlight comp trends, turnover rates, and supply and demand metrics for those particular skills. And then annually we publish that and we have a hard copy. And so we'll, you know, ask if you want a copy and we come out, we meet with you, we sit down, we review it together, and it gets good face time with customers. And then that's a generic— that's the common roles that we fill on a regular basis. There are all these roles that are niche or very specific, and we're not going to cover every single one of those. So we also offer a custom hiring forecast throughout the year that we will put together very specific data for a very specific skill set. We'll also research who are the other companies in a geographic radius that hire for that skill set. So here's a list of people if you want to go poach people from You know, these are companies that probably hire that particular skill that you might be looking for. And so we package that up, put it into a— we use a PowerPoint for the meeting, then we make it a PDF and send it to them afterwards. And so data, we're always looking, researching, getting data into the hands of our customers. And then third is very simple that everyone likely uses this, which is profiles, hot candidates, spec profile, whatever you want to call them. Job opening profile, you know, we have somebody you want, come talk to us. Hmm.

Really fascinating, Ted. I'm sure Ben has got a million questions. So have I. Out of the three you just mentioned, events, data, and profiles, which one is the biggest needle mover?

It might be—

I'm sure you get business from all of them, but is there one that tends to tip the rest in terms of revenue or, or one clients?

It's a great question. Um, I love events, but it might be because I enjoy FaceTime, and, and it's an immediate get in a room with your ideal customer profile. And what we do is we will either do a virtual roundtable around a very specific topic, and we'll have like-minded— let's say it's, uh, the last one we did was, uh, using code generation tools, AI-driven code gen tools to write software for you. So we got a series of vice presidents of software into a room talking about how their teams are using these tools. Is it impacting their staffing plan? Is it impacting budget? Is it impacting, you know, how are the tools? Are they doing well? Are they not doing well? And so 12 VPs of software engineering, you know, who's our ideal customer profile in a room. I was the moderator, so I would ask questions, they would respond. So without me needing to steal the spotlight, I was just steering the conversation like you guys do on these calls. Um, but my name's on the screen, IQ Clarity is being discussed, but not necessarily having to do a huge PowerPoint of what we do. Um, and then follow-up right after that meeting. Hey, I thought that was really interesting what you said. I'd love to unpack that a little bit further. Let's grab lunch. So it's a way to get the relationship kickstarted. So I would say that the data and the hiring forecast give us more meetings volume because we do it all year, all the time. But these events, the magic that comes out of them is more special, more impactful. So I would, I would go with events first, data second, profiles third.

Wicked. Really fascinating.

Um, and, and what kind of just like a bit of an, uh, it's related, but it's like you are essentially with the first two just finding interesting information and, and putting it in front of them. And I just find that I, I'm kind of simplifying it. I know there's a lot more hard work that goes into those two methods, but it is like, what are your market interested in? How can you package that and deliver it to them in a way that they'll find interesting? And it's like just that in itself, the conversation past that point becomes so much easier. Um, so let's find it fascinating. Um, with events, Ted, if the concept of events is simple, I know in execution it's not as easy as people think it is. What if someone wanted to like replicate what you're doing now? What are the biggest things that— what are the pieces of advice that you could give to them? Like the biggest hurdles or the things that you know, they should be thinking about when it comes to doing events like yours?

Absolutely.

So I'll, I'll give an example. We created something called the Colorado Founder Experience, and one of our ideal customer profiles is the founder of a tech company, right? Maybe they just got funding. They tend to hire, they tend to, you know, have high-level roles. So we wanted to get those people into a room and meet them, talk to them. We want to get more connections with venture capital firms. So VCs are in this room as well. And the biggest thing to, you have to get people a reason to show up. And so we have had speakers, we always have a featured guest who either is a unicorn founder, someone that's founded a billion-dollar company, and these founders are all chasing that dream. So what can this founder tell them about their journey to guide them, give them advice, tell them a little story about how they overcame something that, that most founders are dealing with? We had an Olympian who was in the NFL, Olympic skier, also was in the NFL, who also was a founder who sold a company for like $40 million, came and talked to the group. So he's an elite athlete, founder, people want to go and talk to this person. And so you have to give people a reason to show up. I've seen events where it's like, let's get some founders together and have dinner. But after COVID, nobody wants to leave their house anymore. And so you have to give a compelling reason to show up. The roundtables we do that I've had roundtables fall flat. We had like 2 people show up. It's embarrassing. So because the subject wasn't compelling enough. So it has to be compelling. It can't be— I was worried about the CodeGen because I thought AI, like, I don't want to do another AI roundtable. How many of those you guys get? You know, it's like there's too many of them. So you have to kind of pull through the noise a little bit and have something a little bit different, but enough of a draw to get people to show up.

Interesting. And I'm guessing you've had to test, like you've had some roundtables that flopped and some have done really well. Almost like you're testing paid ads. You're kind of seeing what works and what doesn't and then going with the more successful topics or subjects. Am I right in saying that, Ted?

100%. Yeah. It's similar to the content that you guys help companies with, right? I'm sure.

Yes.

There's good and bad.

Yeah.

You found a way to make it work. Same with events, roundtables. It's— there has to be that draw.

Really fascinating. And my, my other question is, And I think I know the answer to this, but I'm just interested from your perspective, Ted, how are you getting these amazing guests to come and speak for you? Because that is probably half the battle, you know, get an amazing guest because then he or she will attract amazing people. How do you do that? Is it very simple? Is it difficult? What's your feeling?

So it's getting the guests isn't quite as hard as getting the attendees. So the guests feed the attendees. You have to have the right guests. And I've done a multi-pronged approach. So the unicorn founder had a charity he was passionate about. We said we're gonna donate to that charity and we're gonna get the people who attended donate to that charity. So it was a charitable, both sides win, right? Charity gets funding. We get this amazing speaker. On the other side of that, I've paid guests. I'm not beyond very simple.

I was just about to say that's exactly what I would do.

Yeah.

If you wanna get their time, it makes perfect sense. 100%. And I feel like—

My best guess, it was the founder of a really high-end restaurant in town. And he was the founder, chef, and had a great story about the restaurant industry that was aside from the tech sector, but really got a great job out of that one.

So cool.

Love that.

He'd been on like Top Chef and all these chef shows. So he's sort of a celebrity as well.

But yeah.

Cool.

I mean, it's a great way to spend your marketing budget. Like, I don't know how expensive it is. Let's say, I don't know, anywhere between $10K and $30K, I'm guessing, for a speaking gig, something like that. Yeah. But you've got this one star person that everyone wants to speak to, and then now you can— I don't know, you can, you know, start attracting people. I'm sure it's not like honey, like bees to honey all the time, Ted, but I'm guessing when you get the right one, it's like super powerful.

And people just want to be around with the people that, that are very hard to get in that room. And so you can make, you know, 20,000 phone calls and maybe get lucky and get that person to agree to meet with you, or you can get 20 of them in the same room and it's probably a lower cost ratio. And I've tried— we, we've gone and sponsored a lot of events The reason we organize them is because when you sponsor an event, you have limited control over that attendee list. You have limited control over the event. You have limited control over your time to speak. And so when you put the event on yourself, it might cost a little bit more, marginally more, but you control the attendee list. You control the narrative of your organization. And you control the post-event outreach. So maybe I'm a control freak, but it has been 1,000 times better for us than going and sponsoring an event or things of that nature. We still sponsor events. We still do that. Yeah, but these are more effective.

Interesting. Yeah, we're spending a lot of time on this topic, but I'm really— and more than I anticipated, and I really love it. Ted, I've got a follow-on question How do you— what's the most effective way to advertise these events? You've got a great guest, you kind of know who you want to go there. How are you grabbing— what's the most effective way to grab their attention? Is it paid ads? Is it email? It's probably a mixture of everything, but I'm wondering what's the most effective.

Yeah, we have the target audience for that event and personalized outreach to those. We're not blasting it to 1,000 people. We're saying these are the 100 VPs of software that we want at this event. I'm gonna take the time and look at this one, talk about the people I know in their network, what I've done for the organization in the past, who I know that they've worked for, something very personal, and say like, we're hosting this event, we'd love for you to be there. Here are the other people that are going to be there. That's important. Who else? So the first one's the hardest. It's usually a buddy of mine. Hey, can you come so I can tell people you'll be there? Uh, And then, and then that event list grows, and then people are like, oh, I want to meet that. Oh hey, that's great, even the speaker's good, and these companies I want to talk to are there. Uh, then it grows from there. Awesome.

That's fascinating. I love that, that little tiny detail of mentioning other people who are going to be there. I feel like it's super valuable. Um, I think Daniel Priestley says it's kind of like with or without you energy. That's how it was. That's how he frames it. Like this event is happening, it's going to be amazing, it's going to happen without you. Do you want to come kind of thing? And that's just super powerful.

Yeah, you're missing out there.

Absolutely.

Drive that in.

So yeah, that's brilliant.

I wouldn't— sorry, Ben, did you have a question?

No, no, go ahead.

No, I just wanted to go into the data side because this is a— not a problem we have, but we create lead magnets for our clients, Ted. That's one like service offering. One thing that is difficult to get if they don't have this data is the data on salary surveys, um, whatever it is, um, commission rates, you know, whatever we want to figure out in the industry. If they don't already have this stored somewhere, it's difficult for me and Ben to go off and get that. So I'm just curious, from your perspective, how do you gather this data? What's the— what tools do you use Like, I'm really fascinated just to get really into that. How, how do you do it?

Yeah, and it's, it's a multi-pronged approach, but we are in the United States, in Colorado, and there's pay transparency laws that if you post a job, you have to put the salary in. And so we're fortunate that that data is sitting right there. So you're hiring an SAP ABAP developer with warehouse management experience, I can very quickly look at other companies that hired that skill set and find out how much they're paying them. And AI can do it even faster than I can. So number one is for the— this is for the custom hiring forecast, very specific research for that skill set. And sometimes it's just our market knowledge. Like, I filled 3 of these roles, I know generally what companies are paying. So we combine research with our market knowledge and put sort of an average together.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, that's one way of doing it. And then on the annual forecast, it's deep research. So we're— we have LinkedIn Talent Insights, we have Perplexity, we have all of these tools that can sort of give us an idea. And of course, like, we are market experts, so we can validate that data.

Yes.

And then package it and put it into an easy digestible format that our customers can simply open up and see, oh yeah, that's okay, great. Now I can plan my budget for next year.

Awesome. And which tool would you say has been the most useful for gathering? Because I use Perplexity as well, Ted. I think that's a brilliant tool. But is there one, is there one tool that's been the most consistent with gathering data for that, for that product?

I love Perplexity for its detail and it's, you know, it'll tell you, it'll cite where it found it so you can go and further get more detail from where it found its data. But LinkedIn Talent Insights for us is super dialed in. It is right there, very easy. Uh, it has all of what we want— the turnover data, the top companies that hire that skill set, the— so we use more than that. But if I didn't have that, I feel like we'd be at a slight disadvantage. And what's amazing is most of our clients have it too. They just don't want to do it.

Yeah, it makes sense.

That's what you see.

How much is the pack? I'm sorry, we're going for the kind of random, but how much is the package for Talent Insights, LinkedIn Talent Insights? Is it like extortionate or is it, is it like reasonable?

It's for the company and it's an annual license. And I want to say it's $20,000 a year, which is not— if you're a small agency just starting, that's hard. That's hard to swallow, that price tag. And I think you could get away with it with Gemini. Which, or Perplexity with it. But Gemini, you don't even need a license for Gemini. So you can basically scour the web in 30 seconds and get enough data to put something together. It doesn't, I will tell people it doesn't have to be perfect, right? It's the fact that you're doing some legwork on their behalf, which goes back to being the most recommended. If we're providing value and not asking if they have any needs, they want to work with us. They don't feel forced into working with us.

Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. I love that.

I just want to— oh, sorry, you've got a question?

Well, it was more just like a— because LinkedIn Talent Insights sounds epic, and I'm sure it's very valuable for the right company. The other area that you said, Ted, is, um, you can— and this is what me and Sam have been doing— we, we hired an AI expert, um, you know, almost free on a freelance basis, and they know how to manipulate these tools in such a way that they're going to get much more accurate data. And so that's probably a more cost-effective way to do it as well. For anyone listening to this, there are a ton of AI experts who may not be like experts per se, but they're like 20 times better than you and they can do a 20, you know, they can do a better job than you with a relatively cheap cost.

I'm guessing though, LinkedIn Talent Insights, it's all in one place, Ted. And so it just saves a lot of time. So yeah, of course.

But I'm just saying, if you can't afford £20,000 to dish out, which a lot of people can't, like the other option I think is quite useful because there's, as, as Ted said, like Gemini, these other tools, they're good enough to make something great. So that's more of a statement than a question. Just wanted to kind of throw out there. Go ahead.

To your guys' point, the impetus behind this was I try to put myself in my client's shoes, right? What do they want? What are they going to care about? And as a business owner, If someone came to me and said, hey Ted, I can tell you what the 10 other agencies pay their sales reps in town and what their commission structure looks like, and you can see how that compares to what you're paying your team, I would say hell yes, let's talk. Uh, so we try to take that approach. So the fact you guys are trying to do that is amazing. But I would also say to you two and to others on this call, just asking sometimes Because if you were to come to me and say, like, would you give us your comp plan and everything, we won't tell anyone, we'll aggregate it, I might be willing to do so. I'm not gonna do it on this call, but you can gather data from your wide network of recruiting firms and compile that.

Yeah, really interesting. Really good point.

Um, so I just want to go back to— because you said that, and this is really fascinating, and I haven't heard this before, and it's really clever— is that you compile the data, put it in a physical form, and then use that to say, hey, Mr. Client, we would love to come show you this and have a talk about it. I think that's absolute genius. And I'm just curious how you set that up, Ted. So you've got the hard copy. How do you position that on a message? Do you call them? Like, can you, can you, can you give me an idea of how you set that up and get your foot in the door?

It goes back to personalized outreach. So for me, per— like, there are people on my team that are phone warriors, and they'll call and they'll get the, hey, we have this guide, here's what's in it, it's great, awesome, they book meetings. For me, it's, I've been messaging this person probably for a good few years, and so what's in this guide that's going to get this person's attention? And right now what's working is we have a whole section on AI rules. So boom, hey, I want to know what are you paying AI engineers?

What are you paying?

So that's going to draw, but that's more mass market. A lot of times it's just very specific. Like, hey, I've seen you've hired.NET before. We have a whole category on.NET turnover comp in Denver. What are, you know, would you be curious what other companies are paying their engineers? Yes, I'm very curious. Let's talk. And some of them always have like, can you send me a copy? And it's like, well, Yes, I was just about to ask that.

So how do you get around that? Because I'm guessing you don't want to just give them without some sort of commitment. Are you asking them to jump on a call, Ted, in order to get access to this? Is that what you're doing?

So if they're out of it, like, I'm not in the office, I work from home, I work remote, like, we'll try for coffee. But also, it's like, make it easy on them. If somebody really wants to see a virtual copy, fine, I'll get on a call. But the goal is, if they're a prospect, the price is 15 minutes.

Talk to me.

Let me walk you. The guide's not valuable without me sitting there telling you about it, pointing you in the right direction, asking questions. And, um, so it's like, I'm not doing this for me. I'm just— the guide is worthless unless I'm sitting here and pointing you and navigating and figuring out what you need. I'll go find it in there for you.

So that's the key, actually. It's funny, it sounds small, but I feel like that is a really interesting key part of the process that stops Because with all these valuable lead magnets, people can kind of just download them and never hear from them again. But then if you get them on a call, you amplify the value with the presentation and you build trust. Like, I'm guessing to get them on another call, the chances are going to be dramatically increased. So I absolutely love that. And is there a way that you frame it, Ted, that we haven't talked about in terms of like, do you say that like maybe they're like, oh cool, yeah, hey Ted, yeah, I would love a copy. And then you're like, great, you know, I need to be there to explain. Do you like say something in particular or do you frame it in a way for them to be like, oh cool, yeah, that makes sense.

Or do a lot of them just say, yeah, sure.

I think the last line of the email is the call to action. Let me walk you through this. Here's my— I put a Calendly link in there, book some time with me, let me know how your schedule looks next week. I'll swing by and drop it off and walk you through our findings. And it's, I tell them I'm going to walk you through our findings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Love that.

Interesting. I'm going to, I'm going to do a couple of steps back, Sam, if you don't mind, and Ted, which is, I think you kind of already spoken about it or you've mentioned it, Ted, but like the process that you went through with the events, you probably realize, oh, if I get this speaker, you know, in this area, I get really good results. Have you found the same with the data? Is there one thing that you found got insane results compared to everything else?

Um, I will say in tech, every agency has a salary guide or a hiring forecast or something, so we're not different. Um, but we always try to add something in there that is different. So a lot of people just go with comp. Hey, we have our salary guide or forecast, whatever, you know, but it's just comp related. So we look at turnover metrics. Um, can you anticipate what turnover is going to look like on your year? A lot of hiring managers don't think about that, but You have a team of software engineers, 3 out of 10 are going to leave in the next 18 months. And are you budgeting? Are you planning for that? Do you know what the recruiting process is going to look like? So if you know that roughly on average for a data engineer, 20% of those turn over every year, then you can build that into your hiring plan, your recruiting budget, your, how your training plan. Maybe you don't want 20% to leave, Then work on turnover, work on improving things in your org that will get people to stay. So it's, that's just eye-opening, something no one else puts in there. Supply and demand. How, how many people are in my market that do this? Is it easier to find, for example, a front-end engineer? It's easier for me to find React developers in Denver or Angular developers or Vue. We have a district, we show you what the heatmap of those skills look like within that geographic zone? That's valuable. So again, it's, it's, it's giving data that's different and valuable and just putting yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. What do they care about? And this could— I'm going super tech on this. You could do it for finance, you could do it for sales recruiting, you can do it for biotech, whatever your area of expertise is. Ask your client, what do you care about? What do you— what— and I had, I had a CIO one day that said, I love you do the salary stuff, but I'm really curious like what the supply and demand of that talent looks like in Denver. Easy enough. From then on, I've had salary supply and demand data in our hiring forecast.

Absolutely love that. And Ted, I'm curious, do you— because that sounds like it takes a lot of time to collect this data. Do you have someone who just focuses on this? Like, how, how are you managing resources? Because like creating lead magnets, from me and Ben, no, it takes a lot of time, effort, especially if you want to make them pretty and, you know, look good and the information is valid. Like, how do you, how do you resource that?

We have a magician who works for us who— she's our director of operations, but she handles— she's a graphic designer. She is.

That's cool.

A wizard with— she does all of the research. I steer and guide and here's what we need. And AI helps, right? Helps her. But to package it up and make it look pretty is a work of art. And we're just very fortunate. She's very good at that. And she takes— it's like a 3-month effort to get that annual forecast out.

Wow.

We have a template for the custom hiring forecast. So that's faster. I could turn that around in a week. And I, you know, She is the framework put together. I usually put that data in there myself or how our sales reps do it. But, but it's, it's time investment that I'm willing to do because our, our North Star, right? I want to be the most recommended.

Yes.

If we're the ones showing this data now, we're industry experts. Now they're the ones that, that our hiring managers want to talk to.

Love that, man. Love that. So cool. I've got one more question. Sorry, Ben, just to go ahead, man. And thanks for allowing us to pepper you with questions, Ted. We hardly have time to breathe. Me and Ben have so many questions. I was going to ask, what's the— have you got a most successful lead magnet to date that you're like, hey, this one out of everything has gotten the most response and the most conversations booked and the most business out of interest? And if so, what was the topic and why do you think it did so well?

That is an excellent question. I'll throw an example. Okay, cool. And this may not be relevant because it was a specific time window in history, but when the pandemic hit, all hiring stopped. So no one was hiring, no one was doing anything. I pulled our team together and basically said like, we're not just going to sit here and do nothing. So give me some ideas, right? Are we sewing face masks or are we with IQ Clarity logos on them or what are we going to do here? So I had a sales rep who said, well, why don't we get our customers onto a call and talk through what's going on in the market and what they're doing, what they're doing about return to work. And so we started, this is where the roundtable started. And we got our hiring managers were doing the same. They're sitting around like, what are we going to do? I don't know. We're not going to the office. They weren't used to working remote. And so we would gather these hiring managers around a topic and kept in front of them throughout 2020, throughout 2021. And then the market just absolutely exploded. Everyone figured out how to hire. Everyone figured out how to work remotely. And we were right there with them helping solve that. Problem. So it's, it's a specific example. But today, we, we have so many customers from those roundtables still with us, that continue to give us business, continue to work with us, because we supported— didn't sell to them. We supported them through a very difficult time. And their networks grew. I would— I'm sure managers have met other managers on those calls. And gotten jobs through it. So there's value beyond just talking through a topic. You meet people, you learn. So it's— that to date has been beyond what I ever expected.

Wow, fascinating. That is fascinating. The first thing I thought of, only because you kind of naturally when you hear things think about, okay, is there anything I ever— like, how do I relate to that, uh, that statement or that comment? And the same thing is true for the podcast for me and Sam, which is just like And the concept is, is giving value without expectation of something in return. And I feel like that concept in a business is so powerful, but the most difficult thing about it is you have to think long term and you have to be super patient. And I think most recruiters just, they cannot— I say most, that's probably a little bit, that's a little bit harsh, but a lot of recruiters don't have that ability to think beyond like the next quarter or the next month, if that makes sense, when really this is like a project I'm guessing that takes 6 months to a year to really come to fruition. Ted, am I right in saying that? Maybe it happened sooner for you, but for me and Sam, podcast took us at least a year, year and a half to really get a groove in. Sam, am I right in saying that?

100%. Uh, 2-year mark was really when it started popping off and we saw the, the fruits of our labor kind of return, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just, sorry, I'm kind of, kind of Similar topic, but off topic, but super valuable, Ted. So thank you for sharing. And yeah, just really interesting that that's where you saw the, saw the return. I'd love to jump into the custom. Sorry, I forgot how you phrase them now, Ted. It was custom hiring forecast.

Sorry.

How do the custom hiring forecasts differ from the, from the larger ones? Like what's the difference from the custom hiring forecasts?

So they are laser focused on that hiring manager, likely a specific skill set. And what we found is these hiring forecasts that we do annually are great from October until January, when by January budgets are set. No one cares about 2026 hiring forecast. They care about it now in October when they're budgeting and planning and doing their cycles for the next year. So we needed something to carry us through February through whatever, September.

Yeah.

And short of doing like a quarterly one, it's a lot of research, a lot of same information. No one cares about it really until about October. So the custom hiring forecast impetus was that we have so many niche roles, niche things that aren't covered in that forecast, but we still support. And so it gave us almost a blank slate to go into any hiring manager and say, What are the top 3 roles you're concerned about? Skills? Do you want to know within those skills who your competitors are from a hiring standpoint? Do you want to know who those competitors, how much they're paying their people? And that, it's really that sort of, that mindset was as an agency owner, I want to know what other agencies are paying their people and what their comp plans look like. So I'm sure Hiring managers in a different capacity have the same, you know, concerns. And so if we can offer some of that data to them, we get in the same room with them. Hopefully someday they're a customer, but we're not aggressively pushing that. We're giving them value, giving them data, and then letting them sort of get stuck on a role and then think of us and come back to us.

Love that. Ben, unless you have another question on that, there was a—

I did actually.

Oh, okay, sorry, go ahead.

Sorry, yeah, stick to the same topic, just one more, just, um, question. It was a good question, I've completely forgotten about it now. Ted and Sam, um, no, it's coming back. It's to do with the forecast. It's something to do with Okay. Now I've forgotten about, I don't know how that's happened. Oh my God. We haven't got much time.

So let me go in. The third pillar on your most effective BD methods was profiles. So we've done events, we've done data, and now we're onto profiles. Is there anything, would you mind laying out the map in terms of what's been the most successful way for you to use profiles in your BD methods, Ted? That's okay.

It's in tandem with profile, custom hiring forecast.

I see.

Maybe the annual hiring forecast, maybe an event that we have coming up. So all of them stitch together to have a multi-prong, multi-channel outreach strategy that is beyond, hey, I sent you a profile, did you like the profile, are you interested in the profile? That's most agency Uh, I'm maybe generalizing, but a lot of firms just send profiles or, hey, do you have any needs? And so it's coupling that profile. So you want to show, hey, this is what I can deliver. I saw you were looking for this. I just interviewed this candidate. They look like a great fit. Are you interested? Is very powerful. I get plenty of meetings just off of that. But a lot of times they look at it, they don't respond, they get too many of those. So then it's, hey, I sent you this profile. By the way, we've done all this research for.NET in Denver, and I know the other companies that are hiring for that. I have some salary data that you might find interesting. Would you like to meet, talk about that? Great. Then maybe the profile comes up in that meeting or how we can support them in that hiring. It's just another channel, or not a channel, it's another strategy that's used for getting a response, which at the end of the day, as a salesperson in a recruiting world, all I need is the response. I get them on the phone, I meet with them, the rest takes care of itself. And there's a whole, probably a whole other topic on those meetings and how to make them impactful. But, but I think most companies struggle with the response. Yes, they're mass mailing, they're calling up 100 people and getting one person on the phone. They're— it's a struggle. And it's because that value is probably not there.

So that's exactly what it is. Yeah, it's fascinating.

And really interesting nuance you said there, Ted, which is you are sending the, the salary survey or the lead magnet, you're sending the profile, you're sending the event details. So you're, you're like following up multiple times with a new piece of value. And, and I'm guessing that dramatically increases your chances that they're going to say yes to at least one thing. Is that the thought process behind that?

One of them is going to resonate, and that's what we want is— and sometimes I repeat the cycle, right? I went through the chain, I go back. Yeah, maybe it's a new profile, maybe it's a different skill set for the custom hiring forecast. The nice thing about the custom hiring forecast, I can do it for anything. It can be any role on the post. So maybe they have a new role posted, I'll say, hey, what about the data engineer you just posted? So, um, so at some point something will resonate, and that's, that's what we want, that's what I want.

Really? It's come back, guys. The question has come back. Um, yes, my question was, out of the custom hiring forecast, which one has been the most effective? Has there been one like the others that like just outperformed everything else?

There was a huge account that we went into and they had a niche skill set posted and walked through the data with them. And it didn't— it wasn't right away, right? They got the data, went back, we followed up. Hey, you know, we talked about this a month ago. I saw that role still posted. How's the search going? And, you know, so a few messages later, then they were like, hey, by the way, we need— it was totally different than what was in the hiring forecast, but they needed help and came to us. And then we were able to get a vendor agreement in place, do all the things. And it took, you know, and now we're in with an account that's feeding us multiple orders. So the value, the beauty of this business is it's usually not one deal, one company gone. You're unlocking a door to multiple opportunities, a potential million-dollar account. You just have to nurture it and keep providing value. That's the problem, it's like it can't just be value now, it's value all year, all, you know, throughout your dialogue with that individual or that company.

That really resonates, like that continuous flow of value, like finding a way of like— it's like recruiters need to shift their belief that they need to like think about how can I create a business that's just pumping out as much value as possible, but not just one-dimensional, here's a candidate, because, because that, that's, you know, I think that's getting old now, or, you know, not getting old, sorry, but So many other recruiting firms are doing the exact same thing and it's just like it's not differentiating. And I'm sorry, just to go back to the custom hiring forecast on this account that you landed, Ted, what were you— what was the offer there like? What was the thing that hooked them in, do you think, in terms of that particular forecast?

I think it was the initial— we got on a call with them and they realized, okay, they know what they're doing. Store that in the mind bank, didn't need us now, keep going. We had the continuous follow-up with other value-added, you know, here's a profile for that role you have open, here's this. And then finally, it's almost just like, you know, you're chipping away and then finally the dam breaks or, you know, okay, we need help, this role. And so I don't know that I answered your question, but it was—

Well, I probably didn't answer it the right way. That was super valuable anyway, Ted, but I meant what was the when you, when you created the hiring forecast, what was it about that got them interested in the first place?

Okay, uh, that was a— they just were interested in learning about what other companies would hire for this skill set in the area, and I think that was the draw for them. And it seems to be the draw for most hiring managers because, again, salary data look it up, right? It's not that hard. Um, we can validate it for them, which I think is the value add for us, is that we're, we're industry experts, so we know like this is what you're probably going to pay in Denver for, that is where you're probably going to pay in Dallas for. Uh, and so in addition to the comp, which is easy to find, that deep research of here are the other companies in town that hire for that skill set here's what they pay those people. And, and this is all public, it's all posted, you know, it's— we're not, we're not giving away customer secrets or anything. This is public information. We're just packaging it for them.

Yeah, yeah. But it's funny because it's like everyone has probably everything they need in the world to become like millionaires, but it's just, it's packaged in the right way, isn't it? Because that— it's like we have access to so much information these days it's overwhelming, but that packaging piece is what, what people pay money for, isn't it? Or pay time for. It's like, say, it's like the efficiency, everything in one place, uh, which is fascinating.

Kind of said, I'd love to know what other— I could probably go research this stuff. I'm curious about, but people are— I don't want to say lazy is the wrong word, they're busy. Yeah, there's so many competing priorities all day, all— it's, I need to just drive revenue and, or, or drive software delivery or drive whatever they're, you know, they're being measured on. That's what their focus is. So if you can come in with something outside of that to say like, we took the time to do this for you, are you interested? Most time they'll say yes.

So cool.

I love that. Yeah.

I've got a hard stop at 5, guys, just to let you know, but I've got 2 questions in the top of my head. Ben, I don't know if you have any more questions, but my, my, my first question was, When you're doing multiple outreaches, Ted, with multiple bits of value, have you found a channel to be the most successful? Email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Messenger, phone? Like, what, what channel has been the most effective for you to send that value and to get hold of them?

And I would say every member of our team has a different— interesting— default channel. Um, for one member of our team, phone is his. He is a phone warrior, and he gets people, and he knows how to dial multiple, get the right people, get them on the phone and hook them. For me, I, I've done phone. I like phone. I know it works, but I default to email because sometimes I have a relationship and it's very personal. And for me, I feel like I'm invading someone when I call them or call their cell phone. And I don't— if I'm going to be the most recommended, I'm going to set an appointment and we're going to talk at your convenience, not when I dictate. So, so for me, it's email and it's that custom forecast. I have another member of my team that nobody responds to their emails, but they respond to their inMails. And so LinkedIn message for some reason is getting to the right inbox and they're responding. So I would say it's whatever works for you. Just be— if the value is there, however you get a hold of them doesn't really matter. You just have to have the value.

That's epic advice, mate. And my other question was, which is completely— we haven't asked you anything about you, Ted. Like, I could do like 10 minutes just asking more about you, but I'm curious, like, for the last 5 minutes— I don't know if Ben has any more questions, but like, what excites you the most about your business at the moment, Ted?

I'm fascinated just to get in your mind because you're obviously very successful.

You've dissected your processes and you've created some amazing stuff.

What excites you the most about what you do?

Of interest, we are at a transformational time in the recruiting world. Everyone knows it, everyone's feeling it, and it's been a roller coaster for every single— for if you haven't had a roller coaster, I want to know what industry you're in or what you're doing. But it's been like this for 5 years now. So as the industry transforms, I wanted to make sure that we're ahead and looking around the corner. Uh, and part of this is strategy, part of this is, is, is being the most recommended. But as AI starts to transform our industry, how can we stay ahead of that curve? And, and we— it's probably a different, uh, podcast we get into that. But looking at how it transforms and enables— and I've already told you, like, we're doing highly personal outreach, so there's no bot or agent on the planet that is going to replicate a message from me saying, I know these 4 people in your network and I want to talk to you because, you know, I'm surprised we haven't met yet. Uh, but it can make me more efficient, so it can make my personalized outreach faster, better, and stronger. And if I can stay ahead of that curve, that excites me, and it— that gets me up, that gets me rolling. And it's going to change, it's going to change fast. And if I'm sitting here doing the same thing day in and day out, I'm gonna get bowled over by the tidal wave. But if I try to ride the wave, I try to stay kind of at the— not even on top of it, just like don't get bowled over, be in a sea kayak or something and ride the wave. Um, that excites me. And so that's— we're actively working to stay on top, or, or at least not completely washed away by the tidal wave that's coming. But probably like a whole different podcast on that.

Yeah, a great answer though, dude. That's really fascinating. I've learned so much on this podcast, Ted. Honestly, you've, you've peppered us with absolute gems and like each section we could probably go into in much more detail. But thank you for coming on the pod. Ben, do you have any final questions?

No, just thank you, Ted. This was a really lovely surprise, last-minute surprise, but super valuable and a genuinely different conversation and topic that we've had. Um, so thank you so much for joining us, my friend. Um, really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thank you, guys. Love the show. Please keep it up. Thank you.

Thank you.

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.