As a new recruitment business owner, how much do you invest in marketing and personal branding? Is the ROI worth it?
Our special guest, Sarah Englade, explained how she scaled to $1.5m in revenue in 18 months with the help of LinkedIn personal branding. She shared her strategies and how she overcame struggles when creating content, which can be helpful if you find value in content creation.
Sarah Englade is the Owner & Founder of Monarch Talent Solutions, a boutique executive search firm specializing in senior roles in accounting, finance, and human resources throughout Houston, TX.
Before launching Monarch Talent Solutions in 2020, Sarah gained nearly a decade of recruiting and leadership experience at two global recruiting firms. Between 2012 and 2020, she successfully placed over 2,800 candidates and generated millions in revenue.
Now, Sarah is focused on humanizing the recruiting process, driven by her firm’s core values.
Episode Outline and Highlights
- [02:42] How Sarah got into recruiting by accident and how she excelled before launching her firm.
- [08:15] Understanding contributing factors to burnout in staffing and how to mitigate it early.
- [11:11] Keys to Sarah becoming a top producer.
- [13:15] The remarkable story of Monarch’s launch during the pandemic.
- [20:17] Three action items kept Sarah going during the first 6 months of Monarch.
- [24:27] Sarah’s book recommendations.
- [26:24] Journey and strategies in building a personal brand through LinkedIn.
- [36:33] Are you intimidated to do video content? Sarah shares her process.
- [41:48] What is the ROI in content and personal brand marketing?
- [48:21] Other elements that contribute to Monarch’s successes on top of personal branding.
- [54:30] “You always have to be a student of learning”
- [56:16] Quick fire questions: Tech Stack and Metrics that matter for Sarah, and keys to resilience.
Three Steps That Keep Monarch On-Track in the First Six Months
When Sarah launched Monarch during the pandemic, things were not as smooth sailing as expected. Most people would think that the first three months would get them positive traction, but for Sarah, it had already been around six months, and still, not much was happening. She started the company without a book of business and minimal business development experience.
If you are a new recruitment business owner, Sarah’s insights on the three things that kept her going can be helpful. Sarah focused on three key things to keep her business going for the first six months:
- Self-development and mindset: Sarah dedicated herself to reading books, listening to podcasts, and staying disciplined to work on her mindset and conquer her feelings of inferiority. She focused on personal growth and overcoming self-doubt.
- Metrics and consistency: She believed in using metrics to track her progress and committed herself to hitting her numbers. Sarah stayed consistent by posting her goals on a board, reviewing them daily, and compounding her activity to build confidence.
- Seeking mentors: Despite facing challenges finding local mentors, Sarah sought out mentors in business and recruiting from other parts of the United States. She leaned on their support and advice to navigate challenges and stay motivated in her entrepreneurial journey.
Strategies for Building a Personal Brand Through LinkedIn
A key discussion topic that resonated with me was Sarah’s emphasis on personal branding and her strategies for building a brand through LinkedIn.
“As a new business owner you have to really be very smart with your money. But I always say this to people that scared money doesn’t make money. As you know you have to spend money to make it. Like part of my budget and part of what’s worked for me and my business model over the years has 100% been investing in marketing.”
Sarah was not a LinkedIn expert, as she had just explored it as recently as she started her business. She also is not as fond of being in videos as many of us are. She even gets a lot of bashers and trolls. Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop her from consistently posting meaningful content!
Here are some takeaways shared in terms of strategies and processes Sarah used for creating and posting LinkedIn videos:
- Quarterly video shoots with 20 videos created each time.
- Videos based on real conversations with her network to provide value.
- Content sourced from suggestions and personal experiences as a recruiter.
- Daily preparation: Early morning content creation on the day of recording by reviewing notes and conversations.
- Consistency in content creation: Maintaining a positive and helpful tone in videos.
- Continuous improvement: Embracing feedback and learning from each video to boost confidence and quality over time.
Long-term ROI from Content and Personal Brand Marketing
How much Sarah invested in marketing and building her personal brand benefited her business tremendously. It leads to client relationship building and trust from candidates that the best headhunter in their niche is handling them. Beyond that, Sarah and I believe personal branding has a more long-term ROI than you can measure. I think that Sarah explained it well:
“I think it varies on what you look at as the return on that investment. So for me, I’m a new business owner. I’m just coming up to four years. You know, many people think there’s overnight success when you start any kind of company, especially in terms of staff and space, especially if you have experience. And I’m telling the truth about, you know, branding, you have to have the brand now because the first thing we all do is when we’re looking up anything, whether it’s a doctor, a restaurant, whatever it is, we google things, right? So we google to see credibility and that builds trust when we start seeing the reviews and people and all that good stuff. So in the very beginning, it is going to seem exhausting. You’re going to be like, what is this even bringing to me? Over time, it’s going to help people find you. So that’s the return. So it’s not overnight. There is literally no elevator here to success. You have to take the stairs and this is part of that now. So I can honestly say that in the very beginning, I saw the return almost immediately and then it started to go like this a little and then it started to blow up again. And that’s recruiting. It’s like this. So the biggest thing for me is the reason why I continue and commit to creating this content. It’s because we’re in a down market, and we’re not staying here. So when the market goes like this, I want them to remember my face, my name, my brand, and my company. And hopefully, with putting out as much content as I’m putting out, they do. So that’s the whole return on it, which is making sure that you’re staying front and center, no matter what kind of market we’re actually in. “
