Top billers typically have one or more “cornerstone clients.”
These key accounts are ones you can build your business on because they use you exclusively and give you lots of repeat business. My special guest, Katherine Jerald, is someone who’s mastered the art of client development.
Katherine is the founder of Elray Search, a firm that is committed to solving the biggest talent needs of middle market clients in the aerospace, satellite, and defense firm. She’s also a member of the Pinnacle Society.
What’s fascinating about Katherine’s story is that she’s a second-generation recruiter. She remembers the first day her father opened a recruiting firm. She actually got to skip school at the age of 12 to help set up the office computers.
Katherine later rejoined her father’s search firm, FPC Portland in 2015 as an executive recruiter, and opened an FPC office in Lake Oswego, Washington. During her tenure within the FPC franchise network, Katherine was the five-time winner of FPC’s “Top Recruiter” Award.
In this episode, Katherine shares the skillset and mindset that enabled her to become a top producer and successful business owner. She reveals some killer strategies for winning and developing clients, plus how she transitioned from contingency to 100% engaged search.
Episode Outline and Highlights
- [02:06] How Katherine’s father influenced her career path as a recruiter and owner.
- [06:13] Was it easier or harder working in a family recruitment business?
- [11:30] Success factors to becoming a five-time top recruiter in the FPC network. (client-side development, grind, and hustle)
- [16:48] Strategies for identifying, breaking into, and caring for the correct accounts.
- [21:14] Pitching a relationship instead of a transaction in a recruitment call.
- [25:16] Katherine shares her process for developing client relationships.
- [32:12] How commitment plays a big part in Katherine’s success.
- [33:24] Transitioning from being a top recruiter to launching her own firm – Katherine shares her story.
- [37:29] Discussion and thought process on engaged versus contingent search.
- [45:49] Creating your “irresistible offer” – most recruiters don’t understand this!
- [49:55] Hiring and building your business – how Katherine started growing her team.
- [58:06] Katherine reveals her selling style.
How to Become a Top Recruiter: Hustle, Grind and Focus on Client Development
During her tenure at FPC, Katherine was the five-time winner of FPC’s top recruiter award. What’s her secret?
According to Katherine, “The baseline is you gotta hustle and you gotta grind. And most people do not want to work that hard.” But of course, that can’t be all there is to it because I also have seen recruiters work really hard but still not get the same results that Katherine does.
She then revealed the differentiator: “I would say it’s been really connecting and developing the client side.” Katherine is aware of the importance of client development. She shared her strategies for finding the right account, landing that business, and caring for the relationship. This strategy leads to her getting referrals which leads to more businesses and clients.
Katherine also gave tips on how to pitch without being too salesy, how to establish relationships during a recruitment call instead of being purely transactional, and her process for developing those accounts.
Transitioning From Contingency to an Engaged Search
The most exciting part of Katherine’s story is how she recently launched her own recruitment firm, Elray Search. They officially launched on April 1 of this year, and in their first quarter they’ve taken off like a rocket ship, which is fitting since they specialize in aerospace and defence.
One of the key shifts that Katherine made when she started on her own is that she hasn’t accepted any contingent searches since their launch. How does she pitch this engaged search to her clients? Here’s some of her verbiage:
- “We ask for ten grand to kick things off.”
- “What you can expect from me is weekly update calls. We do a video chat, we’ll record them so I can share them with my team as well.”
- “Hey, I’m gonna do your first interview for you. Just tell me what questions you want me to ask. You can watch it on video when you’re on the airplane.”
- “If you’re not happy with what we’re doing after three weeks, I’ll give you your ten grand back.”
Katherine added, “Guess how many have asked for it (the $10k deposit) back? Zero!”
Katherine also discussed how she started to build her team – having just hired their third member very recently, and how it helped her be free from the 360 model.
Pitching it the Right Way
I love Katherine’s mindset when it comes to pitching: “So the whole like the premise is, nobody likes a hard sell anymore. And this is totally contradictory to what we, you know, how it was taught 20 years ago, where you’re trying to say, ‘Hey, can I accept on your behalf?’ That doesn’t work anymore.”
For Katherine, it is all about attraction rather than promotion. By asking the right questions, she is able to nudge a candidate to start talking and building a relationship, which eventually leads to successful placements. Katherine added, “I tell them, ‘Hey, I’m never gonna try to talk you into something. At the end of the day, you’re always gonna do what’s best for you and your family, and everybody should understand that. And if they don’t, they don’t have the right intentions’.”
Katherine shared so many golden nuggets, but that little script was my absolute favourite. Could the same approach be effective for you and your recruiters?
Related Podcast You Might Enjoy
- TRR#166 How to Bill $1,000,000 For Ten Years Straight and Grow a Successful Team, with Allan Fisher
- TRR#132 How to Break Out of a Slump and Bill an Amazing $420k in 5 Months, with Wes Ashworth
