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FDE+ Virtual Event | Building Authentic Connections in Staffing and Recruiting with Ron Dermady · Recruiting Evolution

• Ron Dermady [00:00:00]: We don't sell staffing services, we don't sell people. We sell ourselves. If the person on the other end of the phone, if the person on the other end that's reading your post, if they like you, they will buy from you. They will work with you, but only if you're showing them your true self. So find your unique voice, find your unique brand, and start to build it. Kortney Harmon [00:00:27]: Hey, guys. Kortney Harmon, host of FDE. We're bringing you a special series of episodes called FDE. Those are going to be highlights from a recent virtual conference where hundreds of you joined us for an incredible event focused on boosting revenue for 2025. Each of these sessions is packed with valuable insights, expert discussions and actionable strategies to help you drive growth in your business. Whether you missed the live event or want to revis each session, we've got you covered. We're going to drop each of these 10 live events to wrap up our year and kick off the new year. Right. Kortney Harmon [00:01:09]: So let's dive into today's session and uncover the key takeaways that will propel your success in the coming year. Stay tuned and let's dive in. Super excited, Ron. Obviously you and I go way back. Thank you for joining us. I'm super excited to be able to bring the MRI network into our events. So with that, I have the honor of introducing Ron Dermody. He's obviously a very seasoned leader in the recruiting industry. Kortney Harmon [00:01:37]: Ron is the senior Director of learning at mri, one of the global recruiting service companies in the world. So with over two decades of experience, Ron has really been instrumental in elevating the capabilities of MRI and it's network in general. So he's actually going to be talking today about branding, marketing and media and a new way to build engagement with your candidates and clients through digital outreach. And this is something that you guys have been so excited and listened for over yesterday and today. So, Ron, thank you so much for joining us. I'm super excited to have you on the show and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to share your screen so you can talk and I'm going to get out of here now. I'll be back in case there's questions. Guys, if you have any questions throughout this session today, feel free to write them in the chat. Kortney Harmon [00:02:22]: Ron, I can man that for you. We will leave time at the end of this session to be able to talk through any questions you have. With that being said, thank you so much for being here. Ron Dermady [00:02:30]: Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes. Kortney and I go way back. I actually go way back with a lot of folks at crelate, so I'm excited to be here. I'm also honored to be sharing the stage with some of these powerhouse individuals that Crelate has brought in. Yesterday was an amazing day with some fantastic guest speakers and you've got some really, really good ones today and your panel later on today. I can't wait to hear that. Ron Dermady [00:02:55]: We've been a leader in the recruitment industry since 1965. Our original owner, Alan Schoenberg saw a growing need for that executive, managerial and professional recruitment services and he launched Management Recruiters International. Since then we've grown into one of the largest franchise based organizations. MRI alone has over 200 offices across the globe. We primarily play in that executive level, mid management and up space on both a direct hire and a contract staffing basis. We are actually owned by HireQuest. HireQuest is a nationwide franchiser of direct dispatch, executive search and commercial staffing Solutions. They have 225 offices across the United States and they employ over 75,000 people annually into various types of roles. Ron Dermady [00:03:49]: And as Kortney said, my name is Ron Dermody. I'm the Senior Director of Learning here at MRI Network. I've spent the last 24 years working in this wonderful industry and I'm thrilled to share some of the things that I've learned throughout my journey. Before I get started though, I do want to pause for a moment and thank crelate. They're one of our vendors, they're fantastic, we love working with them. But I want to thank them for inviting us to present today. We are truly honored to be here. So what I'm going to cover today is part of a bigger training program that we have here at MRI Network. Ron Dermady [00:04:25]: The program is called Evolution Branding, Marketing and Media and it's actually a six part training program. I'm going to pull some snippets out of it and share with you some of the highlights and hopefully give you a few nuggets that you can walk away with that'll help you in your journey of branding, marketing and media. Have you ever wondered or thought about what should I post on LinkedIn today? I hear all the time about content creation, what should I post, what should I work on? And that can often be a challenge. How about another question? Have you ever thought is there a better way to connect with a candidate or a client? Lori Miller's saying every single day. I grew up in the old school method of recruiting where I had the phone tied to my head all day long. That's all I did was make phone calls. And some of you still probably do that. We're here to show you that there may be a better way, There may be a more efficient way for us to do what we do every single day. Ron Dermady [00:05:29]: All right. Traditional sales. You know, we all know what traditional sales are. Historically, sales lead activities would include things like advertising, promotional marketing material, and then, of course, your sales pitch. Whether that sales pitch was done on the phone, in person, person via email, or InMail probably had some cold calling involved with that. Traditional sales lead or sales generation, they're all very standard methods. And my guess is most of us have utilized these methods at one point in our career, and maybe we still use them every single day. Let me ask you a question, though. Ron Dermady [00:06:09]: Have you ever had that person that connects with you via LinkedIn and immediately they're in sales mode. Immediately they're asking for 15 minutes on your calendar to tell you about the great product that they have. Do you ever engage with them? Probably not. We, as recruiters, we don't want to be those people. We don't want to instantly sell. Yeah. Sandra says yes, it's frustrating. We don't want to be the one that instantly sells when we connect with somebody on LinkedIn. Ron Dermady [00:06:41]: And unfortunately, there's so many of those folks that are instantly selling your direct messages on LinkedIn that when we, as a recruiter try to connect with somebody, sometimes they're skeptical of us because there's so many others out there that are really making it a difficult practice for us. When I first started in this business, I was taught an analogy. And truth be told, I've taught this analogy to other folks. And now I wonder why I ever taught this analogy. But much of our business is like dumping bags of seed on the ground and kind of hoping that something grows. Sometimes it lands in fertile soil, sometimes it lands in rocks, sometimes it grows, sometimes it doesn't. And we work really hard to find success. And oftentimes it's more about luck or driving crazy metrics to help us get to that success. Ron Dermady [00:07:36]: I'm sure that some of us have crazy metrics that we're accountable for each and every day. I'm here to tell you there's a better way to do it. Pure numbers, banging the phone. It can be done. It will get you to where you're trying to go, but it's not necessarily the best approach. So let's get away from traditional sales and let's get into a new area, a way that we can embrace technology, a way that we can be tactical, a way that we can be strategic and we can be efficient. I'm going to suggest that you stop asking for things and you start giving. Provide value without asking for anything in return. Ron Dermady [00:08:19]: Share your knowledge and the information that you have that will help those folks that work within your niche area and do it be on the phone, not just in place of the phone. So our methodology still incorporates the phone. But you'll notice that as we get through this presentation, the phone is a portion of what we do. And everything that we want to do is going to enhance our phone calls. When we provide knowledge, it helps us to gain trust. It helps us to build relationships. It also helps you to build your reputation as a knowledgeable subject matter expert within your field. I know that you exchange information on the phone every single day, but how many of us are consistently providing value on LinkedIn? And when I say value, I really do mean value. Ron Dermady [00:09:12]: How many of you your LinkedIn posts are simply congratulations or well done or that's really neat or that's cool. We have to start to act like a magnetic field. We want to draw people into us rather than asking them questions. Many recruiters will ask questions like, hey, when was the last time you used a recruiter? Or do you have any open positions today? That's not a magnetic field. We need to not ask things. We need to give information so that the folks are attracted to us. We need to be able to provide valuable insight that helps us to cultivate those relationships. This isn't activity for the sake of activity. Ron Dermady [00:09:57]: It goes back to that. I'm not going to just write congratulations. There's no value in that. Do I do that? Yes, every once in a while. But I'm not adding value to the conversation. Value comes when you can tie your content back to your professional stories. So sometimes we go to an extreme with this. We post about personal stories and I'll tell you personal stories. Ron Dermady [00:10:21]: They're going to get the hits, they're going to get the likes, they're going to get the comments. They will be some of your most successful posts from an engagement perspective. We as human beings, we love to hear that personal story, that success, that feel good item that you have posted. What are you providing value to your clients and your candidates? We have to remember what our goal is. Our goal is the reputation that we're trying to build online. So if you're going to post about family or kids to get all the likes to get the eyeballs on your post, that's great. But remember, it's not Helping you with your professional reputation, it's not helping you to become a subject matter expert. We also have to be cautious of another thing that we see on LinkedIn quite often in that we see a lot of recruiters posting open jobs. Ron Dermady [00:11:21]: When we post an open job, we're asking for something, we're asking for them to apply to it, we're asking them to share it with their friends, their family, their colleagues. Remember, we want to start giving. We can't simply be asking if we're going to survive in this digital world. So posting jobs can be part of your strategy, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad part of your strategy, but if it is the only strategy that you have on LinkedIn, you're going to struggle to have people look at you as a subject matter expert. They're going to look at you more in that traditional sales manner. So we want to. We want to watch out for that and be a little cautious of it. All right, this slide here is probably the most important and valuable slide that we're going to talk about today. Ron Dermady [00:12:15]: The image here, very simple, yet it's going to be very powerful. This is something we call the media flywheel. So on average, a recruiter has about 20 phone conversations a day, on average. Some of you may have a little more, some of you may have a little less, but you have about 20 phone conversations a day. And during each one of those calls, you're adding to your reputation through the information that you share with the client, the candidate on the other end, the advice, the insights that you're gathering, all of this firsthand knowledge that you have. It's been said many times that recruiters have a much better pulse or sense of a pulse on their industry than just about anyone else in the industry because they're talking and interacting with so many different people each and every day. Think about this. Think about the CEO of your favorite client, that client that you do business with, the CEO that you love, and they love you. Ron Dermady [00:13:13]: How many conversations with other CEOs does that person have in a given week or a given month? Now think about how many conversations with CEOs do you have in a given week or a given month? We have access to so much information now, we've got to use that information to build that magnetic field so that people become attracted towards us. We want to find ourselves in a position that instead of limiting that experience to 20 individual conversations per day, we're suggesting that you write down the main ideas of that information, that advice those opinions and redeploy them at scale, take what's happening on the phones and post it on LinkedIn. This is the idea behind the media flywheel. During your phone calls, you're going to jot down some notes and you're going to turn them into short blurbs that you'll post on LinkedIn. That content will help you to build engagement, brand recognition, and eventually it's actually going to help to enhance your phone calls. Now, you don't have to spend significant time proving yourself on the phone because after a while, people are going to start to notice what you've got out there on LinkedIn. And when you call them, or better yet, when they call you, you can start to move right into a valuable exchange of information. But it takes a little bit of time. Ron Dermady [00:14:43]: I need to use this media flywheel to my advantage. So I'm going to start with my phone call. I'm going to take some notes about that, I'm going to summarize it, put it into a short blurb and post it. Now, not every phone call. And maybe what I'm going to do is once a day I'm going to summarize a handful of my phone calls. Maybe some of them have a common theme that I can create a summary about. And I will push that to LinkedIn. As we do this, this flywheel will start to create a buzz for ourselves. Ron Dermady [00:15:16]: I want you to think of yourself like a vending machine, in that you are going to be earning money even while you sleep, or that all of these LinkedIn posts that you've taken based upon your conversations are earning your reputation, are building your brand or building your awareness, all while you're off prepping a candidate for an interview for another company. That's the beauty of this media flywheel. There are things that we're doing every single day right now with those conversations that we just need to redeploy and push back out to the masses so that that starts to build for us. And that's what we're going to look to have you work on. So what's my cadence? How often do I do this? What am I going to work on? How am I going to make this happen? So before we get into the actual cadence, I think you have to know what your goal is before you're posting. So your goal might be to get your feet wet to learn and make connections in the industry. That's okay. Your goal might be to increase your reputation as a talent advisor or a subject matter expert within your niche area. Ron Dermady [00:16:30]: That's great. And Your goal may also be to become a subject matter expert, or even better, a subject matter leader, and you might aim to become the voice for your industry. That's a lofty goal, but that may be one of your goals. Whatever your goal is, you need to post with a purpose in order to reach it. If the content that you post or the content that you've prepared doesn't help you achieve your goal, don't post it. Don't publish it. So write down your goals first. This is who I want to be. Ron Dermady [00:17:07]: This is what I want to accomplish. Then look to see before I hit post. Does that help me? Does it help me achieve my goal? If the content or post that you've prepared doesn't reflect the quality of service that you always provide, the candidates and clients rethink about publishing it. Remember, you're trying to create a brand. You're trying to create a name. Always post with a purpose. So we have three different theories that we're going to talk about here in terms of posting, and you're going to hear a lot of music analogies as we go through the next set of content. The first music analogy will be the hum. Ron Dermady [00:17:45]: Sing and shout, if you will. So hum. This is your consistent message that you're pushing maybe three to five times a week. The content can be original content or shared content. We'll get to the content here in just a little bit. But these posts are going to revolve around information that you're exchanging during your calls and the industry specific headlines that you're going to let your audience know about. This is truly who you are, what you do, how you service your industry, and how you are a subject matter expert or possibly a subject matter leader within your space. And we're going to hum about this three to five times a week. Ron Dermady [00:18:31]: You're going to talk about that niche area that you work in. You're going to talk about what you do three to five times a week. Singing your cadence for singing is probably three to four times a month. What you're basically going to do here is increase your cadence with a very specific message. You're going to build upon something that you've been humming about. So you've got those main topics that you hum about all the time. You're going to take one of those main topics. You're going to get a little louder about it. Ron Dermady [00:19:01]: You're going to sing about it for a few times a month. Let's say that you are regularly looking at those industry headlines and you're sharing your insights from your calls and you've identified a trend or maybe a common problem that's happening within your industry and you want to get ahead of it. You're going to up your cadence on your messaging about that particular challenge, about that particular problem and any unique guidance that you may have. Maybe you don't have that guidance and you're looking for it. You're still going to up and single to find out what other people have in terms of guidance about that. But it's taking that one topic and where you're going to put a little more fuel behind it. Maybe it's bringing attention to a new initiative. Let's say you work in the manufacturing space and you have decided that you're going to launch a contract staffing desk. Ron Dermady [00:19:52]: Fantastic thing to do by the way. You want to build awareness around that new offering, but you don't just want to sell it. So in addition to whatever you're humming about in the manufacturing space, you might want to consider writing or finding content that talks about why contract staffing is relevant, why it's a good thing for both candidates and clients, and you're going to add a little flavor to that, put a little more behind it than your normal hum. So what about this shout thing? Well, when we shout we are going to increase our frequency, our urgency. We're going to let the masses know about something. Your shout message is usually a series of messages built around an event. I cannot see Kortney's face right now, but I promise you that she is smiling because she has spent the last two weeks shouting about this two day event that Creelate has been putting on. She's been posting, she said other folks posting about it. Ron Dermady [00:20:51]: It's been fantastic. And it only came in this short period of time where she was able to shout about it. She talks about her Full Desk Experience podcast all the time. She sings about certain topics that come out of that Full Desk Experience podcast when she starts to see trends, but then she shouts when she has a major event like this particular two day event. Think about that as you're using this Hum Sing shout as your go to market strategy. Now I'm going to show you a visual that will hopefully help you a little bit with this. So this visual is here to kind of show you what Hum Sink shout looks like. So when I'm humming, I've got things that I educate about, that I inform about, that I inspire people about and they're all very consistent, very right down the middle of the lane for me that I can talk about all the time and I'm going to sing every once in a while. Ron Dermady [00:21:51]: And when I sing, I'm going to bring an added flare to something that I've been humming about. And then every once in a while, I want to shout. Don't shout all the time. If you're yelling all the time, it now becomes your hum. So make sure that you're cautious as to what you are singing about. Ron Dermody [00:22:15]: Recruiting is complex. Sometimes you just need a hand, someone beside you to give you that nudge to keep you on course. Introducing the new crelate copilot. Copilot is crelate's AI assistant. But it's more than just artificial intelligence. Copilot brings you recruiter intelligence. Need a quick reminder to reply to a candidate's email? Or maybe. Maybe you're stuck writing up that new job description. Chris Hesson-Ad [00:22:43]: Need a nudge to send a follow up to that client who hasn't gotten back to you? Copilot is there to help you craft it effortlessly. With over 30 skills at your fingertips, Crelate copilot doesn't just keep you organized. It keeps you ahead of the game. Because recruiting isn't just about filling roles. It's about building relationships. And crelate copilot is the partner you've been waiting for. Check us out and create the future of recruiting. Ron Dermady [00:23:19]: All right, crafting your voice. Do we have to have our own voice? Can I use someone else's voice? Can I use Kortney's voice? I think the question here is, is our own voice necessary in this industry? Is there a benefit to me using my own voice as opposed to here at MRI, me using 60 plus years of voices to help me get my message across? Let me explain what I'm thinking here with a series of pictures and I'd like for you to use the comments and write in the comments if you know who this person is. Do you know who this person is? We got a buddy Holly reference. You might be right. Anthony might be buddy Holly. Anybody else know who this is? How about this one? Johnny Cash I've got in there. How about this picture? Yeah, Willie, that picture that I shared with you and the. The turtleneck and the black and white picture, that's Willie Nelson. Ron Dermady [00:24:30]: We all know this picture of Willie. Daryl. That's not me. Thank you, though. So why Willie? Why do I have two pictures of Willie? One from, you know, when he's got that straight laced look and the other where he's got the bandana cooking. Well, for years, Willie Nelson worked as a dj. He wrote songs for other artists. He recorded Some of his own, but nobody knew who he was. Ron Dermady [00:25:00]: It wasn't the Willie Nelson that we all know today. He didn't actually receive mainstream success until he was in his 40s when he helped to kind of launch the outlaw movement in country music and he started doing things his own way. If he had stayed that short haired, turtleneck wearing Willie, most of us never ever would know who he is. We wouldn't have gotten there. Now, I'm not saying that you have to be an outlaw in order to find your own voice or to build your own brand. I'm not telling you to grow out your hair. And you know, if you don't like wearing a bandana, don't wear a bandana. You don't need to do that. Ron Dermady [00:25:38]: But I do firmly believe that once you find your own voice, others will find you. So I started this by asking, do you need your own voice or can I be someone else? Can I be my company voice? Can I do something like that? I think you do need your own voice. There's some guidelines that you need to work within. But you do need your own voice. If not your turtleneck Willie that nobody knows, instead of outlaw Willie that everybody knows, think about your favorite band, your favorite singer. Chances are that there is nobody in the world that sounds like that person. Our favorite artists, they're unique, but they're unique because they are themselves. People can sniff out. Ron Dermady [00:26:22]: Phony is a mile away. And if you're trying to be something that you're not, if you're trying to play a Persona, it's not sustainable, it's not feasible. There's only one acdc, there's only one Marvin Gaye, and there's only one Janis Joplin. There's a lot of copycats out there, but I promise you don't remember the copycats and they don't stick around long enough for you to let them sink in and let them stay with you as you build your brand on social media. Build a voice and a reputation that truly represents who you are whenever you write, whatever you share, anything that you create should truly be your own voice. Be who you are. And those that want to follow you will follow you. Don't worry about those that don't. Ron Dermady [00:27:16]: Do you think that Willie has people that don't follow him because of the brand that he's created? Sure, there's absolutely thousands and thousands of people that don't follow him. There's also thousands and thousands and probably millions that do. Simon Sinek said, be an expert at building your brand and Crafting your voice, your own voice, is very important. It is how you are going to stand out in that crowd. One thing that I love to say and I love to talk about when we teach our classes, especially when we teach our rookie classes, is that we don't sell staffing services, we don't sell people, we sell ourselves. If the person on the other end of the phone, if the person on the other end that's reading your post, if they like you, they will buy from you, they will work with you, but only if you're showing them your true self. So find your unique voice, find your unique brand and start to build it. I've got another music analogy for you that's going to help us to continue on with this branding, marketing and media journey. Ron Dermady [00:28:28]: So my next area following along the lines of music is dj, cover band and original artist. And when it comes to sharing and creating content, there are three approaches that you can take. The dj, we all know the dj, the DJ introduces the song, they might put their own little three second flare on it and then they play the music for the masses to hear. Well, you know what, we can be a DJ in this business when it comes to social media content. And somebody had asked earlier, are there other platforms? Here's my advice for what platform to be on. Be on the platform where your candidates and clients live. If it's LinkedIn, do all of this on LinkedIn. If it's Instagram, go there. Ron Dermady [00:29:10]: If it's X, if they're an IT person, go to Reddit, go to the place where they're living and breathing. Don't go to the places where you are living and breathing, but back to being a dj. So on the social media side of being a dj, you can find relevant information or content, you can write an introductory statement about it and then you share it with your audience. Takes all of two minutes. Here's my article, here's my advice. Take that article, add your own one to two sentences and push it. That's being a dj. Our next area that we could do is be a cover band. Ron Dermady [00:29:50]: We could take another artist's work and we can add our own flair to it and we can tell everybody what our thoughts are on it. Cover bands are great. We love cover bands. We all go to the local watering hole to listen to a cover band. Cover bands are fantastic. Does take us a little more effort than just being a dj. So if we're a cover band, I need to look at that headline of that article. I need to write more than one or two sentences on it. Ron Dermady [00:30:20]: I need to give my opinion, I need to give my thoughts as to what this could be. Or maybe I need to write about how I'm not sure what my take is on it and I'm looking for the masses to help me understand this. That's okay. But being a cover band, I'm going to take someone else's article and I'm going to give them credit for it and add my own flair, my own questions, my own statements, my own opinions on it. This is the area where most of us should live a vast majority of the time when we're posting. We should live in the COVID band arena. We don't have time to do a whole lot more and we're probably not a true subject matter leader. We're not the voice of our industry yet. Ron Dermady [00:31:11]: So being a cover band is a good way to go about it. Anthony, I love that. Know the music but use your own notes. That is great. The last area, an original artist. This one's pretty much self explanatory. They create their own music from scratch. They wake up, it's in their head, they push it out, they make millions of dollars. Ron Dermady [00:31:33]: If you are the voice of your industry, you can become an original artist with your content. Most of us are not there and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with not being there. But if you are that visionary person in your industry, then don't be a DJ with your content. Don't be a cover band with your content. Be the original artist. Now here's the other big downside to being an original artist. It takes a lot of time to be an original artist. Ron Dermady [00:32:04]: And as a recruiter, time is something that is often challenging in our industry for us to have enough of it. So you may not have the time to be an original artist. That's okay. I think that most of us should live somewhere between a DJ and a cover band and bounce back and forth between the two of them. If we're new in our career, be the dj. Let somebody else do all the work and press play. Add two sentences to it and you're done. If you've been at this a little while, you have your own thoughts, your own opinions, you've seen the ups and downs. Ron Dermady [00:32:35]: Be a cover band when you push your content. All right, so how do we source this content? Where do we find it from? Well, remember back a couple slides ago, we talked about the media flywheel and I told you it was the most important slide that we were going to look at. I want you to use those phone conversations as fuel for your social media content. Whether you're a dj, a cover band, an original artist, you can write breadcrumbs based upon the conversations and the shared articles, the insight that you're gathering, and you can reinforce your messages or create original content based upon those conversations. You should also be very well read within your industry. So Willie, going back to good old Willie Nelson, he quoted, he said, and I quote, you can't make a record if you ain't got nothing to say. You can't play music if you don't know nothing to play. Well, I need to be well read. Ron Dermady [00:33:31]: You should start with 10 articles. 10 articles a week. Read them, find out where they're posted within your industry, whether it's world news, business news, and industry journal. Don't care where those articles come from, but read it, digest it, reflect on it, and then connect as a dj, as a cover band, or as an original artist. Look for trends. Connect the dots from one article to another article. You may start to see a trend. You may end up being that person that is ahead of the curve in your industry. Ron Dermady [00:34:05]: Remember, as a recruiter, give yourself a whole lot more credit than you probably do. You know more about your industry than most everyone that works in your industry. Especially if you're having multiple 20 conversation plus days, that's going to help you. So now that we know how to find the content, create the content, let's talk about another strategy that's going to help you to stay in touch with people and engage with people in our industry. So we refer to this as the 10, 4, 2 strategy. It's a very simple strategy that you can utilize on LinkedIn to help you build your relationships and enhance your reputation and over time get you to that level of subject matter expert or even subject matter leader. So a couple steps to this and we'll try and break it down. The first thing I want you to do, I want you to pick 20 companies that are in your niche area, that are in your space. Ron Dermady [00:35:06]: If you are a generalist, just 20 companies. These should be 20 companies that you want to work with. Not 20 companies that you're already doing business with, not 20 companies that you've got a whole bunch of open job orders with. This is 20 companies, call them target companies. 20 companies that you'd like to work with. This shouldn't be chosen at random. There should be a very specific reason why you're picking each one of the companies that you're picking. Then after you find the 20 companies, I want you to find every hiring manager that you can on social media at the director level and above. Ron Dermady [00:35:43]: So anything from director level and up, I want you to find them. And if you're doing this on LinkedIn, you're going to find your company on LinkedIn and you're going to go and find every director level and above person at that company on LinkedIn. This should lead you to somewhere between 150 and maybe 250 people that you're looking at. Our next step is a simple one. I'm just going to connect with them on LinkedIn. Those 150 to 250 people. I just want to connect with them. One of the reasons that I want to connect with them is so that I can start to see their content that they're posting about. Ron Dermady [00:36:19]: We're going to use this to our advantage as we're working through this process. Here's what we're going to do with those 150 to 200 people every day. Every day I want you to go onto LinkedIn and I want you to like 10 different posts. Just give them a thumbs up. Simple, quick. I'm going to like 10 posts every day. I want you to comment on four posts that you see. But I want you to be very cautious of your comments in that they shouldn't be comments like, hey, great post, or congratulations, we need to add something to that, add some flavor. Ron Dermady [00:37:02]: Tell them what you liked about it. Ask a question about their post, tell them what you found insightful. Don't just say congratulations, add a little bit to that particular post. That is great, Anthony. This is how he landed his newest client. I love it. And then finally, every day I want you to share two different posts that someone else has written. Yes, Kelly. Ron Dermady [00:37:25]: And don't use automated generative AI. I agree. So we're going to share every day two different posts. When you share, you're going to go into your network of people, those 150 to 250 people that you've connected with, and you're going to see an article and you're going to share it with your network. And when you share it with your network, you're going to say something to the effect of I've been reading some posts and some items from at and I'm going to tag the person AT Kortney Harmon. And I wanted to share this information with my network because I have found it very interesting. Here were my takeaways from the latest article that Kortney posted. And I'm going to do this every day. Ron Dermady [00:38:09]: 10 likes, 4 comments, 2 shares. This isn't going to take you a ton of time. You already have those 150 to 250 people, like comment and share every single day. And you might be asking yourself right now, what do you think my last step in this process is? Anybody know what that last step is going to be? Go ahead and drop it into the chat if you know what my last step in this process is going to be. I've liked 10 things. I've commented, I've shared. Yeah, our last step, I'm going to pick up the phone and I'm going to call them. Ink on paper. Ron Dermady [00:38:43]: I'm going to call them. And when I call them, I call Kortney. I don't want to jump into sales mode. I want to talk to Kortney about her latest post. Think about it from Kortney's perspective. Kortney has taken the time to put content out in the world for people to see. And this random guy named Ron has liked some of her stuff, he's commented on some of her stuff, and he has shared some of her stuff beyond into his network. And now this guy Ron, has called Kortney. Ron Dermady [00:39:15]: The likelihood of Kortney answering or returning my phone call is very, very high. And as long as I talk with Kortney about the thing that she's most passionate about, the post that she's been putting out there in the world, I'm good. My goal was to build a relationship. I could do that the old school way and I could call her 8, 10, 12 times and leave voicemails until I was blue in the face, or I can do my 10, 4, 2 strategy and I can call and talk to Kortney about something that she's passionate about, and then I can slowly turn that conversation more towards my business line. It's a much more effective way to build a relationship. All right, folks, I want to turn this over to open Q and A for any questions that anyone has. Kortney, I'm not quite sure what you're. Your steps are here. Kortney Harmon [00:40:07]: Well, this is no different than what we ran. So if anybody has any questions, we have 12 or 13 minutes. So feel free to ask questions to Ron. Whether you're an MRI office, you're wanting to know what they do and what they teach. They work with offices all over the country and there's no better brain to pick. So feel free to put those chats, those questions in the chat. I think you answered the ones that were coming through as they happened. Ron Dermady [00:40:36]: Yeah, they were coming through fast and furious. And I was, where do I look? Where's my eyes go? Kortney Harmon [00:40:42]: No, I understand. And I was thrown off By Willie Nelson. I didn't know that was a picture of him. Whenever he was younger, I was racking my brain. Ron Dermady [00:40:49]: Anthony, you're welcome for being your proof of concept. It's great. And I can't believe I ran into Kelly here. Kortney, Kelly and I worked together. I'm not even gonna say how long ago. That is great. What platforms would you recommend for branding? I think once again, branding is about what you do with the content that helps you to become a subject matter expert. I also believe firmly that you brand yourself where your people live and breathe and talk and interact. Ron Dermady [00:41:22]: And, you know, if your people if, if you place in the, you know, marketing, the creative space, I would spend a lot of my time on Instagram. That's where people are. Maybe it's Facebook, maybe it's X, maybe it's Reddit. I don't know that that really matters. Your question may have been more geared towards the platforms that I use for building content or making it look pretty. Canva. If you haven't used Canva, jump on it. I love Canva. Ron Dermady [00:41:51]: It's very easy. There are some new AI tools out there. One of the amazing professional development managers on our team, Danielle Stango, found an AI tool that allows you to create a song. So she put in some content and said she wanted a country song and it came back with a country song. I thought it was really innovative. So AI can really help us out. Kortney Harmon [00:42:13]: I love it. And yeah, so whenever we talk about Reddit, there is actually. If you're thinking about your candidates, you'd be surprised how many of your candidates aren't on Reddit. But that's actually pretty interesting. Ryan, you mentioned that. Ron, you mentioned that. Ron, I really needed to hear this. Thank you for sharing this great information. Ron Dermady [00:42:30]: You're welcome. You're welcome. This is such a fun industry, folks. We have to get away from the minutiae of just pounding that phone every single day. Let's try and have some enjoyment while we're doing this. Kortney Harmon [00:42:42]: I love it. Can you expand on your thoughts on using ChatGPT to help craft your strategy and execution? Ron Dermady [00:42:49]: Yes, absolutely. So we have spent a lot of time here at MRI creating prompts for whether it's ChatGPT or whatever your favorite AI is. What I will say is start a string with your favorite AI and tell them who you are and what you do. I'm an agency style recruiter that works in the XYZ space. I have X number of years of experience. My specialty is on the recruiting or the business development side or whatever. It might be and then I want you to tell AI or I want you to ask AI a question that will help them to learn how to help you. I Please ask me 20 questions or 10 questions that will help you to understand who I am and how you could best assist me to help with branding, to help with recruitment, to help with business development, whatever it is. Ron Dermady [00:43:47]: And AI is going to come back and it's going to spit back to you these 10, 20 questions. Answer them, then ask AI to use that information to help you create content, to help you create scripts, to help you to find your own voice in the world. There are so many things that we can do with AI that I want you to think about AI as that 25 year veteran that's sitting next to you that you get the chance to pick their brain. It's all about asking AI or telling AI who you are first so that it can then give you back the information that you're looking for. Kortney Harmon [00:44:25]: All right, there was another one. Would you use sales navigator on LinkedIn to help connect with Director level or above to build relationships? Ron Dermady [00:44:32]: Yes, absolutely. My answer is yes to that. I always teach from a I don't want you spending money, so I don't typically teach to spend money on things like Sales Nav Navigator. However, if you have it, 100 makes this process a little bit easier. You can drop all of those 150 to 250 people into one of your project plans on Sales Navigator and just follow them that way. So if you've got it, use it. Kortney Harmon [00:44:58]: Lori said, I see a lot of posts that sounds like they were written by AI. You talked a bit about using your voice versus AI. Can you elaborate? Ron Dermady [00:45:06]: I'm probably guilty of there's probably more than One post on LinkedIn that was created by AI. By me. I'll admit it. There are time constraints and there are times where I just need things to be done quickly and that's what I use AI for. However, if you're newer in your career, if you're newer in your niche area, I don't have any problem with you using AI to gather information, to give you ideas. But you need to rewrite it and create that own voice that's you remember that people want to buy from an authentic person. They will create trust and see value in you. You can read right through if something is written in AI. Ron Dermady [00:45:50]: So even if you use AI to help you pull it off of AI, rewrite it into your own voice and then post it, I love it. Kortney Harmon [00:45:59]: I think we're all guilty of that honestly, I use AI as my proofreader because I like to move too fast and I'm like, hey, check me. Because otherwise if my husband's not home, it has to be AI that's checking me. And I think Chad gets a little tired of saying, hey, come read this. I love it. I love it. Haresh put something in for creating music based options. Ron Dermady [00:46:22]: That's the one I was talking about. Suno, that's fantastic. Therese, that's exactly the one that I was talking about. It's great. We had so much fun with that in our team meeting the other day. Kortney Harmon [00:46:32]: I've not heard of it, so it sounds like I get a new tool to play with after I'm all done. Ron Dermady [00:46:36]: Go make yourself a holiday themed because we all know Kortney loves the holidays. Kortney Harmon [00:46:41]: I mean. What do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about. I had to throw it up so quickly yesterday. I won't zoom out because only half of my trees decorated. If you know me, I have a problem with trees and decorations. I have five full size trees. This is the last one. So I'm not going to zoom out because it's only half decorated. Kortney Harmon [00:46:58]: My kids came downstairs and said, why does it look like that? Oh, it was great. It was great. Any other questions? These were all great questions and really gives you the boots on the ground the way to do the things on the spot because let's face it, you guys are busy. There are so many things that you have to be doing. But honestly, this is one of the things that you have to be doing as well to have a presence. Ron, you want to talk about mri? Give it a plug. We got. We still got five minutes and I'm still waiting on Greg to join. Kortney Harmon [00:47:28]: So do you want to talk about MRI and what you do if anyone's interested? Ron Dermady [00:47:30]: So you want me to fill some time, huh? Kortney Harmon [00:47:33]: I know you can talk. I mean, I've worked with you for a few. Ron Dermady [00:47:37]: Yeah. Once again, I definitely would like to thank Crelate for inviting us to be part of this, this two day event. It's been fantastic crew. It's been a wonderful vendor of ours. MRI Network. If you're interested, you want to know more, you can always reach out to myself, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll put my LinkedIn again in the comments. That probably hidden more towards the top at this point. Ron Dermady [00:47:59]: We do direct hire, contract staffing, RPO work, retained, engaged. We work in almost every niche area that you can think of and we probably work in some niche areas that you've never thought of before. We are a unique franchise based organization, been around for 60 plus years. We've got a robust corporate team that can help you with every aspect of your business, whether it's training, the marketing aspect of things, if you have legal, financial, contract, staffing questions. We have folks that handle all of that sort of stuff for you. So we'd love to hear from you and if we can ever help, if we can ever talk to you, we'd be more than willing to do so. Kortney Harmon [00:48:44]: Amazing. Thanks, Ron. Yeah, definitely throw your information in there again. So it's top of mind. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. Wonderful to see your face again. I haven't seen it in a while, so thank you. Ron Dermady [00:48:57]: Kortney, thanks for having us before to this. Kortney Harmon [00:48:59]: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, have a wonderful day and we'll talk to you soon. We hope you found today's session insightful and inspiring. Remember to stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we'll be sharing all of this amazing content of our virtual conference. If you miss any part of it, don't forget to subscribe to our show so you don't miss anything upcoming. And if you like this valuable content, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your network and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Kortney Harmon [00:49:31]: Together we're building a community of growth and learning. Until next time.