We all have the same number of hours in a day. How do top recruiters, like Kimberly Laipple, bill five times more than average performers in the same amount of time?
For Kim’s entire career, she’s sought out ways to increase her income without working longer hours. Her focus on productivity has paid off. Last year, Kim personally billed over $1,400,000 while managing a team of 28 recruiters.
What is the secret behind this astonishing achievement? In this interview, you’ll learn the 4 keys to Kim’s productivity including effective delegation, team empowerment, consistent client development and automation technology.
Kimberly is the SVP and Managing Director of Scientific Search. In addition to her operational function, she still runs a full desk along with managing a team of 28 recruiters. Kim is a member of Pinnacle Society which is a consortium of the top 80 recruiters in the country. Kim’s consultative approach and client development skills have allowed her to continue to grow with the organization and increase her client base year after year.
Episode Outline and Highlights
- [02:03] How becoming a single mom at 18 influenced Kim’s career choices.
- [07:30] How Kim forged her own career path in a male dominated industry.
- [14:00] Enabling flexibility within the team during tough times.
- [18:20] The 4 key factors leading to billing $1.4m last year.
- [26:41] Delegating tasks to improve productivity.
- [30:53] How Kim’s team members do the job they’re best at.
- [34:59] Kim’s tech stack – which technology platforms does she find beneficial.
- [46:53] Discussion on drip email campaigns and relevant platforms.
- [51:30] Copywriting skills and creating messages that generate a positive response.
- [55:40] Kim shares other success factors that can be modeled.
How to Forge Your Own Career Path
Kim is an inspiring example of how resilience and hard work pay off. She shared her experience of becoming a single mom at 18 and having to find a way to make a life for herself and her kids. “When you’re in that situation you really don’t know what you’re gonna do. But I knew one thing: I needed to find a way to make a living where my income didn’t depend on someone else’s choices.”
Joining Scientific Search almost 15 years ago, Kim has created her own career path. She earned her promotion to Managing Director as a result of constantly growing her client base while developing and mentoring junior recruiters.
Kim is a proponent of constant, never ending improvement. She’s always looking for ways to improve their delivery and increase productivity so they can increase billings within the same amount of hours. Some of the pivotal changes that she introduced were:
- Profiling their team members according to their strengths. They introduced different career paths within their organization.
- Segmenting their structure where allowed people to focus their time on more revenue-producing activities.
- Emphasis on client development, developing a consultative approach.
This resulted in a lot of collaboration within their team and gave the clients all the support that they need.
The Key Factors that Helped Kim Reach Record Billings of $1.4m
In 2022, Kim had a record year billing over $1.4M personally in addition to onboarding and developing junior recruiters. What were the success factors that lead to this astonishing achievement? The key ingredients we discussed include:
- Constantly growing your client base and not being over-reliant on her small number of accounts.
- Diversifying her average fee size with a combination of small, medium and large placements.
- Delegating effectively.
- Empowering her team.
Leveraging Automation Technology to Save Time and Increase Revenue
If you’re interested in leveraging automation to increase your billings, you’ll enjoy listening to Kim discuss her tech stack. Kim is on the Technology Committee of the Pinnacle Society, and is excited to share platforms that they are using to save time and generate more revenue. Some of the platforms she discussed are:
- LinkedIn Recruiter
- ZoomInfo
- Bullhorn Automation
- 3DIQ
Kim shared how these technologies fit together in their current processes.
