Drew Edwards: you out. Hi, this is Terry Edwards from Make More Placements and welcome to this week's podcast. I want to share something with you. You're not stuck. You're just repeating the same day. And I'm going to show you exactly why that's happening and how to break it. Because there's a pattern that I see in recruitment business owners day after day after day. And once you see it, you won't be able to unsee it. And that's the dangerous part. because it doesn't feel like a decision, but it is. So here's a typical recruiter's day. You wake up, you check your emails, reply to clients, reply to candidates, maybe a bit of feedback, but scrolling on LinkedIn and other social media platform, send a few messages, maybe pick up the phone and make a few calls. Before you know it, the day has disappeared, that's it. At the end of the day, you've been busy, but nothing's actually moved forward. You're working on roles where you won't win. You're waiting on hiring managers who don't value and respect your time. You're reacting instead of leading. You're hoping something's going to land instead of creating it. not building momentum, you're maintaining motion. Now, I'll be clear about it. This has got nothing to do with skill. Most recruiters not know what they should be doing. Think about it, say to any recruiter, do you know what you should be doing? saying, I should be prospecting more. I should push for exclusives or retains. I should raise my fees. I should have more meetings with interested hiring managers. We all know what we need to do, but they don't because their current behavior, their current behavior is protecting them from discomfort. Prospecting, asking for business, there's a risk of rejection. So you don't do it. So you're protected. Push it for... exclusive deals or contingent, risk losing the deal altogether. So you don't do it, so you remain in comfort. Raising your fees, fear of pushback. Being consistent and doing these things on a regular and consistent basis, that requires discipline. So instead of changing direction, they protect the comfort and then call it a strategy. It's not. See, time doesn't wait. It doesn't care if you're, well, I'm just figuring this out, Terry. Yeah, sure. And then slow down for you. Hours turn into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. And then one day you look up and you're like, shoot, where has the time gone? Nothing's changed. Same revenue, same conversations. So you didn't choose this outcome. You arrived here by default. Let me ask a question. If nothing changes over the next 90 days, Where will you be? Most recruiters only show up when there's a job. That's being reactive. Top billers create conversations with hiring managers before the opportunity exists. For a moment, think what impact that would have on your business if you were having the conversations a couple of months earlier with the hiring managers before they'd actually pulled the trigger and looking for that particular candidate. Top billers create these conversations and they do that with daily outreach, content that attracts hiring managers, conversations that uncover future needs. If your pipeline is dependent on current live roles, don't have pipeline, but you do have a gamble. What this is all about really is raising your standards. Most recruiters tolerate behavior they wouldn't expect anywhere else. Example, late feedback, vague briefs, fee resistance, not returning your calls, not value respect. Imagine you're in relationship and they didn't value respect you, they didn't believe in exclusivity. It's clearly not a serious relationship. They didn't return your calls. Do you know what top billers do? They set the rules early and they don't hope for better clients. They filter out the bad clients and only work with the better clients. See your business grows in conversations, not in the number of CVs or resumes that you send out. Conversations create clarity, conversations create trust. The right some sort of conversations can create urgency. And if you're hiding behind that email, you're slowing down your own growth. Most recruiters sell recruitment to the hiring manager. Well, I'm gonna say next may sound counterintuitive, but it's the honest truth. The majority of hiring managers don't want recruitment. What they do want is the results that recruitment will provide. Let me explain. Many years ago, nearly 30 years ago, I was an IT recruiter, so I would work, my typical decision maker was the IT director. And the IT directors or CTO's challenges was ensuring that the IT projects were delivered on time and to budget. And my candidates, because I recruited predominantly project managers, would ensure that would happen. So I would. ask the IT director about whether they were hiring any project managers. I would ask them about the projects they're working on right now, how they're going, are they to budget and on time and are they meeting the business needs. I would ask the IT director or CTO about the implications if this goes wrong and what impact it would have on them on the personal level and what the skill sets they would need in the business to show that to ensure that that didn't happen. Notice the difference. I'm not talking about recruitment. I'm talking about the outcome that the hiring managers going to get. That's what they want. The moment you say recruitment, they say, we're not recruiting right now. They're not being dishonest with you. They're telling you the truth. They are not recruiting right now. Imagine for a second, you know, you'll say, imagine you are recruitment ⁓ or search business owner. And I say something like this to you. Hey, if I could introduce you to someone who could add 150, 200,000 to your, to your annual revenue, would you, would that be of interest to you? Very few would say no to that. But if I sit here on my Rector Rec, and I'm just wondering if you're recruited any consultants right now, it's a completely different conversation. See, the first time I'm asking about the outcome you're gonna get, you're gonna get an additional 200,000 added to your bottom line. See, one of the things that top builders do, they build daily direction. your day is either designed or decided for you. But which one do you think is bringing the most success? Top billers have three to seven non-negotiables. They track the meetings that they've booked. They eliminate low-value work. And they don't drift into success. They build it through repetition. Earlier I mentioned the pattern I mentioned, it's not lack of effort, it's avoidance.