In a recent episode of The Grow Fast Podcast, we spoke with Melanie Francis and Guy Day, two highly experienced recruitment professionals, about their sales strategies when talking with customers and prospective candidates. Melanie and Guy also share their practices for evaluating sales candidates and their thoughts on selling in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Background

Melanie Francis is the Founder & CEO of Global Search RC, a recruitment firm that is very active in the localization industry and has offices in the UK and the U.S. Melanie previously worked in a variety of internal and external recruitment roles both in the UK and in the U.S.

Global Search RC

‍Guy Day is the Founder & CEO of BartonRock, a boutique recruitment firm that has a focus on senior executive positions in the retail industry. Before founding BartonRock, Guy served as CEO of Ambition and also worked in leadership positions for Michael Page Hong Kong.

‍

BartonRock

‍

‍Audio

‍

Video

This is the transcript of this episode:

‍

Mark Shriner [00:01]
Welcome to the Grow Fast Podcast where we talk with leading sales, marketing, and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses. Fast. Let's go. Melanie, Guy, how are you guys?

Melanie Francis [00:16]
Great. Thank you, Mark, nice to see you again.

Mark Shriner [00:19]
Likewise.

Guy Day [00:20]
Really well, Mark, thank you, thank you for inviting me and allowing me to be part of it.

Mark Shriner [00:24]
My pleasure. And thank you guys for coming on to the Grow Fast Podcast. I gotta say, I know it's gonna sound cliché, but I'm super excited to do this. Because I've always said that recruitment professionals, just by the sheer volume of people that you have to speak to on a daily basis, are some of the best communicators out there, which makes you highly effective salespeople. And you two, in particular, are two of the best that I've ever worked with. So I'm super excited to talk with you. We're going to talk about sales in the context of what you do, in terms of selling to your customers, but also talking to candidates. We're also going to talk about when you're selling to or talking to a customer who may have an internal recruitment team, and how you deal with that challenge or opportunity. We're going to talk about how you actually evaluate sales candidates, whether they're entry-level, mid-level, or senior, and you've both lived in different places around the world. So we're going to talk about some of the different cultural differences in selling in these different regions. But before we do all that, I'd just like to do a level set. Imagine that we're speed dating for professionals here. I'd like to get your, you know, 60-second bullet point of what you've done in the recruitment space and how that led you up to starting your own companies. So, Melanie, I'm going to start off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and why you decided to start your own firm?

Melanie Francis [02:04]
Yeah. I joined recruitment as a graduate, worked for one of the largest in the world, Hays Recruitment, which is great, great training. That's where I cut my teeth, but found that I'm quite entrepreneurial and found corporate after four years. I wanted to be part of more of a high-growth, boutique recruitment firm. So I joined something a bit smaller, progressed a lot quicker into management. Then I actually made a move that I didn't anticipate, moving into the internal side, for a company that didn't have an internal talent acquisition team, which was amazing. It was like growing my own recruitment company within a company. They had 250 employees, so I had to build everything from scratch, advise them, sit with the board, amazing exposure for someone in their late 20s. And then, within six months, I was pulled into the office, and the Chief Sales Officer put on an American accent, and pulled out his calendar.

Melanie Francis [03:40]
He was like, in six weeks, myself and the founder will be at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. And we'd like you to book us five interviews, very senior roles. It was great, the confidence they kind of gave it to me, but I had no experience doing it. But as Richard Branson says, who's one of my kind of favorite kind of businessman, learn to bite off more than you can chew and just learn as you go along. So I just kind of said, Yes. Inside, I was like, Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? And I just kind of learned and tackled it through, you know, making mistakes, but learning on my own time. And it was amazing. They kind of came, sat by me, and said, you know, that was just fantastic. And then it just snowballed. There was so much demand from the US six months later, right? We need you to relocate to Chicago, we're opening up an office downtown. I was like, Okay, I didn't plan on doing that. But I just said, Okay, what arrived, it was and the experience we ended up growing the company from 250 employees to 600 in six years, I had a team that I grew globally of 14 recruiters. And then it kind of got to the point where there was no more growth I kind of was just recruiting, not pass, you know, the strategy. And I actually found that actually had some kind of more forward-thinking ideas. And as an entrepreneur, you always want to grow. I was talking about remote working and AI in 2019. You know, how do we grow and attract more people? So a company, while right now you're asking people to commute downtown Chicago every day, for a certain base salary that's maybe not so competitive. But instead of kind of recruiting more recruiters, what about kind of hybrid working, so I kind of found my mindset was a bit more suited to now of running my own business. And that's what I did relocated in 2020, set up the company during COVID, as you do, and I'm fluent Welsh speaker. So the language industry was just something I was naturally passionate about.

Melanie Francis [05:40]
Awesome. Let me do one more question before we jump over to Guy. You made this decision to start your own company. Were you nervous at all?

Melanie Francis [05:48]
Wow, it's something I've wanted to do. I remember I was in art class when I was 13. And we were all sat, you know, making some clay. You know, cheering What do you want to do when you're older? I was like, I want to be a PA. And the art teacher, when Why don't you want to be the boss, I was like, good point. And ever since then, I've always wanted to set up my own business. And during the kind of more challenging times, because Chicago, I actually found setting up, you know, grow scaling up a company, from 250 to 600, for me was a lot more challenging than what I do now. And so I kind of just dived in, I was like, you know, when you 35 Now, no more excuses. You went to Chicago to learn your craft from the best, and you got to do it, otherwise, you're gonna have regrets. So this really scared it was just as a salesperson, you know, you don't tend to like worry too much, you just get on with it.

Mark Shriner [06:57]
No, that's awesome. And I can kind of remember when I was 35. But I think that, you know, being a great salesperson actually helps. Because, I mean, you know, there's typically two elements to any business, I'm running a startup right now, and you need the product, but you also need the sales, and you're either the product or the sales guy. And if you if you're confident in your ability to go out and sell and you believe in the service that you're going to deliver, that that solves a big part of the problem. So. So, Guy, how about you?

Guy Day [07:29]
Well, it's a good many years in the recruitment industry. So I'll keep this very brief. But the interesting thing about us Mark is that our paths overlap very early in my recruitment career, because I started in '95 with Michael Page a bit like Melanie, I had a really good foundation with an outstanding company. Where, you know, I've got a career previous to that, well, a few years previous to that work in consumer product sales, also really good grounding. But almost accidentally fell into recruitment. I went to Michael Page looking for a job. They said, Hey, how about working for us? And then I moved out to Asia really quickly. And you and I met in the late '90s. And you turned down a job from me, and you remember that was?

Mark Shriner [08:14]
I still look back on that as one of those inflection points in my professional career and life? That, I always wonder what if, because that was with a very well was with the Economist Group, I mean, and it was an amazing opportunity. The company I was with came back but the way you handled that whole thing, just super impressed me. But sorry, to cut you off, go ahead.

Guy Day [08:35]
And it probably brings into question my selling skills. But no, that was early days in Hong Kong, and I had 20 years out in Asia. And I my sales career in recruitment and search sort of covered sort of the at the coalface working very closely with clients. And then it moved into management and had a pretty successful career in a mid-sized company where I became CEO. And I think for me a bit like, with Melanie starting my own company was, was a was I did it later in life than Melanie and I take my hat off to people that that sort of take that risk earlier on in life. But I was at the stage where I said, Look, I'm 50 as a few years ago, and I said it's now or never, and I didn't want to sort of die not knowing. And so I think you asked about risk, I think the risk for me was my own ego. If I fail at this, I'm sure I could go and get another job running a recruitment company somewhere else, but it was really about that sort of, you know, really grasping the nettle and say, Look, if you just got to do this, because you know, otherwise you're just going to be asking the question yourself the whole time. But yeah, so it's been a good ride. And I think we'll talk about this a little bit later. But I think the big risk if you're gonna ask me that question was really around. I'd been away from client relationships for quite some time. So I'd moved into sort of operational management running companies and so you don't have as much day to day interaction with your clients as you would ordinarily, you know, you can't maintain the relationships as closely. So when you set up your own company, you don't necessarily have as fat a black book as you would like. And it just got to be very reliant on on some pretty key client relationships you have got that you can leverage effectively. And then also, you've got to be comfortable going out in business developing as a business owner, simple as that, really.

Mark Shriner [10:38]
Yeah, that can be that can be an adjustment when you're in a CEO position. And then you also have the, you've got to hit the road and start knocking on doors again, been there and done that. And I actually enjoyed it. I do, and I have vowed that I will never allow myself to not have those relationships with our customers going forward. Because I think it's really important just for market Intel, and everything like that. But I digress. In the context of what you do now, so let's talk about, you know, when you're out, talking with potential customers and prospects, you know, what are the key things that you know, that you try to do in terms of winning new business? I mean, you put your sales hat on, and you know, what are some of the key principles that you that you stick with, and we'll kick it back to Melanie?

Melanie Francis [11:33]
Okay, so first of all, I think it's about hunting and searching for the right clients that you feel will benefit from your service, because not every client is going to be the right fit for us, and we're not gonna be the right fit for every client. So what I find, personally, is organically searching and sending messages and calling. What I personally think is that technology is actually making the kind of the play and recruiters even worse, because it's too easy just to bulk send messages. Now

Mark Shriner [12:19]
I get emails every day, here's a candidate, here's a candidate, here's a candidate, I haven't asked for it. And right away, I'm, I'm feeling like, you don't even ask me what I'm looking for, you're just filling my inbox with, you know, anonymous CVs, and I'm like, stop. Right. So I totally agree with what you're saying.

Melanie Francis [12:40]
So a candidate that was just offered today, the example of how I won that client was I noticed that they acquired their third company. So I sent a message connected with the CEO. Notice that he was from the UK. And it was just like, Okay, we're both in the UK, you live in the US? You know, I also kind of had that experience. Congratulations on the acquisition, you know, I've been following your company, because I sent quite a few messages that were just maybe not as personalized and no response. Straightaway a meeting. And, you know, I was, and I think this is really key, you have to be very invested in assisting the client with growing their company. And I think having that growth mindset, as Guy and I have business owners, we obviously have that growth mindset really helps. And I think it gives us kind of unique value in the market, maybe when we're going head to head with, you know, recruiters, that maybe aren't business owners is we understand the pain of trying to wear the multiple hats you're trying to hire for your business. And you understand the pain of recruiting one bad hire, it can really set you back. So I feel that getting on a level in a meeting and understanding their pain points quickly, but also setting expectations. And I'll quite happily let them know if you know what, I don't think we're going to be the right company for you. Because with our intel currently in the market, I don't feel that's quite realistic. But if you know if we can tweak this or we can look in a different market or the salary or the benefits or or anything, then definitely you know, we will come work with you. So I think being consultative rather than transactional, just firing resumes is is important.

Mark Shriner [14:42]
So what I'm hearing you say is that you know, you want to understand what a prospective customer is looking for and you're going to reach out to them and try to make it more personalized, customized. But at the end of the day, if you don't have if you don't think it's a good fit, you'll be honest about it. Guy What about you Like, I mean, do you also look for customers that are going to be a good fit with the way that you type the way that you like to work?

Guy Day [15:07]
Yeah, very much so. So I think, you know, as a smaller business, you're not, you're not right for every client. So for example, I focus very heavily on the retail space, retail and consumer space. And if you as a small business are trying to work with the very largest organizations, that isn't necessarily the right fit, because you can be thrown into the sort of procurement hopper and be swallowed up and put an awful lot of work into something and never actually see any return on that investment. So what I tried to do is focus very consciously on midsize scaling companies, sometimes smaller to mid size scaling companies, because then I can get direct access to the CEO and have much more deep conversations about the growth strategy of that company. And actually have more of a business conversation, I suppose I've got the benefit of having run companies in the past as a CEO, I mean, these are businesses that are turning 50 people, making 40 50 million US something like that. It's not a massive companies, but at least I've gone through the whole process of understanding the drivers of growth, you know, running international businesses, and so forth. So if I'm selling recruitment services, I'm almost starting with a business conversation trying to understand their pain points and get to, as Melanie said, get to the heart of their problem before I've even shown them any of my cards as it were. So that, to me, is absolutely critical. And if you if you get the sponsorship with the CEO and the relationship and the buyer, the CEO, then whoever's making the ultimate decision on the hire, or the contract, I mean, my work, for example, is retained work that pay me a portion of the fee up front, or getting people to do that is that it takes a lot of trust and confidence and credibility. And if it's the HR director, and he or she knows that the CEOs got the implicit endorsement of the CEO that that really helps in that whole selling process. So I think that's my typical approach. And prospecting companies is pretty, pretty similar to Melanie, you've just got to do your research, and you've got to have a pretty all-encompassing approach towards business development, I think you've got to be well rounded. I think the other thing that, you know, Melanie talks about technology has made the B grade recruiters even less effective. Well, I think what technology has done is made people lazy, when it comes to selling. And back in, you know, decades ago, when you and I started in sales, Mark, it was about picking up the phone and get through to people

Mark Shriner [17:56]
get that had the meeting, just get the meeting, I always said just get the meeting that was pre COVID, of course, when you couldn't get the meeting, but but nothing happened until you get the meeting. And and yeah, you know, what I'm hearing you both say is, don't do the mass mailing approach, do your research, get to know your prospective customer, try to get a meeting or a call with them and then deliver some value and then start it based upon that value start to develop a relationship. Because if I look at the industry here, then the the barrier to entry is pretty minimal. Okay. It's, it seems to me from the outside looking in, it really is about your ability to establish, you know, relationships, bring some value add, and, and then deliver, right, I mean, you have to be able to deliver. And that that relationship piece, I mean, that well, which is kind of the reason that we're all still friends. I mean, you know, Guy, I've come to you for career advice. I don't think you've ever made any money off of me. I actually, I think you helped me recruit a couple people in Singapore for the company, I was working with them. So, you know, but but but in terms of you and I directly, we've never done any business, but I've come to you for career advice. And you've given me some awesome advice. You probably don't even remember the conversations. But it's so the point is, is that relationship is really important. Let me ask you, though, like, it's completely you know, that dealing with customers is just one part of the equation, right? So now you've got the relationship, they trust you, you know, and you have this probably some industry or sector knowledge or expertise, because, you know, it'd be you can't recruit across all industries. Melanie, you're you know, you're right now in the language industry. But now you got to go out and you got to talk to candidates. And they can be kind of skittish or you tell me like so what's How do you frame the conversation in terms of talking with candidates versus your customers? I'm gonna start with Guy this time.

Guy Day [19:58]
I'm gonna bring out this word empathy. I think I think where it starts is empathizing with every candidate is slightly different. You've got to understand the motivators, first and foremost, and you've been as exactly the same with the with the client. Of course, it's easier to get access to candidates in some ways, because you get meetings more readily than you can with. with clients.

Mark Shriner [20:19]
What about quick timeout before LinkedIn? How would you find candidates?

Guy Day [20:28]
Well, it was it was kind of, there was several methods. I mean, there was a lot more advertising in those days. So if you look at the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal of Financial Times, it used to make fortunes the same as the Sunday Times make a fortune from recruitment advertising. They used to be pages and pages of and you remember, in the Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, oh, yeah, I used to have a sections and sections of classified adverts. And as a recruiter, one of the things that we were measured against was selling advertising as well as filling jobs. So the world has moved on. And we used to so back then, we used to do a lot of advertising. And then it was just headhunting. It was it was, you know, asking for recommendations and people that was getting lists of people is really old school, fairly manual research. So things have changed quite considerably. And now it's an all-encompassing approach. Obviously, LinkedIn is, is absolutely integral to any research exercise. But, you know, some of the best candidates come from recommendations. And I've always used this adage of great people recommend other great people, so simple as that. And if you provide a great service to candidates, and you, you get the buy in of those individuals, even if you haven't placed them, they want to help you. They're not paying you for your service, even though you've done in some in system pretty, pretty vital role of you know, setting them up for career growth. You know, your fees going to the clients, but the candidates want to pay you back and they want to help you so candidate referrals are pretty integral I'm sure Melanie's probably got similar stories to tell as well.

Melanie Francis [22:10]
Yeah. Something we also offer is a referral bonus. I mean, sales candidates get excited by. But yeah, I mean, even without similar to Guy even without kind of offering that candidates do want to help. I'm quite overwhelmed. I actually shared a GM position. That was this week with an LA based solid.

Mark Shriner [22:37]
I've already shared it with a couple people.

Melanie Francis [22:40]
amount of shares commenting it have three and a half 1000 impressions. And I'm just overwhelmed by, you know, how people just want to help the local community I was I can't comment on you know, retail, really want to help each other. It's it's a great community. So yeah, so find out. Yeah.

Mark Shriner [23:02]
So Guy mentioned when you reach out to candidates empathy, and understanding where they're at, and what they're looking for, is really important. And Melanie, like when you reach out to candidates, because again, like, you know, some people say like, No, I'm not looking right now. I've had people persuade me to go ahead and take a look like one of the best jobs that I ever came across was a guy said, just meet with the CEO, he's gonna be in Tokyo, just meet with them have coffee, and I was like, I'm not just have coffee, I was like, Okay, I've got the job.

Melanie Francis [23:35]
I'd say 90% of our highest just a rough estimate, told me initially or my cup, my recruiters are not looking. But I normally say to them, especially, you know, sales candidates, or that's good, that means that you're really good at your job. But what would an opportunity need to look like, in order for you to be interested? So, you know, especially, you know, post COVID, it has made things a bit easier. I mean, I can't, you know, talk to Guy but for myself, because of kind of instability. There's been, you know, layoffs, candidates are a bit more open to having conversations, because they don't know what's around the corner sometimes. So what we find is, stability is a key thing that candidates buy into. So I will kind of, first of all, ask them, obviously, what's important to them. And then I will just figure out, out of all the roles or all the contacts, they don't have to be live positions, introductions to contacts, where the right match would be, and then I'll kind of say on the phone, because I do think as a good recruiter, you have to be actively while you're on that first call with them, talking about an opportunity that you think or even a contact that might be interested, and filling them out, just to make sure that you are on the same page. And I find candidates you have time and time again said to me, Melanie, it's really refreshing, you're actually listening to what I'm looking for. I'm not trying to sell and get excited about candidates. And I will say to a lot of candidates, you know, in the first sort of, takes me maybe five minutes, because we're so specialist. You know what, right now, I don't think we're the right agency for you. But now we've got your details, we'll reach out to you as soon as we have something. So I find that's really important. But I find because I've always been a hard worker, and really career motivated, I started working when I was 13. Washing some dishes, you know, in a cafe. I like to help candidates. So if candidates, I can see they're really motivated to grow and find something, I actually enjoy putting myself in their shoes and thinking, because I've worked in sales or recruitment all my life, where would I if I was them want to work. And what's great is going to events. So I've met yourself, Mark, at an event. Well, two events last year, I met, you know, last three to do include Seattle Council as well, a separate, you know, event that you invited us to. But I've also met your team, guys. Alessio, so I'm really forming an understanding of your team member cues, culture. So then when I'm at, you know, we're going to hunt us in Peru in a month, you know, if I'm speaking to candidates or salespeople, if someone kind of really stands out to me, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of just get on the phone to you and just saying, Hey, you might not be looking, but I just want to make you aware of this great candidate, because I don't come across these kinds of clients often, would you like to take a look. And that's how we just recently made a hire for one of our key clients. LATAM, they weren't looking for a salesperson. But, you know, he'd worked at Trump's perfect, he'd, you know, had enterprise sales experience that is quite a gem of a candidate in Latin. And I just thought, well, you know, this is my key client, we've got a great relationship before mass marketing this person out, I'm gonna pick up the phone, because I value our relationship, and we made a hire within a couple of weeks with them.

Mark Shriner [27:42]
Again, so what I'm hearing again, is it whether you're talking to the candidate or to your customer, it's all about understanding their situation, and what they're looking for, and being very honest and open with him and saying, Hey, this is a good fit, it's not a good fit. It's not gonna fit right now. But if I, if something changes in the future, if I come across an opportunity future, I'm gonna come back to you. So, you know, one of the challenges that, that I think you both faces, you approach company, and organization, and they might have an internal recruitment team, they might have just a recruitment person, somebody who owns that. And they're like, well, we don't need to hire an external recruitment specialist, because we've got our own internal team. Guy, how do you manage that conversation?

Guy Day [28:25]
Yeah, look, I think the first thing you've got to be sensitive to is that you know, you're not, you're not in competition with an internal team, you should be complementary to that team. So, you know, there's there for a reason. And actually, the interesting thing is Mark, a lot of the companies that I work for don't have an internal team, because they don't want the fixed costs associated with that. And therefore, they outsource which is good for me. And I think, the level of which I operate at so it's typically sort of director level and above that are hierarchy, or at least director level above the higher. So internal teams, this is a generalization, and it's not the case in all instances, I mean, Google, for example, a very effective executive hiring team that they that they employ themselves. So Google's of great brand, lots of get a call from Google, you, you take it right, it's that sort of scenario. The old days, you know, in banking, Goldman Sachs pick up the phone to take the call. And right, but not every company has an employment brand like that. And actually, if you're an internal team, it can actually be quite challenging to back to your point about what hooks candidates, it's very difficult to hook candidates if number one, they don't know your name. And if they do know your name and your competitor, you're even less likely to actually engage with them. So that's where recruiters and third parties executive search consultants like myself, really have validity, I suppose and merit. But you know, back to your back to your point about what engages candidates and is still relevant to the question. about internal versus external is, it is the storytelling process, you know, that's the thing. And most selling is about storytelling. It's not just about, you know, here's the features and benefits, it's actually about giving it some level of personality, the selling process that you're going through. And also, you kind of want to be selling in a way that doesn't feel like it's selling. Let internal teams Yeah, I mean, they they are, they're not an enemy in any, by any stretch of the imagination. And he can actually turn in, turn them into huge allies as an external recruiter. I'm one of those situations where I don't come across them as often as I used to, because in my former companies where I've run businesses, we've had clients or big large organizations who've got big internal teams, Melanie's probably well qualified to comment on it as well, because she's worked in in internal function, as well as on the other side of the fence. So what do you think, Melanie?

Melanie Francis [31:02]
Yeah, well, I was an internal recruiter. And I've just be honest, I used to really not enjoy meeting with agencies. It actually took me 15 agencies when I was in the US just to find one that I really wanted to work with. But

Mark Shriner [31:24]
What then what was the deciding factor? Why that one?

Melanie Francis [31:30]
Yeah. Well, first of all, they weren't selling to me. They were actually assessing whether I was right for them. And whether they were going to make money and make a hire, which I really liked. Because it was a really efficient kind of meeting. There wasn't lots of fluff, lots of slideshows, and things like that. But also, they only sent me like three qualified resumes that I could tell they lessened, and they were all good one, I was like, oh, no, this guy's worked at Enterprise rental car. This is b2b sales. We're selling media. We're going out to clients, and to one call close enterprise rent a car that the name sells itself, how is this going to work? But the recruiter asked the external recruiter was so good. And I trusted him that I was like, Sure, okay, fine. And actually, he was one of our best hires. So that that that was an experience. And, but what I would say, is kind of the best situation, if possible, is to be able to have, you know, do some recruiting internally doesn't that you don't have to have an internal recruiter dedicated, it could be yourself, Mark, you know, putting a poster up or using your network, but also use an external recruiter, because typically, the candidates are more candid with the external recruiter. So we find out where else they're interviewing. How does for example, memo queue compared to where else you're interviewing. And I can also, if I'm your ambassador, I can kind of talk about why memo Q might be a better option for them. Because I'll chances are, I'll know other companies that they're interviewing with. But I've also said to a candidate recently, actually, because he was looking for he was having he had his third child, you know, being born in a few months. And he said, to me, the most important thing for me is healthcare. And I am interviewing with a company and his his words has the Rolls Royce, of healthcare. And fortunately, my client, you know, I communicated that and I said, Look, he really likes your company. But healthcare, this is where he's at with the other company. It was also a great opportunity. And they kind of, you know, appreciated that and kind of said, you know, what, we're just not rock in that space at the moment to be able to compete with that. And kind of everyone parted ways as friends and who knows in the future, you know, what might happen.

Mark Shriner [34:26]
Now, again, it just keeps coming back to understanding what your customer is looking for, and also what these candidates are looking for, and trying to find a good fit as opposed to forcing things and making them happen. Because you could find candidates and throw them against the wall and hopefully they'll stick but if you do that, it goes sideways, you're gonna the relationship with the candidates and with customers is gonna go sideways as well.

Guy Day [34:48]
The thing is these processes are quite long, they evolve and, you know, you've got to play a bit of a long game, certainly the level But I work out you you've got to accept that as, as a search professional that, you know, sometimes, you know, takes a couple of goes to kind of, you know, a couple of conversations to get them into the into the I was going to use a football analogy with American, probably safe ground with you actually. But getting them into the penalty box. Yeah, the penalty area is kind of like it's a scenario of, you know, it's just it's incremental selling almost, you know, that's, that's the thing you haven't, and we've all been sold to, haven't we buy as someone that is abrasive and pushy? And what do we do, we immediately just switch off and go cold, we say, You know what, I blocked him on my phone or her on my phone. Because I, I just don't want that sort of experience. And I think I think experience is something that we haven't talked about so much. But how do you want the other person to feel you want them as a candidate to feel trust, confidence, sense of professionalism, integrity from the other end. And I'm not going to kind of sort of jump on the profession that I worked with him because it served me incredibly well. But you said yourself, Mark was a low barrier to entry in our industry. And there are some average practitioners, like most industries, and the opportunity to really stand out from the crowd is, is just by being extremely diligent professional, have the other person's interests at heart, if they turned down a job, don't blame them for the rest of their life, you know, these sorts of things?

Mark Shriner [36:36]
Yeah, you know, and I reflect back on our experience in in Hong Kong, back in 1997, it was 1998, excuse me. And yeah, you know, it didn't work out the way that they, you know, that you wanted it to, but you, you were very professional through the whole way, you're kind of playing this where this game where it's, I wouldn't call it a game that you're playing this role where you're an adviser to the candidate, but you're also you have a customer, and you don't get paid unless you place the person. So there is kind of there's, there's, I wouldn't call it a conflict of interest, but there's definitely an interest in getting somebody there. But the interest is getting the right person there. And you know, you when you find the right person, you, you kind of coach them in terms of what they need to be coached on and why this is a good opportunity in terms of what they're looking for. So it's it's a very interesting role. Let me ask you, when you're looking for sales candidates, Okay, now let's, you know, you've talked about how you sell, let's talk about how you evaluate sales candidates, what do you look for your ability like you there's, there's different levels. So go ahead and go through the levels at the, you know, in the order that you feel comfortable with

Melanie Francis [37:58]
to kind of keep it simple, I'd say there's three levels in sales. One is entry level, you know, lead lead generation, booking the appointments, for then the business development manager who close the deals. And then you have sales management. So for me, when I'm looking at the more entry level, sales candidates, it's really dressing down the job, rather than dressing it up. And asking them why sales, you know, How hard have you thought about this? Oh, well, you know, I want to earn lots of money, okay. But then it's assessing, are you willing to put the work in to earn the money, otherwise, you're gonna burn out first year. So it's really explaining from my experience, you know, doing it throughout the tough days. And so looking at their work ethic, and then the other thing is coachability, you know, they need to really want to learn, ask questions, and to improve in order to grow. Then looking then at the Business Development Manager role, you know, closing ability, but for me, because they have more experience. It's a proven track record. So for me, I like candidates without me prompting, telling me what their results are. I had someone last week that was, you know, I'm number one. I have the pay, you know, he's told me I have the paychecks to prove it.

Mark Shriner [39:35]
You know, that sounds American. Like, right on, right on the Wolf of Wall Street, here, my pay stubs here.

Melanie Francis [39:45]
I know and obviously culture differences there between the US UK that's quite a good example. But he also said I was like, okay, so you're based in San Diego, but my client is looking for someone that's going to be this is our Federal Government specialist LSP there's going to be a lot of meetings, you know, in the DC area. So, you know, again, as a good recruiter, what I'm doing is more detective work, I'm putting my hat on looking for red flags. I'm not looking to sell and get excited about candidates. And he just said, Well, I'm, I live one mile away from the airport, and I'm cool, are cool with 5060 Travel six 60% of the time travel, but then I don't get swept up in it or I go, Okay, so can you give me example of how recently you've had to do that much travel? Because when people are looking for work, they tell you that they'll do all these different things. Okay, but can you give me an example? So with the la position that I have at the moment that's in the office? Yeah, you know, I'm cool. Yeah. I'm happy to work in the office. Okay, so When last did you work in an office? While I haven't worked? I've been working remote for three years. Okay. And then it's kind of assessing? Right? Okay, so how's this gonna work? You know, how far do you live from, you know, this part of LA and, and asking all those questions to make sure it's really going to work. So that so there, so there's some questions, and then sales management, from my experience of being a rookie manager 10 years ago, top, you know, that typical story of top performing sales person trying to manage the B players, the C players, the A players, it was easy for me to manage an A player, because I understand. Right,

Mark Shriner [41:36]
Just let them go.

Melanie Francis [41:38]
Doing a great job. But then really have to, again, we're going back to understanding candidates clients, understanding your team, your employee, so as a people manager, it's having no soft skills, and really understanding it's a very different job to being a top sales performer at Lone Wolf. And I will say, you know, my mid 20s, I was known as a lone wolf, you know, sales. What can we do to get sales? Like I was called a bloodhound, you know, maybe I shouldn't be saying on the podcast, but that was it any sniff of opportunity, I was like, you know, really hungry. But, you know, as a manager, you know, that it's a completely different skill set. And so someone that has those soft skills, but also of course, strategic, so thinking strategically, and having that entrepreneurial mindset, and also being a company person, so sometimes as a lone wolf salesperson, it's you, it's all about you. But if you're a manager, it's about the company vision buying into it. And maybe sometimes, if it's not something you've quite bought into, you have to be the ambassador for the company and roll it out to your team and give things a go.

Mark Shriner [42:51]
Okay, so again, what you're saying is, you know, when you're evaluating candidates, you kind of have to put your detective hat on a little bit, and, you know, trust and verify, hey, tell me about your experience. Why do you want to do this job? What if and then we, as you go up the food chain, you know, what, what are your some of your wins, tell me the stories, you know, convince me before, before I put my reputation on the line and put you in front of my client, I want to know that you didn't know that this is a good fit for you. But also that you've got some some meat on the bone there that that makes sense. Guy have Have you ever been in a situation where you're evaluating sales candidates? And there are flags that you're like, This doesn't really add up? I'm not sure.

Guy Day [43:34]
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's I think recruiters, obviously, interview candidates using, ideally, evidence-based approaches. So we're looking for evidence to demonstrate what they're saying, Now salespeople Mark, as I'm sure three of us will agree, are great at selling themselves, you'd expect that right if they're in the sales function. But with salespeople also comes a lot of bluster. And you've got to get really, behind that and understand is what they're saying, Actually, does it have substance. And if you have the right type of questioning, probing, taking it deeper and deeper, then you genuinely can expose people who are giving you too much BS. You know, so people should know their sales numbers, for example, they should, they should be able to clearly articulate to what's got them to where they have. They should be open about, you know, the challenges that they've experienced and how they've got around it. And I think there's different techniques that you can use as well for further evidence. And, you know, for example, my company apart from hiring executives for retail businesses that are scaling across the world, and we've got another side of the business, which is all about leadership effectiveness. And that's not my skill set. But Kate, my colleague is, is very much a skilled assessor. So a lot of companies do use a further layer of assessment to validate someone's suitability for a job. And that's actually looking into things like, you know, leadership behavioral traits, and how people cope in certain situations, how they deal with stress, how they might show up in other types of scenarios, and, you know, talking about senior sales leaders here, and actually a bit like Melanie, I lump it into three categories. I talked about early stage, middle management, and then senior sales leadership. And the senior sales leadership is managing managers, whereas management is generally managing of individuals. And then, you know, the early stage sales recruitment I did. When I, when I started out in the Michael Page, for example, I was looking at sort of raw skills like appetite to learn listening ability, patience, work ethic, but humility is really important at an early stage. But then as you as you advance up the curve, you know, things like executive presence, and, you know, and these sorts of softer skills really come into the equation, which are harder to measure, in some ways as as a recruiter. So what we measure as recruiters is experience-based attributes. Whereas the skill, the assessors like Kate or noon and rock, a sister company, they're really getting into the kind of the science and how people behave in different situations. So there's lots of different mechanisms that you can use. And certainly back to your first question of when there's red flags, if there are red flags, you know, the late stage process, and someone's gone through four or five, six rounds of interviews, and their clients saying to me, Jack, can we stop for this person, so we'll run run him through a three hour assessment. And that just gives you that further layer of validation as to whether you should or shouldn't hire, you know, gets you off the fence sometimes. So that sometimes we can wail out in certain situations. So as a slightly long winded answer to your question.

Melanie Francis [47:15]
No, no, it's it's quite educational. Let me ask you this, because we're all human beings at the end of the day, and we all want to get the deal done. And I am like, just, I'm overly optimistic in everything. So you meet a candidate, you want them to be the candidate, you know? And so how do you balance your own personal like? What's the word desire to be able to find the right person and be optimistic that this is the right person with the ability or with the same thing that you know what, I gotta get this right for the customer? How do you balance that out?

Melanie Francis [47:50]
Well, I think it comes back to use this phrase a couple of times, you have to play the long game, I've got a few clients that, you know, I'm pretty much working with on an ongoing basis. So, you know, if a candidate that I, you know, I'm optimistic about if I go that, you know, I've got, I'm optimistic, but I have got a few concerns, I'm going to flag those concerns to them. Because I always think I work on the basis that you know, what goes around comes around, and you if you have too many blips, with candidates that don't work out, you know, those questions start to get asked. And so it's to me, it's about putting the cards on the table and being completely honest about how you feel on certain candidates. And sometimes you get this kick in your gut instinct, you know, there's something doesn't feel quite right, and you flag it and you say to the client, I think you need to probe this a bit more. But you know, I think are you also asking about how do you sort of balance the fact that you want to make a fee out of placing a candidate, but you might have some reservations, as well as what you're saying, as well

Mark Shriner [48:47]
Basically, I mean, you know, okay, so, yeah, I mean, because you, you are in the middle there, and you don't get paid unless you get the right person. And so like me, even even in my role, when I'm hiring somebody, every person that I meet, I want them to be the right person, because I don't want to interview 20 more people, I just, God, please be the right person. And so I, you know, even though I've been burned quite a few times in hiring is the most important thing that I can do to make to ensure the success of our company, I go in hoping that this is the right person, which is maybe is not the right. Attitude, you know, I'm saying so how do you balance it out? Is what I'm saying, you know?

Guy Day [49:27]
Yeah, I mean, I guess experience does come into the equation, because the longer you've done this, the more you can rely on your judgment being pretty, pretty accurate. You never get it right 100% of the time, of course. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, if you have got reservations, you just got to be entirely honest about it with with with the client. And actually, the way my fee structures work is you know, I could get to that stage and still have been paid two thirds of my fee because my fees are paid in thirds: so commencement, shortlist, typically, and then a balance on completion. So it makes my business I can afford to be much more objective, I think about things. And then also, I think the other nature of the other characteristic of sort of more senior searchers is that they take longer, and you just have to be more patient. And typically, they are, you know, six month processes, three to six month processes. And sometimes, you know, six or seven rounds of meetings and assessments. So it's pretty rigorous. So, hopefully that answers your question

Mark Shriner [50:39]
It does. Before we get on to the the the like, the cultural and regional differences, let me ask you this. I'm a candidate, you're advising me, I get the recruiter asks, What's your expected compensation? Or what are you making right now? How should I respond to that as a senior sales executive?

Melanie Francis [51:04]
So I know that in certain parts of America, we can't ask that. So what they're currently earning, right? So hiring hires, you can't ask because you should be paid market rate fairly, which, you know, sometimes some candidates may have just worked for a smaller company that, you know, pays less and others. But candidates are realistic. So how I ask it is, you know, we're not going to disclose to the client right now, what you're looking for, because we don't know what the job is, you don't know what the job is the bonus, the responsibilities and so on. But I do need to know what the very minimum is that you want us to reach out to you about, they're more likely to kind of give us that range. And then, you know, we'll work with the client, and kind of find out what their budget is, and what they're looking for. And typically, there's a range depending on experience. And it's just, you know, we've just published like a salary insights kind of report, which has had a lot of good feedback when candidates are speaking with us, because now they've got data. That's kind of current, some candidates, you know, come to us and say, oh, right, okay, so that's kind of the range. And they can kind of base their expectations, using that, but using what they're earning. And sometimes it's really good data to set realistic expectations with candidates, and, you know, there are a sales candidate, they want 150. But we will set expectations and say, for your role, it's 120, we can get you, we will look to negotiate, but you're going to have to really demonstrate value to the client of why you should be paid more.

Mark Shriner [52:54]
Okay. And that's very helpful. But and Guy, I'm gonna go direct to say you, but you know, a little bit, we're playing poker here, and you're asking me, What am I currently making? And I'm not sure when you asked me that, like, should I tell you? Or should I just say, you know, should I keep my garments closely held? Or should I bluff a little bit? Because I want because I want a significant pay increase? I mean, what's the advice that you would give candidates?

Guy Day [53:20]
Yeah, I mean, I get this, sometimes people don't want to tell me how much they're being paid. Usually, that's a sign that they're being underpaid. And they think that that will hamper their prospects when it comes to negotiation. But what I say to every candidate is that, you know, at some point in time, you're going to want to weapons if the client says, you know, we do some clients want to validate, pay through payslips, or through some sort of evidence, you know, not everyone does some, some do. And, and that's obviously where you know, you if you don't, if you want to, if you want to be considered for the job, you've got to come to the party on the on your money. So I don't think it's entirely helpful. And I think it comes back to this whole trust thing, Mark. So I, you know, I don't know how many conversations I have with a candidate through a process. It could be it could be dozen, sometimes, you know, WhatsApp exchanges, also, and you're slowly building this sort of incremental trust. And I think that what they do after a while candidates, and hopefully this is the case for most professional and effective recruiters is that the candidate actually looks to you for advice, and says, says, you know, I trust your judgment on this, what do you recommend? And that's really the stage you should be getting to when you start to talk money. But actually, you know, if you're skilled enough, as a recruiter, you're understanding what they're earning much earlier in the process. It's, I agree with Melanie, it's not the first thing that you ask and as she's, as she's pointed out, it's not you're not able to ask that in certain parts of the world. But I don't think your exploratory conversation with someone talking about a job starts with money far from it, you know, that's kind of, you know, you're you're going to quickly disenfranchise some You're asking for, for personal information before you've built the level of trust.

Mark Shriner [55:04]
It's funny you say that because like I, you know, I get, I get calls, not as often these days, but I used to get calls once or twice a month. And and I always say, as Melanie says that 90% of the people say, I'm not looking, but I'm willing to have a conversation, because for me, I can look at it as market intelligence. And I'm curious, in terms of what the opportunity is, but I would say that in 95% of those calls, the final question is, oh, by the way, Mark, can you tell us what you're currently making and what you would need to leave? And I always, I always just say, like, you know, I'm not I'm not ready to discuss that at this point. Because I'm not, I don't know you, right. So I think you guys have both just differentiated yourself by saying, Let's slow things down a little bit here, put money out there.

Guy Day [55:56]
Yeah. And look, the best. Clients don't have a bottomless pit. They don't have a blank checkbook to write. But they, they certainly the best clients have, you know, in the companies I work with are smaller, they're more entrepreneurial, that fast growth, there's different ways to skin a cat. All is a bit more expensive than there's ways that we can get around that. But I think, you know, the, the fact of the matter is, you know, the earlier in the process, that you can start managing expectations and understanding where something is headed, because otherwise you can do an awful lot of work. And then all of a sudden, you realize, hang on a second, this person is too expensive. There's no way this calf's gonna pay this money. So you could have wasted a lot of time. So you've got to ask the question at some point. But it again, it comes back to that whole that whole trust factor. And your question about, you know, looking for a job? Well, you know, I think everyone should be open to exploring ideas. And I think, you know, I think Melanie mentioned this earlier in the discussion, which is that for something to entice your way, you know, it's better if you're really happy in your job rather than deeply unhappy, because it's got to be something pretty good to entice your way. Sure. Whereas if you hate your boss, you're underpaid. You don't like the working environment, the culture, you know, you're probably going to drop the bar a bit and say, okay, yeah, that's, that's not a bad job. Just get me the hell out of here. You know, that's, that's not a good career decision, necessarily. It's not a good circumstance on which to base a job move,

Melanie Francis [57:27]
Going back to the salary. So if a candidate doesn't want to kind of tell me what salary they're looking for, I put it back on them. Okay, no worries, what revenue can you generate for my client? So let's, let's move it that way. And I can go back to my client and say, because, you know, a client will say a lot of the time we need someone with three years experience. Okay, but three years experience isn't the most important thing. How I've

Mark Shriner [57:55]
Got a $5 million book of business that I can move over. Okay.

Melanie Francis [58:01]
Revenue Have you generated in that three years, one person might say 500k, and other person might say 5 million. Okay, now we're talking now we can kind of start moving the conversation forward, again, going back to value, what value can you bring? Because that's what sales is, right? How much money you're gonna make me?

Mark Shriner [58:22]
Totally, at the end of the day. Okay, so, Melanie, you've worked in the UK and the US. Thank you for your service. You're welcome. Guy, you've, you've been in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore that I know of, let's talk about cultural differences in terms of selling melody, like, what was the biggest difference when you got off the plane in Chicago? And you're like, Okay, here we go. I mean, you know, what did you see? What was it? What were some of the memorable moments

Melanie Francis [58:54]
apart from the beach parties? The bulk power? Food? Yeah, so the biggest difference while and it was really funny, I had, obviously a recruitment team full of American recruiters for the first time. And being a British company we had and we were a major agency. So we had a really good internal marketing team that would generate all our recruitment marketing. And we had to post them is like Apple, you must post because our brand, we need to protect our brand. And my recruiters would start laughing. Oh, it's magnificent opportunity. I was like, they were like, you cannot post that in America that like so there was a big misconception of, well, we both speak English. So it must be really similar. But no, the way you sell as a recruiter I can talk is you know, Americans have to like you first. I had a client actually, that we won from the ALC and He literally said, I don't talk business until I get to know you first. I need to like you first. Which Conversely, in the UK, I had quite a well known company I was pitching last week. And he said, I don't want to know all the good stuff. Tell me what you can't do. Tell me limitations. Can you recruit for me in South South Korea? In Japan? I was like, No. And I thought, Whoa, this is a bit of a shift.

Guy Day [1:00:25]
I can

Melanie Francis [1:00:31]
So yeah, that was that that was a big shift. It was I had to dress things up. I noticed that was terms you guys use. And I start using them now you guys and I'm reaching out touching base follow up. I mean, in the UK, there was a different word for follow up. They'd call that they used to call it an F up, you need to close it. It's not it's there was some really big culture differences.

Mark Shriner [1:01:04]
Yeah, it's funny, because as I mentioned, before, our call started, I have three boys and I, I'll be on the phone, and I'll say, hey, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, talk with one of my friends to say, well, we'll hook up another time. And my kids are like, you cannot see. It means something different these days.

Mark Shriner [1:01:25]
So anyway, so it's not just cross cultural. It's also a cross generational? I think. So for me, anyway.

Melanie Francis [1:01:34]
Yeah, exactly. But also, just two more things before we move on to go. Even in the UK, Wales versus England. And I know myself and guy when we first that had a bit of banter, because he made the right decision of marrying a while.

Mark Shriner [1:01:53]
There is such a diplomat, you know,

Melanie Francis [1:01:59]
because of the language going back to our industry that we work in, if you speak the language in Wales, all of a sudden, it does open more doors. There is a different way of selling in Wales versus in even London, there's regional differences. But it does come down to the person that you're selling to. Because in America, you can sell we had a meeting last week and someone in New York different.

Mark Shriner [1:02:30]
So you know, you guys can, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I find that the people from the UK tend to be more, much more provincial, and also like, our team, their team, then people in the US, because in the US, it's a big country. And you're like, I don't care if you're from Montana, or Wyoming or whatever. But in the UK, people are like, oh, did you hear their accent from it? Am I imagining that? Or is there is there some reality there? Guy?

Guy Day [1:02:59]
I think I think I think there's a lot of family rivalry. Sometimes it's overstated. And it transcends it transcends sort of social circles as well as sport, doesn't it? You know, and I think there's the, I think, I think it's, I mean, depending on what sport you're talking about, as well as dependent, depends how fierce it can get. But yeah, the cotton the whole it's, it's, it's pretty, pretty. Right? Right?

Mark Shriner [1:03:24]
He's been diplomatic. Okay.

Guy Day [1:03:26]
I didn't realize that there wasn't more regional kind of rivalry in the States, actually. So you're what you're saying is a sort of a rural part of the same country type thing. There's no sort of competitiveness,

Mark Shriner [1:03:39]
I would say that we're not as astute at picking up where somebody's from, like, right off the bat. And I think people in the UK are very, very much attuned to like regional nuance

Guy Day [1:03:51]
Yeah. And that central, you're right, because I think it's a bit of an icebreaker as well to actually recognize if someone from the northeast of England has a very distinct, we call it a Geordie accent. And, you know, that's, that's always a, I know, it's a sort of, there's a level of affection that you show for someone for being from a particular part of the world and show them a little bit of respect or something. And there's always the talking point, then a sport. So it's, it's in a set coming back to the sales piece, it's a, it's another way of breaking the ice. You actually what I was going to talk about in the context of familiarity when you're selling, depending on which part of the world you're in. What I found when I first moved to Asia, and you can tell me what you think about your experiences mark, but it was a much more, you'd be much more adept at reading the signals, there was sort of implicit signals that you had to be quite good at picking up so there are big stylistic differences and the preference in Asia was typically for much more indirect communication. So you couldn't be too pushy, for example, whereas in the UK, and, you know, New York or somewhere like that, Melanie, I would imagine, you know, it's just it's more of a culture is to be a bit more pushy. So I think London is a bit more pushy than, you know, probably more regional parts of the UK, for example. Whereas in Ames, you had to be more formal, you had to be more deferential, I don't think you could be anywhere near as familiar with somebody, the first interaction. And the other thing that made me smile back in the day was how important business cards were

Guy Day [1:05:31]
I used to get through boxes of these business cards. When I joined Michael Page in Hong Kong, I'd like to pick out about four box business guys, nothing goes through them. And then about six months, whereas I had a one box that lasted me two years in the UK, I don't think I got through half of them. So I was amazed at how much impact that had. And then there's sort of a cultural piece of handing over with two hands. So I think, you know, it's very easy to be caught out by cultural ignorance that would immediately put you on the backfoot from a selling point of view. And I think you had to be quite good at understanding what the language was what language was really being said. For example, does Yes, really mean? Yes. Or does? Yes, actually mean? No. And Mark, you know, all about the face thing in Asia as well, you know, in the show respect, and, you know, what does face mean, will save and face it's about avoiding embarrassment, and probably through less, less, less direct communication? Yeah, relationships mattered to doing business. I mean, I know relationships matter everywhere. But I think that, that that trust, and that confidence was even more important in my experience in Asia than then then in the, than anywhere else.

Mark Shriner [1:06:43]
Yeah, and also, you know, people group Asia together as one big thing, but it's actually there's there's nuances on every country. And I found like, Hong Kong and Singapore were much more Western in terms of, you know, in the context of selling, you know, you go in, you ask questions, you find out what they're looking for, and then you put together a solution that meets their needs. Try to do that in Japan, it just doesn't work, okay. They're not going to tell you anything, they want to get to know you, you have to build that relationship, right? And they don't want to be interrogated. They want you to go in and do 30 pages of PowerPoint, talking about your company, establishing your credibility. So it's, it's it's very, very different. And I don't know in the recruitment space, how it's different. But it is different.

Guy Day [1:07:30]
Yeah, I agree with that, for sure.

Mark Shriner [1:07:33]
I am going to tell one more story. I have my own consulting company that I set up in Japan in 2012. I took on maybe 15 different customers over a five year period, and one of the customers was Xerox, Brazil, that was opening a call center in Japan. And we were tasked with hiring some key executives for the call center. I put on my recruitment hat. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I really, but they're like, can you recruit? I'm like, yeah, how are you gonna be? It's hard. It was really hard. And so we identify to see Oh, who had the subject matter expertise. She was the perfect candidate. And you want to talk about cultural differences, just to get her on the phone was really, really tough. She agreed to have a call. She was very concerned because she didn't know me like she was this is, am I putting her career her job at risk somehow? You know, imagine that. She agreed for the interview. They did the interviewer. They said She's perfect for the job. Can you ask her for a 10% decrease in her salary? And I said, No, I, there's no way that I can do that. And they're like, these are this is Xerox, Brazil, I probably even shouldn't say, but I don't even care because that was way back. And I said, it's not going to work. It's just not going to work. And they said, well, we want to we want to have a call with her. And you guys and Melanie, you guys would have known how to deal with that situation. Me not being a recruiter, just you know, doing my consultant thing. Got them on a call and everything blew up. And that was it.

Guy Day [1:09:16]
So we have got a role to play as what you're saying their minds are

Mark Shriner [1:09:19]
totally. Should have called you guys. Hey, um, how many people do you think that you've placed in jobs over the years? Just ballpark?

Melanie Francis [1:09:29]
Well, I started 15 years ago, I was actually doing temp, and it was supply teachers. So it's like every day I had like 40 on my roster. Wow. So that just in my first three years, I mean, I try not

Mark Shriner [1:09:46]
in the 1000s it definitely for broker sounds guy, it's got to be in the 1000s I know you're more.

Guy Day [1:09:52]
I mean, I guess I mean, indirectly through the companies that I've I've run 1000s Yeah, but personally You know, it's running into the hundreds. So, yeah, to be entirely modest about it. You know, I've not been placing people personally through every year of my career necessarily. So I've had some I've had some blank. So in the cricketing vernacular. We've had a few ducks. Completely lost on Mark that Melania

Mark Shriner [1:10:18]
No, I played that guy. What do you call it? 2020 2020 2020 20? Yeah, yeah. Do you know what that is? Right? Yeah. Well, fair cricket.

Guy Day [1:10:32]
I'm impressed with your sporting prowess.

Mark Shriner [1:10:36]
Oh, my prowess. All right. So I want to I want to be impressed with your linguistic prowess. And, and, and because Melanie mentioned that your wife is from Wales. And Melanie taught me a really, really important Welsh word. I think it's the if you can say this guy, Melanie will give you a big monetary reward. Right, Melanie?

Melanie Francis [1:11:01]
Yeah. Yeah, but guys got the advantage of having a wife as well. So I don't want to quite hold.

Guy Day [1:11:09]
Who doesn't speak well.

Mark Shriner [1:11:11]
Okay, so see if guy can repeat the word. Okay.

Melanie Francis [1:11:16]
You probably heard of this guy. Shang Vive, push going Gosh, go ganache. Good job, boys. Santa. Sileo. Go, go go.

Guy Day [1:11:25]
This is the easiest. The longest street name in Maya is

Melanie Francis [1:11:28]
the longest village name. Yes, in Wales, there's a train station starting that's bigger than a train. It's like,

Mark Shriner [1:11:35]
bigger than it's bigger than the whole town.

Guy Day [1:11:38]
Got on Monday tried to repeat that. I didn't get through the town.

Melanie Francis [1:11:45]
Lots of owls just say, and you're halfway there.

Guy Day [1:11:50]
What I will pledge to is I will research that. And we'll have a little game with our man. I've got a six year old daughter's you know, Melanie? Yeah. And yeah, we'll we'll look that up. And we'll, we'll SWAT up and between the little collective that we have to make sure we we get that down to a fine art. And I'll do the recording and I'll send it to you on WhatsApp. Right.

Melanie Francis [1:12:11]
Perfect. Well, my partner is actually Scottish. And he's pretty much nailed it now. So only taken 18 months.

Guy Day [1:12:20]
Yeah, there you go. Well, hopefully will take us a little less time. So we'll see if we can we save English and the whales can beat the Scots

Mark Shriner [1:12:29]
definitely beat the Americans. Hey, guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate your friendship, both professionally and personally, you know, and also just coming on the podcast. The hardest thing about when you start a new podcast is getting qualified guests that can you know, talk intelligently about a topic. And I really appreciate you guys taking time to come on the group as podcast learned a lot from you and wish you guys an amazing rest of 2024

Melanie Francis [1:12:58]
It was really fun. I will say genuinely, it's not really an opportunity I get to really have speaking to someone like Guy who's kind of similar, you know, another business owner recruiters don't often get to speak to other recruiters. It's more kind of candidates and clients in the industry. So it's been really good to kind of flex knowledge and kind of share ideas.

Guy Day [1:13:23]
Yeah, likewise good to get insights from from from Melanie and also Mark, it's always lovely reconnecting with you. And yes, 20 is us 2627

Mark Shriner [1:13:35]
Yeah, I know the numbers get really big, right.

Guy Day [1:13:39]
Mike is aging me just saying that Mark? Yeah.

Mark Shriner [1:13:43]
Yeah. Well, hey, guys. Okay. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.

‍