Confessions of a Recruiter
The show is hosted by Blake Thompson and Declan Kluver who respectively own Vendito Consulting and Blended Employment. Both have been in Sales & Marketing Recruitment for over 5 years. The podcast is about opening the door to the recruitment world and creating a community of recruiters who can share funny stories, educate and have honest conversations about the industry and their experience. All episodes are powered by xrecruiter.
Confessions of a Recruiter
Daniel Ryan - Vendito Consulting | Confessions of a Recruiter #107
Daniel Ryan's remarkable journey from a management career to a thriving role in recruitment is nothing short of inspiring. As the former General Manager of a national flooring company and a key player at Winning Appliances, Daniel's career shift was met with skepticism, yet his determination led him to build a business generating nearly $750,000 in just eight months. Join us as Daniel recounts how innovative customer engagement strategies, like cooking classes, fueled his success in recruitment and highlights the significance of mindset and meaningful interactions over mere call volume.
Discover the challenges and triumphs Daniel faced as he transitioned from a stable salaried position to the unpredictability of a commission-only role. Despite initial doubts from those around him, including a recruiter who questioned his readiness, Daniel's self-belief and networking skills set him apart. Supported by his colleague Amy and bolstered by abundant resources from a recruitment firm, Daniel ambitiously outperformed seasoned professionals. Listen as we explore his daily routines, strategic use of CRM systems, and insights into fostering genuine business relationships.
The episode also uncovers the transformative power of recruitment, emphasizing the profound impact recruiters have on businesses and individuals. Daniel shares personal stories, including a memorable experience with a L'Oreal candidate, underscoring the importance of aligning candidates with roles they love. With a focus on community, collaboration, and the joy of mentoring, Daniel's narrative is a testament to building success through loyalty, gratitude, and making meaningful connections. Tune in to be inspired by a journey of personal growth, professional triumphs, and the pursuit of genuine fulfillment.
· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io
Hey everybody. I'm Daniel Ryan from Vendito Consulting. I'm on the podcast today talking about my journey changing into a new industry in recruitment in the last year. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2:Before we get into it, let's give people a little bit of a background on what you do, where you've come from. I'm gonna give the high level brief overview and then we'll start filling in the gaps. That's cool. So at the moment you're a commission only recruiter, which not many recruiters are commission only these days. It's a tough, tough gig to be a comm only recruiter.
Speaker 1:You've been in the industry for eight months Eight, yeah, eight months, nine months, yeah.
Speaker 2:Nine months. What have you built in your first, with no recruitment experience? What have you built in your first eight months, jeez?
Speaker 1:a million dollar question right, Not quite. So I've built about 750, just under 750.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you've built 750. It's your first eight months in recruitment. Insane numbers, and we'll get to that in a moment. Before you got into recruitment, though, and you decided to completely change career paths, what exactly were you doing?
Speaker 1:Look, I've done quite a few things over the career of my life, so I've you know the most recent, I was a GM for a national business and you know I managed teams all around the country, from Adelaide to Sydney to Melbourne to Brizzy, and I've managed teams. I've managed businesses for the last I don't know maybe 10 years, from sales management to CEO to GM, and you know I had teams doing what I do today, right, so I had people in the business that were very good at what they did and and I was basically managing them, and so it was a flooring company. Maybe we should, I think this. That was that was bad. What would you like me to kind of in this particular part? What would you like me to the whole journey?
Speaker 2:or yeah, yeah, just speak from the heart. My man yeah, yeah, it's all good. Yeah, so you were starting at a. Sorry, you were in a flooring company before this as a gym.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was a gym and a flooring company. I looked after quite a big team all around the country and then, previously to that, probably the biggest stint that I had was working at Winning Appliances, which a lot of people know. It was a great experience. We did quite a lot of great things at Winning Appliances, had a pretty big team, pretty big team. You know, I did, I did a few things at winning appliances, but mainly looking after the flagship showroom in Dank Street in Sydney. You know we had chefs, we had front of house, we had a huge team, over 20 salespeople. So it was a big business great business.
Speaker 3:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:chefs we had. We had chefs. So we it was quite unique, right. So if you think about going into a shop today, right, what we found was a lot of people were waiting, right, and what do you do when people wait? We look after them, we give them service. And you know we had some great chefs in the business and they were doing.
Speaker 1:You know, when I started they were doing. You know cookies and you know cooking classes and so on. But you know when I started they were doing. You know cookies and you know cooking classes and so on. But you know when I left we were basically you know when people would come into the showroom. You know we knew that people sometimes would wait up to about an hour, right, and we wanted them to be entertained, we wanted them to have a good time even before they started talking to a salesperson, right. So we had a chef prepare food.
Speaker 1:You know, if they wanted to come and have a cheeky cooking class, you know, before they start talking to a product expert about what ovens or what kitchen or what fridge they want to buy. And we really started the experience from the start, from the moment they got there, front of house, greeted them. You know, they walked over to the kitchen area, to where we had some great chefs. We had a charming Italian chef that you know really got them excited about the journey before they even, you know, spoke to anybody about what they want to buy. And so there's some of the things that we did, you know, creating some really interesting journeys for the clients and then, you know, just streamlining the experience, even though they waited for a longer time. You know how long have you waited in a shop these days? For more than five minutes, right?
Speaker 2:You wouldn't even ask five minutes. I'm out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm done with this right. So we try to really change the way people had an experience when they had to wait for such a long time.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So you're a successful general manager managing teams basically for the last 10 years or so, and then I mean I'll just call the elephant out in the room. Then you took a step back into recruitment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, it's an interesting crossroads for me at my life, right?
Speaker 2:So I'm in my 40s Midlife crisis was it? Is it back? Is it forward? Well, on face value, I think the natural sentiment would be Dan is a big dog at these really good businesses managing teams successful, et cetera and then all of a sudden, has a midlife crisis and becomes a recruiter.
Speaker 1:On the surface, that's what everybody?
Speaker 1:thought right, but internally right, and I'm glad you asked the question because it's a story that I'd love to share with everybody that's watching right and listening to this, because I got to the stage when I know what success looks like. Right, I've sold, you know, I used to sell cars for a very long time almost two decades of selling cars right, and I was very good at what I did. I had a great network of people, people trusted me and you know. Then I got headhunted to go to winning, for example, and then I got to a stage in my life in my 40s that I was like what am I not enjoying about my work, my life? Right, and the biggest thing that I noticed was I managed so many people. You know there were some days that I'd onboard five or six people in one day. Right, onboarding one person is enough, right.
Speaker 1:So you know, it got to the point when I was like what is the part of my life, or my work life, that I'm probably enjoying the least? And managing people was one of those things that I just, you know, managing people was one of those things that I just I could have done without right, because I enjoy selling, I enjoy building networks. You know, all my life and my career I've enjoyed putting people together, right? So I'm sitting there going, okay, I don't really want to manage anymore. I still want to be in the industry, in the design and construction industry, or, you know, a&d industry, and what do I do? And you know, I was actually a client of Vendita, right? Funny enough, right? So I'll tell you what happened internally. Why the hell would you do this? Right, because people thought I was crazy. Yeah, I was like. I think you thought I was crazy too.
Speaker 2:I did, mate. I sat you down a few times. I'm like mate. I just really want to make sure this is the right move for you Right.
Speaker 1:And you know, people thought what is Dan going through right now? Right, and to be fair, internally I was like I want to do something for me. I want to do something that makes me successful, because I know what success looks like, I know what it feels like. I want to go back to that, to that, to that world, to that feeling Right. And Amy, Amy Thomas, shout out to Amy Thomas, she, she was my recruiter. You know, she loved what she was doing, she was very good at what she did and I could see how much joy she had from putting people together and she employed quite a lot of people for us in the businesses that we were working in. And I said to Amy I said you know what, I'm going to take some time off right now.
Speaker 1:I'm going to think about what I'm going to do. What was her reaction?
Speaker 2:And she's like what One of our good clients was about to pull the pin on her. She was thinking no, don't do that, dan.
Speaker 1:what One of our good clients was about to pull the pin on her. She was thinking no, don't do that, dan, you know. She said to me Danny, are you sure about this? I said, yeah, look, I think I've got to the stage when I need to think about what is next for me for next 10 years. Right, because I want to enjoy my life. I want to enjoy what I do. I want to do something a little bit different. I'm just not sure what that is yet, right?
Speaker 1:And there's so many people that think that every day, right After Christmas, most people think about it. Right, they're like I've had three weeks off, now two weeks off, what's next for me? Right? And I thought that at that moment in my life, what do I do next? And I called her. I think she was probably the first person. I'm like hey, I'm just wanting to let you know I'm going to take some time off, and she was quite upset at me. And then, I think, about two weeks after that, I called her and I said, hey, what's recruitment like? Right, because over the span of my career, one thing that I did really well was putting people together, putting teams together, that, even until today, some of the people that I've worked with that I've mentored or managed or just work side by side with. They're still friends, right. They still love each other, they still care about each other, they still support each other in different businesses, right, and I thought I could probably do that for a living.
Speaker 3:What was your process to working this out Like? Was it a reflection with a glass of wine while the decks are spinning? Was it just going on walks every day to figure it out? Was it an itemized list?
Speaker 1:It was probably all of the above, probably not lists, right, I'm not a big list kind of guy, you know, but I, it was a lot of reflection, right, it was a lot of what am I really good at, what are my strengths, what is the value that I can bring to this world, to the community, to people, to the industry? And I thought networking is something that I've always loved and, you know, even as a young kid, all my friends would say to me Dan, you just walk into a room and you just talk to everybody, right, you walk out, you know the restaurant owner, you know the person that's going to make some decisions, you get free drinks for everybody. Like, how do you do it? Right? And and that's something that I really love doing and I've got a bit of a weird and kind of a freaky ability to remember people right for a long time. So I'd walk into, let's say, a restaurant and a waiter was looking after us in a restaurant many years ago. Did you work at X, y and Z? Cool, you really looked after us that time, or whatever it would be. The situation would be and they would be completely freaked out. They would be like this guy is a bit strange or he just has a good memory right. So networking and remembering people and situations and what they do and you know where we met and what happened, if it's a client, if it's a candidate it really helped me kind of build a really good network.
Speaker 1:So I went back to my wife and I said I think I'm going to give recruitment a go right, she's like recruitment Really. I said, yeah, I think I've seen what Amy does. I've seen how much she loves what she does. She's very good at it. We've got a great relationship because we've been working together. I was her client for a year and she believes in me. I believe in myself. I want to back myself for the first time. I want to do something that will really make me happy and change our lives. And she said okay. And then we went through the experience of coming to you and and having that conversation and uh, that was quite funny, or maybe you want to expand on that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, tell us, what was. What was that like?
Speaker 1:but you know, it was weird because I'm in my 40s, right, and most recruiters are quite young, right, they, they, they get into this quite young. It's a high energy business. There's a lot of work that goes into recruitment. We can probably talk about that a little bit more later. But you know, I meet with you, you know, and Amy, and you're like dude, what's going on here, right?
Speaker 3:Something wrong.
Speaker 1:Right, you're like dude, you were really successful. Now you want to do something completely different and, um, and and I thought, yeah, right, and cause I knew, I knew what my worth is, I knew what I could do. Um, a lot of people that have worked with me know what, what I can do, you know, and a lot of my clients I have actually clients that I met 15 years ago that I would agree for today, which is crazy, right. So we met and maybe you want to tell your side of the vision, because it was quite funny, I think, for you.
Speaker 2:I remember Amy coming to me and saying hey, I think Dan, I think he wants to get into recruitment, I think he'd be a gun. I said tell me more about Dan. She goes oh, we've been working together great energy, just like gets it. I was using a lot of like intangible kind of lines like gets it gun, hungry, motivated. I'm like, okay, but tell me about Dan. Like what's the guy? Where is he from? What's he used to? This big salary was a general manager managing teams. And look, I'm going to confess it. I said to Amy. I said, amy, I'll give you zero chance of happening. She's like no, he's really keen. I'm like Amy, amy, amy, I'll give you zero chance of happening.
Speaker 2:Like he's in a really good spot at the moment, taking a step back to a recruiter. It's just going to be like he's going into the, he's going to get eviscerated from just this massive life change. Is he going to be ready for that? Amy goes, he's ready for that. I was like is he going to be ready for that? And he goes, he's ready for that. I was like all right. She's like I think you should meet him. I was like, all right, I'll meet him, let's meet him.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, when we sat down and we were talking, I was like, for some reason I don't know why, but I felt like I already knew you and I've said this to you a couple of times I felt like we've met before, yeah, and you spoke well, you were confident, but you weren't like, you didn't have an ego. So it was like this really nice blend of I'm going to back myself, I'm going to bill a lot. I remember when we were onboarding, you're like what do the girls bill out there? I said, oh, they bill this. And you're like, yeah, I'm going to beat them in my first year. And I went, oh, mate, if you do, that'll be awesome. You know, they've been at it for, you know, five years now and I almost wanted to try and see if I could turn you off a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got that feeling for sure, for sure, yeah. And so how did you try and do that?
Speaker 2:Oh, I basically said look, two and three people don't make it past six months in recruitment. Are you ready to roll the dice and essentially have a 66% chance that you're going to fail? Like, how does that make you feel? And Dan goes mate, I'm not going to fail, I'm going to do this. I reckon I can do this. I said, well, if you're going to be able to do it anywhere, it's got to be here, because with Venditto, with XRecruiter, we've got infinite resources to try and make sure that you're successful. You're going to be recruiting in an industry that you're familiar with, with people that you're familiar with. So I guess, if there's any place to be successful as a recruiter, uh, it'll be here. Um, and, and then we just we went for it, yeah we did, didn't we?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I was, uh did onboarding, learnt a lot about the business, and I think we're talking about this earlier. A lot of the insight that I had for the recruitment uh field was your podcasts, right. So I was listening to them in the morning, understanding what people are thinking, what they're doing, and I really wanted to master the the you know recruitment. I wanted to to think like a recruiter but also have a layer of um understanding business, which, which you know, I'm very fortunate to be able to work with a lot of people over the years, manage people, hide people, onboarded people, unfortunately had to fire some people over the years, and I really understand the challenges and the risks that business owners, gms, ceos, team leaders, sales managers have. You can have one person that can completely change the trajectory of the business, unfortunately sometimes. So I wanted to really master that and have a completely different outlook and I say to people I'm not a normal recruiter. I'm not. I'm somebody that has a sense and an ability to look at people completely differently to anybody else, because I've had to train and mentor people over the years and it's challenging sometimes, right, you know people have their own agenda sometimes and they, you know, some people think that they know.
Speaker 1:You know, we've spoken about this in past. Some people know, they think they know how they're going to be successful. Right, but after many years, you know what success looks like. And success is consistency. It's not just selling, it's not just being the top salesperson, it's working with a team. It's you know, it's it's it's doing a whole lot of other aspects to to making yourself successful. So so, yeah, so I I wanted to learn and make the first month of recruitment. I tell you it was.
Speaker 2:Tell us about your first month.
Speaker 1:Wow, Well, yeah, you're talking about backing myself, right Like I'd wake up in the morning sometimes and you know, I worked with really big teams, right.
Speaker 1:Some of the teams I had 20 or 30 people working, you know, with me and going from huge teams to small team right, and working remotely too, that really builds character. I can tell small team right, and working remotely too, that really builds character, I can tell you that, right. And you know, for anybody out there I know you guys have so many great recruiters that join the ex-recruiter team. It's one of those things like how do I do this on my own? For the start, right at the start, you're in your head, right. You've got to motivate yourself. You've got to make sure that you know what you're doing and you're heading in the right direction, right? So first month was basically every morning waking up, going I'm too old for this, right. I need to make that many calls a day. I need to talk to that many people. But you know, day by day it became so much more fun. Right now I've come up from a world that no was every day, right, you know selling cars in in my early 20s, you get said people say no to you every day 20 times a day, right? So it builds that. You know thicker layer of skin that you need.
Speaker 1:And you know, being a recruiter in the first month is not easy, right, it's one of the hardest things I think I've ever done, right, really the hardest thing. Why? Because you're, I'm very fortunate, right. So there's two aspects of this. I know a lot of people in the industry in the industry, so a lot of people trust me. That made it a lot easier for me. But for the people that I didn't know, right, trying to convince them, trying to actually talk to them, because when you say you're from a recruitment agency, most people want to hang up on you, right, and that's something that I discovered, right, they're like, oh, no, no, no, I've had 100 calls today. I don't want to talk to you, right.
Speaker 1:So trying to get through that barrier is quite difficult and you need to be very confident and it can really shatter your. You know your excitement for the day when you've had 10 or 20 no's and, like a couple of them are not that pleasant no's, right. But you know you get through it and you know, having somebody on your team that really supports you and again shout out to Amy Thomas, you know, having somebody that's done it for a while, that kind of gives you the guidance and hey, it's okay, you'll get through it, you'll work out what you need to do. And just having somebody there to support you and having the community around you, you know, with you guys, and being able to pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm going through this. This is happening to me today. How do I get through it? Thinking like a recruiter is very different to just a normal role, a normal job, right.
Speaker 3:How do most people think when they're in sales mode for, say, a flooring company, I don't imagine you'd be ripping the phones doing everything you can. Or is it the same sort of mentality? I feel like it would be a little bit more reactive retail oh, this person came in, let's give them a good experience. Or is it as proactive as what recruitment is?
Speaker 1:So in many products, right? So if it's lighting, flooring, furniture most of these businesses have a reputation, right? So if it's a designer or an architect that loves, let's say, a particular business or a particular brand, they're going to want to specify it. So a lot of the work sometimes is done by the person that has the vision or the specifier. But, equally, if you're selling a product that doesn't have a brand, yeah, you've got to get out there and sell.
Speaker 1:It's not simple, you know, because there's so many lighting companies, so many furniture companies, there's so many flooring companies, there's so many options that people have today. What makes you better or what makes you more unique? You know, is it the color, is it the finish? What is it that is going to get you across the line? Now, in that aspect, there's so many decision makers, right? So there's the visionary, there's the client, there's the builder that obviously wants to make a margin on their product. So things can change very quickly and it's not simple, it's not easy, I think.
Speaker 1:When it comes to the specification, well, that's stuff that I've learned over the years, right? Because if you were in recruitment for the first year and you didn't know any of that, it's a very different conversation. Right, because when I'm talking to business owners, to GMs, to whoever's making the decision, I can have a very different conversation to them. And that's what made it, you know, a lot easier for me. Because when I'm talking to a business owner and I'm saying I understand the risks that you're running and I understand the cost of bringing somebody into the business and I understand what a really successful salesperson BDM, gm, sales manager looks like right and feels like right. Gm sales manager looks like right and feels like right, and I can very quickly tell if somebody's very good or somebody thinks they're very good right, and there's a lot of people out there that really think that they're incredibly good but there's a lot more learning to be done right over their career.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like you were in a position where you could. We say this a lot at Execruder, but language of leaders talking about what's the risk of making a bad hire, what's the impact of making a good hire, what are you responsible for and how can this role get you to achieve your goals as a leader? A lot of recruiters just go I've got a candidate, I've got two years experience at a competitor, would you be interested? And like it's very product driven, sounds like you're approaching this from a solution, consultative standpoint, as a leader, as a business equal, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about your, your call volume, the intensity, your outputs, because one thing that I was concerned about from coming from a leadership style role, the tempo of a leader is cool, calm, it's brought right back, it's dealing with a few internal people. It's not so much client facing as much as being on the front line and then going to becoming a recruiter and I can't remember exactly the numbers that I gave you, but I said, mate, you're going to have to be doing 60 or 70 calls a day. Are you prepared for that? And you said yes, but not many people actually are in reality. And you surprised me because that's how many calls a day that you make.
Speaker 2:We speak to some recruiters who make that amount of calls in a whole week, let alone in one day, and so I would love to be able to understand how you were able to go from low tempo and if I'm wrong here, just let me know but low tempo to not as much outbound, proactive client-facing, to all of a sudden completely having to reimagine your energy to go. All right, I'm the front line, I'm the tempo I've got to put in these outputs. How did you manage going from low tempo to high tempo?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think maybe one thing I didn't touch on at the start of why I wanted to move out of what I was doing. I was traveling a lot too, so I was, you know, going all around the country and it was a lot of work to go into traveling, staying, meetings, calls, so the temper was there. But it was different, right. And you know, when I came into recruitment at the start, to be fair, I was like I've got to make this many calls, right, and you do it, and you're like this is a lot of work, right, how do people do this? Right? But to be fair, and this is some of the stuff that when you onboard your partners in TechRecruiter, you know, matt Cossons shout out to Matt, great guy, he talks about routine. He talks about things that I probably know because I've done this in the past. But it reminded me of how to set up the day.
Speaker 1:What do you do, what's your routine, how do you, you know, in the morning? So, basically, my routine is I wake up, I call new business, I work out who's doing what, because I've got some great candidates I'm already speaking with that I can put in front of them very quickly, very easily, and I just I do that for the first two, three hours of the day and then I just call candidates and one thing that I love doing is just having conversations with people right, listening to them, understanding what's happening in their lives, understanding if they're enjoying their role, if they're happy with the job that they're doing, and just getting to know people right, and I think that to me it's not a call, it's a conversation, it's a hey, I haven't spoken to you for a couple of months. Or hey, it's Daniel, I haven't spoken to you for a couple of months. Or hey, it's Daniel, I've never spoken to you before. What's happening right, and just having these conversations and it doesn't seem like a lot of calls.
Speaker 1:I think yesterday I looked at the count, it was like 60 calls, right, first day back from holidays. Most people take it pretty easy, but I was like I made some good calls. I met some really cool people right from all around the country, from Perth to Brisbane, to Sydney to Melbourne, and I don't look at it as calls. It's what I need to do and if you have the mindset of you're going to go in and meet a lot of people today and have a lot of cool conversations. 60 or 80, it doesn't matter, right.
Speaker 2:I think that's really interesting because a lot of people probably listening would be somewhat skeptical that someone could be essentially averaging 100K a month from month one when they first get into recruitment. That does seem like a very far-fetched like for an average recruiter to be like geez, how can someone be billing 700K in their first seven months? What's actually going on here? So I think that would be really useful to one understand your mindset around. You're not thinking about how many calls you need to make. You're thinking about how many conversations can I make is a really interesting point that you make. But second, like what that day looks like. So I think you mentioned the first two to three hours. What exactly are you doing? You're getting jobs on. Is that what you're trying to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'll take it back. So the previous day, the day before, I would look through my hit lists. I'd look through who's looking to employ and where can I add value. So what candidates am I speaking with? I'd put them in the hit list. I'd have them ready to go in the morning. So the CRM system that we use great CRM system, by the way, I've used so many of them, from Salesforce to just AutoGate, to all different types, zoho and everything in between. Right, yeah, and Loxo really allows you. Can I say the name? Yeah, okay, cool, and it really allows you to prepare for the day. So I have a call queue. I get in in the morning and I literally call business owners. Have a conversation, right, some of them want to have a chat with me. Look, a lot of business owners when they're having a conversation. Right, some of them want to have a chat with me. Look, a lot of business owners when they're having a conversation with me, they understand that I'm not just a guy that wants to send them candidates, right?
Speaker 2:What are you saying? How do they think that why?
Speaker 1:I think the first thing is I want them to know who I am, right, so let myself be known to them, right.
Speaker 1:And the second thing is I let them know that I don't work as a normal recruiter, right, I am kind of a headhunter because I go and look for people.
Speaker 1:I don't tend to advertise a lot of my roles, I tend to go out to the market and find the best of the best and I say to them I know what a successful person looks like, I know what a hunter mentality is because I've been a hunter myself. I've trained people to be hunters or gatherers right. And I understand what they probably need after talking with them for a short period of time right, just listening to what their pain points are, what the risks are that they have in the current situation that they're looking to fill, and what the team looks like, what the business looks like. And because I've been around in the industry, I know these businesses right. I know the furniture companies, I know the flooring companies, I know the lighting companies because I've been around them right. So I've got this and I'm very fortunate to have this insight that not a lot of people know right. And so I spent the first few hours calling new business and that's Advertised if they're advertising Advertised.
Speaker 1:Or it doesn't matter if they're advertising or just people that I've come across, you know, over the years, you know being being, you know in the industry for quite a few years. You, you tend to learn who's doing what and they might not be advertising, but you call them. You say, hey, you know what's up?
Speaker 2:So are you calling them to get to find out if they're hiring Most?
Speaker 1:of the time it's calling them to let them know who I am and what I'm doing. Right? Okay, cool, because not a lot of people, because I haven't really been advertising what I'm doing. A lot of people, you know, if I don't call them and tell them, or if they're not on LinkedIn, they probably don't know that I've started something new and I've done something new, and a lot of people would like to hear what's happening. Right, because I've dealt with a lot of these architects, designers, suppliers over the years and built some great relationships with them. So why not tell them what I'm doing? And people that probably don't know me? You know I connect the dots I talk about. You know their friend that they probably had dinner with last week that owns another business that you know I've helped them. You know, find some great people and try and build a relationship with some of these great business owners to help me through. You know the trajectory of what I want to do, right?
Speaker 1:So it's really again it comes back to and BD is probably one of the hardest things to do in recruitment, right, calling somebody that doesn't know you time poor. The last thing they want to do is talk to a recruiter, right, like they've got so many things happening in the business. They've got team members and meetings and clients and P&Ls that they need to be looking at. The last thing they want to do is to talk to probably a guy that they've never met before. They might have a relationship with somebody already, or they might not like recruiters right, and that's something that I've really discovered. I remember my first meeting, one of my first meetings, and sorry I digress here, but I went into the meeting. It's like all right, dan, there's four reasons why I hate recruiters right. X, y, z, like I was like okay, all right.
Speaker 2:And I made the right decision and you know what.
Speaker 1:To be fair, the funniest thing is, I could genuinely sit there and say I agree with you. They're the things that I really don't like. What did he say? So one of the things that he said was I don't like it and I'm going to get a bit of hate on this one I reckon I don't like it when recruiters place a candidate and then, after the guarantee period is up, they recycle them, right? I hate that. That's why I don't deal with recruiters, and I've never done recruitment before, right. But I do know what it feels like when a recruiter recycles my staff, my team members, right? I've spent six months training these amazing people that are, you know, on the trajectory to be really successful, and I know, as a, as somebody that's that's been a leader. It's a lot of work, right. A lot of emotions, a lot of effort that goes into bringing people on board. Why the hell would I do that to my, to my clients, Right? I'm not here to just do a placement Place.
Speaker 3:Don't punch Like I don't get, it't get it. Do you reckon it comes from like they're desperate, they're lazy? It's an easy option. It's low-hanging fruit Because I don't know. As soon as you find that out, you would never deal with that recruiter again.
Speaker 1:And reputation is everything. Right? I've prided myself that I have a good reputation out there in the market. People trust me and you know I've been very fortunate that going into recruitment has been successful for me because of those relationships, right? Why the hell would I try and jeopardize that? For that main reason, right, you get a quick win and then you're never going to talk to them again. And guess what? The next time they have a conversation at a dinner table with their mate that owns another business and another mate that owns another business, what are they going to say? They're going to say, oh, that bloke. You know, daniel Ryan, that bloke took one of my, like it happens, right.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of recruiters probably don't have that kind of broader sense of what happens around the dinner table with all their friends, because generally you hang out with people that are in a similar kind of sphere as you. If you're a business owner, you probably hang out with more business owners than you don't. If you're a recruiter, you probably hang out with more recruiters owners if you don't. If you're an electrician, you're probably hanging out with lots of electricians no-transcript the business. When they get around the dinner table and they're all talking about recruitment, it can be a best friend. If one guy has a really good experience with you and goes oh my God, you need to speak to Dan Dan, solve challenge one, two and three from these reasons, and then it spreads like wildfire. All of a sudden you get referrals all the time. People love you and you get this awesome momentum. But the opposite happens as well. If you're really narrow, focused and going. I need to hit my threshold or else my boss is going to be shitty with me this quarter.
Speaker 2:This person's updated their profile on Seek. I know I placed them six months ago, but you know what? I'm just going to call them again and pretend that I'm not pitching them a new job and if they happen to go, can you find me something? Then I'll place them. It's still the same outcome and I think that's perhaps the strategy of a lot of recruiters They'll see a good candidate they've placed that have updated their profile. It'll give them a signal that, all right, maybe I can go have a chat to this person and even though that's my client technically, maybe I can go have a chat to this person and even though that's my client technically, they're looking anyway.
Speaker 3:So maybe I can place them and it just gives it a massive, massive bad name. Who's responsible? Do you reckon that's obviously the business owner of that agency to enforce that culture.
Speaker 2:I think it needs to be like the responsibility of the recruiter.
Speaker 3:Grow up a bit. Grow up a bit and understand what business looks like I was about to say.
Speaker 2:Dan, you made a really good point. That reminds me of how important recruitment is, and that point was one person can change the trajectory of someone's business Absolutely, and for me I learned that when my family run a business and I helped recruit a national sales manager for them in their business very early on in my recruitment career. So I'm seeing my parents run their business, they need a national sales manager. At the time I'm like I'm going to headhunt the best national sales manager I can find. And so they were only just starting their business journey. They were probably two or three years in.
Speaker 2:I headhunted the national sales manager of L'Oreal because they run like a hair and beauty business selling to hair salons, and at the time I thought I did a really good job. But this guy bombed really hard For six months. He was getting a massive salary and he kept saying the reason why he's not getting new business is because he's got a restraint. I can't speak to them. I can't speak to them, blah, blah, blah. So my parents paid him a crazy salary for six months, realized that he just wasn't the right fit. He wasn't a hunter, he couldn't go out and get new business and it set my parents back significantly and I was a little bit heartbroken.
Speaker 2:I was like, wow, I put my parents in this really bad position where I headhunted the national sales manager of this company because it was such a big company he wasn't familiar with like that startup grind of getting your brand out there Cause he's been, you know, leveraged on L'Oreal.
Speaker 2:And then when that happened, that was when the penny dropped for me to go wow, I could literally in my role recruiting for other clients, I could really negatively impact their business If I just, you know, on paper, do my job. How much impact could I have if I found a really good and then I ended up finding a really great person. He got the role. He's been there like six, seven years now, absolutely killing it, doing a great job, and changed the trajectory of the business. Like you get one guy coming in on a small team and it's like it's life-changing and I think a lot of recruiters don't realize how much impact they really do have and it just takes being more involved in business rather than being transactional to realize that. And when you know you're making a big impact, you kind of have a little bit more drive and fire and hunger to do a good job.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably what you have. Is you understand the impact, so it it means a lot more to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I'm just thinking about what you're saying, right? The amount of sleepless nights that I've had because I've had people that were making it really difficult to to have a successful team, or it's maybe one or two people that just didn't want to be successful, didn't see the value or just didn't want to change right, and the amount of sleepless nights that I've had thinking about how do I improve, how do I make this better? And you know I always cared for my team. You know I always wanted to do the best for them and you know now I take the approach that I want to look after my clients.
Speaker 1:If I do a good job and get them good people and they're successful and they're happy, I could change not only the candidate's lives but the business owner's lives, because when they have good people that come in, as you said, the hardest thing to do in any business is to find good people. It is the hardest thing. I can tell you from experience. It is so difficult because when you find them, they're like rare, right, and our job is really important, right? Yes, we can give them candidates that seem okay, but if we don't do all the due diligence and we don't really ask the right questions and we don't spend the time really working out what they are, they probably won't last. Right, and you know I'm not saying that I'm perfect and I'm not an expert at this. I've only been doing this for eight months. But I love changing people's lives. When they call me and say, dan, thank you so much. Not only did you get me a pay rise, but I love what I do. I'm successful at it. The owner's amazing. You were right.
Speaker 3:Well, think about the triangle of a sale. When you're selling cars, for example and this is where I reckon recruitment becomes so unique. Like we both come from a car sales background as well and you sell a car, either you're pumped because you're like great, there's some gross profit in this puppy, I'm going to get good comms, but the customer's a bit like I don't know if I actually got a deal here at all.
Speaker 3:And um and then you know they're happy or what. They may be happy with the product, but the other way around as well. When the customer's really happy, you're let down and you're like man, I know, this is on driveway, I'm only getting 50 bucks less super for this deal. This sucks that the customer's really happy. Recruitment's one of those weird things where you're pumped, the client's pumped and the candidate is pumped all at the same time. Yeah, if you're not honest and run a tight process then there's going to be shit after. But if you do it right, I reckon it's one of the rare transactions. I don't know many other transactions the win-win-win scenario.
Speaker 3:Yeah there's not many other win-win-win-win scenarios.
Speaker 1:And that's why, today, I think about what I do and I love what I do. We were talking about this earlier, right? We were talking about people going into work at nine and then at five they clock out. They're done. That's it right. Don't ask for more right.
Speaker 1:And, to be fair, working for different businesses. Sometimes I had that mentality, right, I was like, oh, it's the weekend, I don't have time for this, I want to go and spend some time with the family and what have you? Right. But now I love working hard. I love getting up in the morning and trying to do the right thing by the candidate, by the clients, by everybody. Right, and you can really make a big impact if you work hard at it. Right, this is probably the only role that you can really make a big impact. Right, there's only a few roles in different industries that you can really change people's lives. Right? And a job is something that people spend more time than they spend at home. At right, and a job is something that people spend more time than they spend at home at right.
Speaker 3:Why do you think there's such not negligence or there's not just much investment in making sure that recruiters are professional, that there's training, that there's resources and that's something we're really trying to spearhead? But I don't get it. Like you know, you speak of how impactful it is both being on the recruitment side now but also being on the other side, yet there's next to zero investment from many businesses on how to be better, how to understand that impact.
Speaker 1:Look, I think again, I'm no expert at this, so I'm just, I'm talking through my experience and my just my observation. Right, to be fair, people don't like recruiters. Right?
Speaker 1:You talked about cars, people hate car salespeople right, like they are probably at the lowest of the low right. And even back when I was selling cars or working in the car industry, I always wanted to be the better person. Right, I wanted to sleep at night. Right, I wanted to be able to say I did a good job today. I looked after that person. Maybe I could have made more money out of them, but you know what? He's going to talk to his friends next weekend and show them their brand new car and say Dan, dan's the guy, right, and that is so much more impactful than somebody that just doesn't look forward, doesn't think about this business, this particular business let's say it's a lighting or whatever, it is a furniture business. If I do a really good job at one or two or three, they will be clients for life, right. Right, as long as you give them a reason to leave you. If you look after them and you really genuinely care about them, why would they go anywhere else? Right, and I see that in everything and anything that anybody sells. Right, if you have the approach of I'm going to look after you, I need to make money, right, every business needs to make money, but I'm going to look after you, I need to make money right, every business needs to make money, but I'm going to look after you and if you're happy with my service and you can see that I'm listening to you and I'm actually not trying to tell you what you should do, but I'm actually thinking okay, this is what you want, how do I go to market and make that happen? You're going to win more than you're going to lose and I think that's where that happen. You're going to win more than you're going to lose and I think that's where you know.
Speaker 1:Coming back to why I just maybe some people could be desperate. You know it could be the paycheck that they need to pay the mortgage and you know when people are stressed out and you know need to make income. You talked about commission only. Man, going commission only from having some. You know having some salaries that came in, you'd wake up in the morning. You get paid right, and going to commission only. That's a scary thing. Now, I've been broke before as a kid, right, like you know. Just growing up as a teenager, I know what broke looks like. That's a feeling I never wanted to have again and I did have that when I started. I was like not knowing where the next paycheck is coming from because there is no salary. That's terrifying, and you could do things when that happens. You could do things that are silly, but I don't want to do those things. I'd love to learn about that mentality.
Speaker 2:I'd love to learn about that mentality. Going to commission only, I guess. Firstly, what changed for you personally when going commission only? Because it's a new perspective on life. Most of the time A lot of people are scared to go commission only because, to be fair, many people live above their means and they can't go backwards. Maybe they would like to, but car, house, family life, obligations, life happens right, but going to commission only is not just. It's not as simple as okay, now I'm on come only and I've just got to watch what I spend, et cetera. It actually changes the psychology of how you think of a lot of things. So talk to us about that. What was that transition like for you? What was your mindset before going to come only? And then, when you actually were come only, what did that look like from a personal level? Like how you looked at things, how you shopped? Did you go? Did you start not shopping at Dolce Gabbana and start going to Kmart? What did it actually mean for you in real life?
Speaker 1:Everything changed. Everything changed. Right, you know, when you've got a salary coming in every fortnight or month, whatever it is, or if you're on commission and a salary a lot of salespeople are, you know you get a really good comp check and you go and buy that nice watch, or, you know, go on a nice holiday. But when you go to commission, only something does change in your mind and for anybody that's listening to that about to come on board or thinking about coming on board with XRecruiter, for example, it changes the way you look at things. On board with XRecruiter, for example, it changes the way you look at things. You have a very different appreciation for what that money means and what you should do with it and not just spend it.
Speaker 1:The value of the dollar, the value of the dollar, and you know the value of, I think, the things that are important. Right, I've got a friend a good friend of mine is a mentor of mine. He taught me that these things are not important, right? Nobody cares what new shoes you have, nobody cares what you have, right, it's just not important have, right, it's just not important. What is important?
Speaker 1:And that could be different to a lot of people. It could be family. It could be. You know, you want to go and experience the world. You want to go and travel, you want to have fun with your friends, you want to go to a new restaurant, whatever it is that's important to you, and for me, it was what is important. Yeah, I used to buy nice suits. People that know me always used to have new suits and different colors, and I was always that guy that had. You know, I wanted to. I cared about my appearance in terms of how I dressed because I was around people all the time. And then, going from that to you know, working in an office remotely it's not important anymore.
Speaker 1:Right, and it shifted completely for me and I'm actually really grateful that it did right. I look at life completely differently now. I spend a lot more time with my wife. I really enjoy our time together when before I was always. Where are we going today? What are we doing today? What are we buying? You know, it's just a different mindset going today, what are we doing today? What are we buying? It's just a different mindset. Right has much changed in her A hundred percent has. Yes, she, my wife Lindy. She talks about how our lives have changed because we have so much time together.
Speaker 1:I'm not as stressed as I used to be because running businesses people think it's easy. It's not. It's being responsible for people and making sure that people are happy. For somebody that really cares about their team, it's relentless right and waking up in the morning and doing something that is important to me, and I know that I'm trying to do the best that I can for my clients. I finish at the end of the day and I'm happy. Right, you have some bad days in recruitment, let's not lie. I try and enjoy life more than I did before because I was always thinking about work. I was always, you know, thinking about where's the next problem going to come up, what solution do we need to come up for that, always strategizing on what's next. I just know that if I keep doing what I do hustling away, calling, making some great connections it's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I mean that's super inspirational, like hearing that you've changed your life, you're happier at home, your relationship is better, you've gone from what traditionally is like a really good salary to come only generally. That puts a lot of tension on relationships, puts a lot of tension and pressure on people in general. It almost sounds like it's had the opposite effect, and perhaps maybe it's a variety of different things contributing all in one, maybe going from being a people manager to now no longer being responsible for people. I think that sounds like it's the biggest factor of your happiness, sure.
Speaker 1:Because, like You're thinking about myself and the candidates and the clients right, or vice versa, the client and the candidate right there's a lot less pressure points or personalities or layers of complexity, right, you know, and yeah, you're right. It is another thing, though. I was committed to backing myself, right, and I said to my wife Lindy I said, hey, are you okay with me making this decision right? Going comms only is crazy for a lot of people, right. And she said, if you want to do this, do it. I'll support you, and she has. You've met Lindy, great person, and you know that has been a really big part of why I've been able to do this. So, yeah, it's been, it's been a cool Shout out to Lindy, Shout out to Lindy.
Speaker 2:Behind every good man is a great woman they say 100%, 100%.
Speaker 3:So do you reckon that like to get what did you bill in your first month?
Speaker 1:$75,000, $80,000 or more, $75,000, $80,000,. Yeah, in the first month.
Speaker 3:And so did that reinstill a hell of a lot of confidence.
Speaker 1:It did. But one thing about me that I don't know if a lot of people know this, right, but I'm very tough on myself, right, if I build 70, I know that there's more left in the tank for me to do, right. And you talked about you know the mindset. The mindset is it's not enough, you haven't worked hard enough, right? And I think if some people go into their jobs or their lives and they say to themselves I need to do more, there's always 10% more that you can do. And that's what I do. I go in there, I'm like I did 70, I need to do more. Right, I'm not doing enough. And I don't need people to say that to me. I don't need, for example, if I was working in a business, my boss to say to me Dan, you're not working hard enough because I'm the hardest on myself. And that's where I think I try to build on that every month. I'm the biggest critic of myself in everything that I do.
Speaker 2:So yeah, 70k month in your first month of recruitment is huge. First quarter what was your first quarter? It's like three. It's like three three 60 for your first quarter in recruitment. That's more than most recruiters bill an entire year.
Speaker 3:So you will bill a million dollars in your first year, unless On track. On track to bill a million dollars in your first year.
Speaker 1:Hopefully. Yes, I'd love to. That is, to me, would be the. That's one of those goals that I set myself.
Speaker 3:Not many people listening can even wrap their head around that. They probably think I'm full of shit Because we're sitting across the table. It probably adds to that.
Speaker 1:It's like who's this bloke with the black jacket that looks like he hasn't ironed it right? It's just, honestly, it is. I'm very fortunate to have a great team.
Speaker 1:You know, I've had the opportunity to come on board and I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of this journey, because not everybody, as you said earlier, it's like man, this isn't this is not happening right, like he's going to fail, but if you believe in yourself and you really want to do the best that you can and you have a good network around you like I'm really lucky to have somebody like Amy that I can talk to every day, all day, and we support each other, there's no competition. It's really if I look after you, you look after me. That's it. It's a family, right, and I think if you're surrounded by people like that and your community is really like that in X Recruiter, all the people that I've met, they just want to look after you, right, and they want you to look after them right. It's what a family is all about, right.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where the million dollars you talk about, the million dollars I don't look at that. I'm thinking about what business can I help next to grow their team? How can I support them? How can I listen to their challenges that they have? And who do I have in the network that I can lean on and say, hey, I think I've got a new home for you, right. And you know, I tend to find people that are the really great salespeople and a lot of the roles that I recruited I had one person in mind and that person got the job right and I think that's where you know I've been really fortunate Right and I want to continue to be fortunate.
Speaker 2:I think I said this to Dec. Dec goes to me. I think we're talking about, you know, your first three or four months and I'm like man, you should see what this fucking Dan guy's done. Like he's crushing it at the moment and dad goes, really what's he doing? And I said the numbers and he and I'm like the strange thing is it's like one and done's every single time. It's just oh, here's one candidate, they get their job. Here's one candidate, they get the job. Statistically, in recruitment, you know there's a, there's a, there's an old type of stat, that it's. You know you book in five interviews and three of them will get a job. That's kind of like the stats, and so you're defying those stats, which is very impressive to see. So what do you focus on then? I know you said you want to bill a million dollars, but you're not like every day, you're not waking up going.
Speaker 2:I want to bill a million dollars. You're more thinking about your impact. What businesses can I help, who can I help change their career, et cetera. But from a personal standpoint, just thinking a little bit more selfishly here, what goals have you got in your recruitment career that you've thought of, that you really want to get to? What milestones are you thinking of putting aside the billing? Do you ever see yourself growing a team? Do you see yourself starting your own agency one day? Where's your mindset at the moment for the future?
Speaker 1:So I think and we've spoken about this a little bit in the past you've given me the opportunity to do this right and I'm grateful and that's where I'm very loyal when it comes to that. So I'm not starting my own recruitment agency, but what I would love to do and what we will be doing this year, and we've got some plans that we'll talk about in terms of growing the Sydney team right and really having some really good people around us here in Sydney. Really having some really good people around us here in Sydney that will allow me to, instead of making 80 calls a day and you know a lot of them are candidates, a lot of them are BD having the ability to have somebody that can support the team in doing that and scaling it right. So you know, expanding what we do, because I love, you know, talking to my clients, I love meeting with them, and you know, when you're making 80 calls or 60 or 50 calls a day, it's pretty difficult to get out there and do a lot of that too, right? So I think you know leaning on what I do best and what I enjoy and what I'm good at, that's the growth for us for next, at least for next year.
Speaker 1:So we've got plans to bring somebody on board and grow the team. You never know. We'll probably open up an office, and probably in Surrey Hills. I think that was the plan to do that. So I think there's a lot of exciting things that we'd like to do. It's really day one, right? I've only been doing this for a short period of time, but I can. I can genuinely see that there's a there's a growth that we're going to have. We're going to have people come on board. You know, you guys are in brissy, I'm in sydney, I want a crew here too.
Speaker 1:You know, get that office bars back right and and you know I I as much as I love working remotely, I miss people. I'm a people person. I've always liked to be around people and you know I've mentored a lot of and trained a lot of people over my career. I love doing that. I love making people successful. So I want to do more of that in this realm because it's such a unique realm. Right, it's not a standard sales job. It's really important.
Speaker 3:And would you follow the same realm as you have, like there would be an A&D specialist out there at the moment and say, hey, this is what I've done, come join the crew and make the complete career shift. Or would you go down the recruiter route?
Speaker 1:When I find the right person you know that right.
Speaker 1:You know that person. You would have a conversation with somebody, Mate. I've interviewed somebody at a Christmas lunch table, right, I want you to come and work with me, Can we make that happen? And three months later, that person came and worked with me and I love that person. We're still friends even today, so you'll find the person in the most you know unique places. So yeah, to answer the question, I don't know. Having recruitment understanding is important, but understanding business and people, I think is really important too, right. People buy from people, right? If they don't like you, they're not going to buy from you or they're not going to use your services. They're not going to important too right. People buy from people, right? If they don't like you, they're not going to buy from you or they're not going to use your services or they're not going to trust you, right? So I think that's probably what I'll be looking for. So if there's anybody out there that's listening, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we definitely need to do that. So for anyone listening that wants to get in touch with Dan, we highly recommend you do. Dan, would you be open for people to reach out to you and talk to you and learn more about your experience if they're interested to find out more?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So danryan, is it Dan? Or Daniel? Daniel Danielryan at venditoconsultingcomau or Daniel Ryan LinkedIn, linkedin. Linkedin. Send a connection. Send me a message.
Speaker 1:And I'd love to chat with you, anybody that's even thinking about joining X Recruiter. And they're like I've got a cushy job, I've got to pay. You know I don't need to really do too much and they want to hear it from me. You know personally as to my journey and I've had a few people reach out to me, have you? Yeah, I've had people reach out to me and say, dan, what was that like? Like, are you slightly crazy? And I'm happy to talk to anybody that wants to, even anybody that wants to make a change in their career. Right, and not just recruitment, but anybody that's out there going. You know what I really don't like, what I'm doing. I'm in a place that you know I'm just not feeling it right. I'm not enjoying it anymore, right, and we all know what that feels like. Right, pick up the phone, give me a call, because I can tell you, changing your happiness at work will absolutely change your life. And joining, you know, your family, it's changed my life. So thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me today, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming on, brother. Hey, this has been awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I reckon it'll be really cool for you to build your recruitment profile, like we were chatting out, because you've already achieved more than most ever do right in such a short time. So I think, like building your online you know, quote unquote personal brand, I think would add a lot of value and really help you elevate your profile and get people to know you way more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Love that Well. Thank you again for joining us on Confessions, mate. It was awesome learning more about it and hopefully more people reach out to you and want to spark your interest to get to know you more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you, cheers legend. Well done, thanks.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to another Confessions of a Recruiter podcast with Blake and Declan. We hope you enjoyed and got a lot of value and insights out of this episode. If you do have any questions or you would like to recommend someone to come on the Confessions podcast, we would love any introductions and remember the rule of the podcast, like share and recommend it to a friend. Until next time.