Latest / Recruiting Evolution / Industry Spotlight | Breaking Recruitment Stereotypes: Embrace Digital Marketing with Clark Willcox, Founder - Digital Recruiter

Transcript

Industry Spotlight | Breaking Recruitment Stereotypes: Embrace Digital Marketing with Clark Willcox, Founder - Digital Recruiter · Recruiting Evolution

• Clark Wilcox [00:00:00]: Throw away your conception or stereotypes about digital bd. Oh, it's for kids, or it's this or it's dumb, or it's toxic. Look, all those things can be true in the right context, but LinkedIn is the number one B2B platform for business people. Make a ton of money from it, get your piece of the pie. And if you're not, it's not because it doesn't work. It's because you're not making it work. You don't know exactly the right way to do it or how to uncover it. You can always convince yourself it won't work. Clark Wilcox [00:00:24]: But I'm also looking for reasons why it might work. And so if you systemize that, you're giving yourself a chance for it to work, it can work. Kortney Harmon [00:00:31]: Hi, I'm Kortney Harmon, director of industry relations at Crelate. This is the Industry Spotlight, a series of the Full desk experience, a Crelate original podcast. In this series, we will talk with top leaders and influencers who are shaping the talent industry, shining a light on popular trends, the latest news, the and the stories that laid the groundwork for their success. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience. Industry Spotlight. Welcome back to another episode of the Full Desk Experience. And I like to think it's the podcast that brings you the best of the best in recruiting. I'm your host, Kortney Harmon, and today we're diving into a conversation about your recruiting business through modern sales marketing strategies. Kortney Harmon [00:01:19]: And I'm so excited to have Clark Wilcox, the founder of the Digital Recruiter, with us. And Clark has helped hundreds of recruiters generate millions of billings by optimizing their LinkedIn presence, creating sustainable marketing engines. So whether you're tired of the transactional grind or you're looking for scale in your agency, or you want to build more meaningful relationships, this episode is going to be for you. For practical strategies, he's going to give us the tea. Clark, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you on here. Clark Wilcox [00:01:50]: Well, thanks, Kortney. I appreciate the introduction and I might hire you for sales because you explain what we do better than I do. So I appreciate the introduction and thanks for having me. Kortney Harmon [00:01:59]: Absolutely. It's only fair you had me on yours. I have you on mine. Both Ohio Ohioans at this rate. So I love it. I obviously know about your background based on our conversations. So for our listeners that may not know you, tell me about you. I know that you've ran a desk in the past. Kortney Harmon [00:02:16]: Tell us about your journey, how you got into this industry, and then a little Bit more about what your organization does now. Clark Wilcox [00:02:23]: Growing up, I spent the majority of my childhood north of Boston and grew up a die hard Boston sports fan. Patriots, right? Brady and Belichick were my high school days and the beginning of all that. Red Sox games. Red Sox, Yankees. Breaking the curse. Like I was obsessed. I was a fanatic. I would go to all the games with, with my grandmother. Clark Wilcox [00:02:43]: That was like my birthday present was like tickets were a lot cheaper at that time. I didn't want stuff. I just wanted to go to the ball game with her and like that's what I look forward to. And maybe getting like the Madden 2004 or something like that, right? But getting the video game to go with it. But my dream was to become the next Bill Belichick. Like I was going to work in football and sports and do all that. I was upset. Anyone that knew me or knew about me was like, he's going to work in sports the rest of his life. Clark Wilcox [00:03:07]: That's what he's meant to do. I just knew guys know sports. Like the guys would come to me for the sports questions. Like that's how into it I was and obsessed with it. And so I went to college for sport management. Went to UMass Amherst and I bought a grilled cheese maker and guitar Hero freshman year and immediately tanked my gpa. And it was a struggle to get back up. So I was never going to get the best marketing or sales internships because it's pretty competitive in sports. Clark Wilcox [00:03:34]: So I had to figure out like another route to get into sports. So my dad was like, what about junior year? I was panicking. He's like, what about the video department? Yeah, what do they do? I just walked into the video department at UMass. I guess you need help and they're like, yeah, sure, come tomorrow. They gave me a camera and I started filming practices and helping that way. And that's how I started get. That's how I got into sports. And so I turned that into an applicant and I applied. Clark Wilcox [00:03:55]: After my senior year, I started at the United Football League. And this is going to explain why I got into recruiting, I promise. Because I got hired by Dean Blandino. He does like the Fox official. Like he's like the Fox official guy or whatever at Fox Sports. $750 a month, pay out of college food. How's all that paid for? But I got in there, right? I worked and one of the offensive assistants for one of the teams down in Florida, I drove my car down to Florida, I worked for them. One of the Assistants. Clark Wilcox [00:04:23]: Kind of cool story was Sean McVeigh, who's the coach of the Rams now, but he was like just out of college assistant at that time. So it was like cool. I got to kind of see the professional environment. I was working 18 hour days, seven days a week. It was a lot of hours and not a lot of pay. Right. We're starting to get to the explanation here. I leveraged that and I found I was kind of doing my sleuthing. Clark Wilcox [00:04:44]: How do I get up this job? Because it's a four month contract. And I applied. I just emailed 80 video coordinators in the NFL and college. I found this domain. I bought it for like 60 bucks. I got their emails. I was doing the original sort thing, getting contact information. Back in the day, about 10 of them got back to me. Clark Wilcox [00:05:00]: 10 of them just offered me a free job, right? No, unpaid. Okay. No thanks. I don't want to go to Nebraska or Washington State and work for free. But University of Florida at the time with Tim Tebow, Urban Meyer and their coordinator called me, was like, hey, I don't have anything now but call me after the bowl game in January. We're going to have an opening. But so I was first in line, right? Proactive, right. Recruitment, just getting ahead of the game. Clark Wilcox [00:05:21]: I called him back in January, right. I was like, wasn't sure what I was going to do. Had this internship, which was cool. But I was like, what's next? And I just got in front of the line and I think probably about 100 people applied. I was technically under qualified. It's at two years of experience. I, I had maybe six months. I rounded up in a couple areas, I'm not going to lie. Clark Wilcox [00:05:38]: But I kind of went for it and I got the job somehow. I almost didn't apply because again, I didn't have a good gpa. It's a school, all this, I won't get it. And I just went for it. And I went through it. He hired me, I drove back down to Florida. I worked there for a year and a half. It was experience that changed my life. Clark Wilcox [00:05:55]: I met the people that my friends there or the reasons I ended up moving to la, which is where I got into recruiting. But it opened my eyes of like, I was legitimate, I was established, I got in the door. I had pathways and potential offers to be the video coordinator at different big schools that like if I kept going like within a year or two, but there was no money in it. And so when I saw the journey and I saw the people 10 years ahead of me, 20 years ahead of me. I saw their lives. I was like, I don't want that forever. So one of my coworkers had came from la, UCLA went back to LA and got me an internship out there in commercial production being a director's assistant. I was God awful at it. Clark Wilcox [00:06:30]: I was terrible at video, but I didn't want to be in sports. So I was like what am I going to do the rest of my life? So I got into sales. I got a commission only telecom sales job. And I give that story more than the recruiting one because I actually think it's more interesting. People say I fell into recruiting. I couldn't be more spot on with me. But there's the traits that kind of were there that once I got into the door at Aerotech it was a year telecom sales, Verizon would mess up an install and take my commission back. No more. Clark Wilcox [00:06:56]: That was not happening anymore. So I got my resume on indeed called Airtech. Had no idea what they did. I still wasn't really sure what they did until I started working there. But it was a base salary in la. Uncapped commission signed me up. Their training was incredible. I did skilled trades like industrial recruiting for 8 months. Clark Wilcox [00:07:12]: Got my spread to 10k a week in 5 months. Just it made sense. And I felt like everything from relationship with my grandmother, from telecom sales to being in sports to how I got the jobs in sports and kind of like maybe not quite being qualified by just kind of being able to interact and communicate my way in and then the work ethic and just like being out of school and just like working was one of the best things for me because I realized I kind of like working and producing value. And then recruiting was just like the fit right away I knew. So that's the background there. I did that for about five years. I got burnt out. Big staffing, light industrial. Clark Wilcox [00:07:45]: I sold. I learned all the lessons. I was terrible tales for the first couple years. Then I got on the up and up. I hit my all time high and that day I realized I want to quit, that I didn't want to do this forever. So I quit. 2018, that's kind of like the Aerotech journey. I kind of keep going but I'll stop to take a breath. Clark Wilcox [00:08:00]: Yeah, that's kind of like the beginning and then the intro of like the through Aerotech days which ended around 2018. Kortney Harmon [00:08:06]: We've all been there and do I want to go back to the days running a desk? Clark Wilcox [00:08:10]: No. Kortney Harmon [00:08:11]: They were amazing and obviously made to us who we are, but it's like you can give your journey so much differently now to help those people be successful. So you went from Aerotech 2018. You said, all right, this is it. Did you go straight into digital recruiter or what was that journey from there to here? Clark Wilcox [00:08:27]: Yeah, I left and I had some good money, good savings going on to kind of like, figure out what I want to do. And that's one of the lessons I tell people when starting a business. Have a Runway. Even if you have a Runway, you might fail. Which is exactly what happened to me. I joined a bunch of masterminds. I learned a ton. I invested in masterminds. Clark Wilcox [00:08:44]: I learned about digital marketing. I learned about online because I just. I was so burnt out from recruiting, but I was working with some of my friends, working with some entrepreneurs, typically around hiring, consulting there. But I was kind of trying to pull away from it, but I kept getting pulled back in. It's kind of like the Mafia, right? I kind of get pulled back into recruiting and people, because it's what I knew I didn't realize at the time. I realized it more and more how good the foundation of the training was at Aerotech. And what my manager poured into me. That whole office poured into me every day doing that, setting the meetings, talking to candidates, growing spread, losing accounts because they moved or they would fall off or we couldn't find the people, just learning all that, finding the skill sets, getting 85% markups on mechanics or 30% direct hire fees on mechanics. Clark Wilcox [00:09:28]: That whole journey, I didn't realize how much better I got. I became an expert. I had in those five years. Just didn't dawn on me for a few years. To be perfectly frank, I actually kind of had more imposter syndrome because of the big staffing firm and their incentives that they were offering their carrots. I didn't care about. Like, I don't care about going to Cancun and getting at a don't get fired vacation with 2,000 coworkers. Like, it doesn't appeal to me. Clark Wilcox [00:09:52]: And then they changed, like, the commission, all that. So it wasn't Cat. I was like, none of this again. The people 10 years ahead of me, I was like, I don't want their lives. And that's always kind of what's motivated me in the environment. I'm like, are these people living lives that I want me to live in 10, 20 years? And so that was part of the reason I left. And 20, 18, 19 was a vision journey of kind of searching that and kind of finding I think trying to find some personal healing at like 30, 31. My parents passed away when I was very young. Clark Wilcox [00:10:18]: And so I think there was some. It gave me the time to just process all that. And in doing that, I kind of went too much to the like, oh, it's all about me. I got to take care of me first. Because I was. And that was a bad pendulum. And I made some dumb investments and I got. My ego got in the way. Clark Wilcox [00:10:34]: And if you don't have a schedule in la, it is trouble. And that's kind of what happened. I just made dumb decisions trying to be a billionaire in a year, but I had like literally nothing. I was just trying to shortcut my way to success, which is a foundation of the why the digital recruiter exists. Because I learned the hard way, like, you just got to show up every day, like the little things. So because fast forward a year later, I did digital marketing, a little content writing. I was kind of trying to be a coach. It was working. Clark Wilcox [00:10:59]: I was posting on Facebook, I was getting leads. I was like, this works. But I don't really know what my offer is or how I can really help people on my own. So I kind of shut that down, did all that. But then a year later, trust the wrong people, all that, all my money's gone. So I'm looking at it in la. I was like, I didn't really afford rent or anything like that here. One of my friends I met through a mastermind lives in Columbus. Clark Wilcox [00:11:20]: He visited la. He's like, come out to Columbus. I visited and I loved it right away. It reminded me of my hometown. Turns out the settlers of the town in Columbus where I ended up moving to Werner came from my hometown that I grew up in. So it was like a cool connection there. And I was just like, I'm moving here. Everything was a quarter of the cost that it was in la. Clark Wilcox [00:11:38]: And I was able to rebuild and do some. I did some remodeling work. $12 an hour, I did. Then it's a driving around job filming roads for Pavement Management Company at 15 an hour. And then I kind of got my break again in business development helping a LinkedIn lead generation agency. In January 2020, my friend introduced me and he needed an account manager to manage 15 accounts. They were running their linkedins for them and booking calls and meetings and all that. And I was like, this sounds pretty cool. Clark Wilcox [00:12:03]: I can do this remote from my laptop and get paid. Basically the same base I was making at Aerotech. He's like, yeah, I was like, sign me up. And that opened my eyes to everything. With LinkedIn, I had a hundred connections, maybe at the time on there. I never used it at Aerotech. And I was just seeing these people's accounts, like coaches, SaaS, people founders, like real estate lawyers and people in healthcare. Like we were killing it for them back in 20. Clark Wilcox [00:12:27]: Now there's way too much spam. You can't just automate. And we'll get into that. But it was such an eye opener of what's possible digitally. So I did that for a couple years. I was in charge of a LinkedIn influencer's account. So I saw the impact of inbound leads from content. So I was learning automation. Clark Wilcox [00:12:41]: I was learning. I saw content applied in real time with inbound leads and that messaging filling up. But I also had my Aerotech knowledge. It was kind of just like the. How did these all mix together? I know they mix and that's the origin of digital recruiter. It kind of just sat with me. And so a few months in, we fixed my. I told the owner, I can, I think we can help more recruiting agencies, like, do this. Clark Wilcox [00:13:02]: Like, I know what they need. I know they need clients and candidates. Like, I understand, like, SAS just needs clients. But this interesting nuance with recruiters, we. He fixed up my profile, he got my outreach going and I was booking calls right away. People were like, wow, you worked at Aerotech, that's cool. Like, let's chat and all that. And I didn't realize my airtech background carried that much weight. Clark Wilcox [00:13:19]: So it was kind of like someone showed me put fix my profile and it's like people were responding so positively to it. It like opened my eyes to what the power of LinkedIn and that I was booking all these meetings and I was trying to figure out how to sell online and sell our stuff. Like, I figured that out. We started bringing on more clients, but it was just like, whoa. I took all this hard work I'd done offline, all the cold calls, emails, walking into plants unannounced. Like all that good stuff, right hand delivering MPC candidates. Like all that stuff I did at Aerotech, now I could leverage that digitally. And that started working. Clark Wilcox [00:13:50]: We started bringing on clients, but then I saw like more people were doing automation and it was harder and harder to just rely on that alone. So I was like, content's the key. It's automation and content and owner who is still a good friend. Today they're on the recruiting background. So you didn't kind of see all the pieces the way I saw them. So I was like, hey, I'm just going to start this business. I'm going to give you commission on like the first 10 clients I signed. That's like a good faith of like, I'm not trying to steal your business or anything like that. Clark Wilcox [00:14:16]: And that's what I did. I helped him out. I finished up with some of the engagements there. I built the digital recruiter. My first week was October 2021, the day three days before our first group call. I got Covid and I was down and out for the week. So I think if I still have the recording, I look like a ghost trying to run a group call that first week, which was pretty funny. So that was an interesting start, but that's what it was. Clark Wilcox [00:14:36]: And the vision was helping recruiters systemize and modernize their top of funnel. And with LinkedIn can use LinkedIn outreach and content. It's like we do that. It frees up time for you to be closer to the money, get better clients, better candidates. Right. All that stuff that we want as. Kortney Harmon [00:14:50]: Recruiters, it really goes to the. The idea of all of our journeys. There's never a straight line. We always write our journeys in cursive. I joke with my kids. I'm like, it will be cursive. And I'm like, you may not know how to read it since you're. Since you're a baby. Clark Wilcox [00:15:06]: Especially because I'd forgotten half the letters in cursive. So you really can't read my cursive. Kortney Harmon [00:15:12]: But I'm. It's been amazing. So you now are helping other recruiting firms make their journey digital and helping them with inbound leads. Correct. Clark Wilcox [00:15:21]: It's really systemizing the top of funnel. And what that means is because how many times the recruiters. What do you hear? It's I got to make all these cold calls. Right. I got to do my people got to do 200 cold calls a day. We got to do emails. And then, well, most people don't even realize most of the emails aren't getting through to the other side. Right. Clark Wilcox [00:15:38]: And all that. That's a whole side job. And really shouldn't have your producers managing their own email domains. You should be outsourcing that. I really believe that it's not worth the time or headache in this day and age. But it's really systemizing. And what I have found is if you systemize top of funnel, the most effective channel for the majority of recruiters is going to be LinkedIn. It's going to be the most effective, the leanest the cheapest, the most roi, the most bang for your buck. Clark Wilcox [00:16:02]: And you can kind of just do all the things you need to do as a recruiter, top of funnel. You can accomplish so many of them on LinkedIn with the right approach and the right strategy. So look, if email worked better, if cold calling worked better first, I would do that. It's more competitive. You're competing internationally now, not locally or nationally, but internationally. Anyone can sign up for email automation, anyone can do cold call or auto dialer. So you have to understand the market's response to that and see how they're reacting. How are people. Clark Wilcox [00:16:30]: The people are following social media and the trust and they're trusting creators more and not just the videos and not just about creating info and posting, but they trust and they want people that are authentic and that they're resonating with. And that's just where this era has gone. It's changed significantly since I got into recruitment, but that's people trust people on the Internet. Now I can build that on there because I built that with my clients at Aerotech. I got rated world class MPS score in light industrial, which means that it's over like 70%. It's world class, the average in the industry in most years. This is the negative percent for light industrial. I knew there was something there. Clark Wilcox [00:17:04]: But how do I tell people that at scale? Well, I can't do that with cold email. There's just one by one. There's no. Unless I build a newsletter, I can't do that in cold call. Hey, I'm the best, but I can share Stories on my LinkedIn feed of my background, my experience, the wins, the ups, the downs, training recruiters, best practices, interview processes, why job ads are useless. Right? Like all the mistakes that companies are making or recruiters are making. I have my own platform on LinkedIn and my audience is there. I would say fish where the fish are. Clark Wilcox [00:17:30]: Don't fish in the desert, go to the lake, go to the ocean. LinkedIn is the ocean. Then you just got to find which ocean and which type of fish and all that, Right? That's the whole find your niche or your competitive advantage. But there's the tools there, there's all that, that's the strategy piece, but that's where it is. And there's so many agencies I've seen that make millions doing nothing on LinkedIn and they have no idea that their market is there. Oh, it doesn't work for me. No, no, no, it doesn't work. No, it doesn't work for you. Clark Wilcox [00:17:56]: You Just don't know what to do. That's right. You don't know the landscape and you've been in the trenches the way I have and a lot of other people have just like figure this out. And I've seen hundreds of different accounts and campaigns and content. Just like see what works, but mostly see what candidates and clients respond to. Right. And that evolution is like the systemizing the top of funnel. Like we focus on that, we fix your profile, we fix your content. Clark Wilcox [00:18:18]: Create content that sells. Not posting for the sake of posting because you feel like you have to. People ask how many times I should post. I hate that number. Focus on quality. If you only got two quality posts a week, you're posting twice a week. If you can do five things that are good, do five things a week. Do to what you're capable of. Clark Wilcox [00:18:34]: That's going to drive quality. Well, how do I know what works? Well, work with a coach like myself or someone that knows what's going on because there is a skill and it can completely transform your business. And, and to me you have to tackle the landscape. There's some old school people that don't ever have to tackle it right, but they already built their book. For the majority of recruiters and the owners I talked to, they want to get the producers up and running or people are newer, they want to get up and running. There's no better way to get momentum. It's just top of funnel than LinkedIn and you can free up time, you can put this stuff on autopilot to get more leads, more revenue. When you have a predictable system that's generating conversations with the people you want to talk to every day, it's a game changer. Clark Wilcox [00:19:10]: You can finally have more time to do the things that typically slip through. Kortney Harmon [00:19:12]: Your fingers and move your business forward and not just doing them for doing them sake. Because AI is going to take a bunch of those. Clark Wilcox [00:19:18]: Are you busy or productive? Right? Kortney Harmon [00:19:20]: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You made a comment and I don't. We've talked a few times and I wrote this down. You mentioned not making a cold call since 2017. So talk to me. What was the turning point that made you realize that there's a better way to generate business in recruiting? What was a turning point? Clark Wilcox [00:19:36]: Yeah, the first week of the LinkedIn agency I worked for, I was like, oh, okay. It's just sometimes I'm slow. So it just took a while to formulate the whole thing. But I was like that was the turning point. I was. And immediately I felt this, like this was a Couple months before COVID and then I was remote. And I felt blessed when Covid happened. Like, wow, I couldn't have been in a better spot with this happened. Clark Wilcox [00:19:56]: I moved out to 19 acres in Ohio versus my little apartment in Santa Monica. It was like I got to just like think through that year, right? And a lot of other things happened that year. It wasn't just that, but it was this is it. And it's just like, this is the way. And I was like, and I just did my research and the more recruiters I talked to and it still happens to me every week and every day here right now. It's just like, oh my God, people don't know this. Like most people don't get the training, the Aerotech, like most people, like majority, like 90% of people don't get that training and most people don't have to. Didn't get to spend two years just running different people's accounts and seeing dozens of LinkedIn accounts the way I have now a hundred accounts and just getting that perspective. Clark Wilcox [00:20:40]: It's just like right away I saw it, but it was like, how do you communicate? That I think was the bigger challenge of like, this is the opportunity because people, what I've realized people can make a lot of money in recruiting without actually knowing what they're doing or kind of being. Having a one trick pony. Nothing wrong with that. I think sometimes if you want to grow, you just have to admit what you are. Just like that was the big thing. I had to admit what I was in 2019. I was like, I'm not good enough. I don't work hard enough. Clark Wilcox [00:21:04]: I don't demonstrate the value in the way that I need to. And so I had to fix that. And I think answering those questions, the tech is there, the tools are there. You don't need really above even 500 bucks a month in a tech stack to have the success I'm talking about or that we can get into. It's just like admitting I got to do it to do it. And you have to just kind of have to. You have to self scout, right? Bill Belichick, one of my favorite things with him is like he was always the first thing they did was self scout, self scout. It wasn't about worrying about everyone else. Clark Wilcox [00:21:31]: It's like, what do we have where we are, strengths and weaknesses. And if you do that, man, the digital age is just like waiting for you to take advantage of it. Chris Hesson-Ad [00:21:42]: 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 you're stuck writing up that new job description. 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. Chris Hesson-Ad [00:22:18]: 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 Crelate the future of recruiting. Kortney Harmon [00:22:46]: You talked about LinkedIn and obviously helping generate millions through billions on LinkedIn. What do you think the most common misconception about LinkedIn that holds recruiting agencies back from being successful? Clark Wilcox [00:22:59]: There's a few. I'm trying to think what the best one is. Oh, I don't post on social media. It's like, I don't care. This is business. We're trying to grow a business. We're trying to grow an agency. Throw away your conception or stereotypes about digital bdo. Clark Wilcox [00:23:10]: It's for kids or it's this or it's dumb or it's toxic. Look, all those things can be true in the right context, but LinkedIn's the number one B2B platform for business people make a ton of money from it, get your piece of the pie. And if you're not, it's not because it doesn't work. It's because you're not making it work. You don't know exactly the right way to do it or how to uncover it. Now, if you are only placing light industrial and forklift drivers, you might not be getting your candidates from LinkedIn, but I bet you can get some new clients from it. Now, can you get it at the same scale as SaaS? Maybe not. But guess what? Everyone's going after SaaS stuff on LinkedIn, but not everyone's targeting light industrial on LinkedIn. Clark Wilcox [00:23:46]: So you might not get as many responses. But the ones you do, no one else is hitting them up on there, right? So you can always convince yourself it won't work. But I'm always looking for reasons why it might work. And so if you systemize that, you're giving yourself a chance for it to work. It can work. I've seen People like how you can't find physical therapists on LinkedIn. Why did a client find 15. Placed 15 physical therapists last year from LinkedIn alone. Clark Wilcox [00:24:06]: That was close to probably 200,000 in billing. Right? And then she got all her clients from LinkedIn content, which is just solo. She's billed 1.1 million in under 3 years. She was like 100k billed when we started working together. So I think about another million of that. So we started working together on everything. Systemizing top of funnel. Like coach. Clark Wilcox [00:24:23]: Right. Training on that and coaching. It's like it's only doable. Right. But she also works her tail off at the same time and she max. She gets everything out of the system that she possibly can. And that's my second point is people expect stuff to be set up for them and stuff to happen on autopilot without actually doing the work and getting their hands dirty. That is not recruiting. Clark Wilcox [00:24:41]: That is not sales. That will never be recruiting. That will never be sales. The people that will get replaced by AI, the people that aren't actually working or don't understand where their value is. If you're working and you're good and you understand you have that, like you're fine, AI is just going to make you better. It's just going to leverage you up. Kortney Harmon [00:24:55]: I agree. I just talked to Mark Whitby earlier and he. When we were talking about what's going to be happening in recruiting reading in the next three to five years, he's like, AI agents, your virtual assistants will now be managing your AI agents, not doing your busy work for you. It's just a different world that. I mean, heck, ChatGPT, what it came out two years ago, essentially two years ago. And we're already at the second iteration of that. Where it's going, it's doing the work for you. It's automatically posting, it's automatically writing. Kortney Harmon [00:25:27]: It's automatically finding candidates in your database that matches job orders. The transition already in those two years, it's crazy. Clark Wilcox [00:25:35]: It is. But here's what I'm seeing. I don't think people are talking about enough, actually. I know they're not because they're so caught up in what AI can do. And I'm always thinking, like, what does it mean? Kortney Harmon [00:25:44]: What does it mean for you, Clark? Clark Wilcox [00:25:46]: Think about the people around. Think about our environment, our society right now. Covid happens. A lot of people feel like they're stuck indoors. I got outside for a walk every day. But like a lot of people trapped. And there's some very weird places you couldn't get to, you couldn't get it right. There was definitely, there was restrictions, it was nonsense, it was craziness. Clark Wilcox [00:26:03]: And with that people became online. But now people are way too online and you have the rates of mental health and all those issues, all that skyrocket. Like why is that? People crave connection. They need human to human interaction, connect. We need communities, we need called tribes, we need that. And so look at where if AI thinks you're busy, work good, it has more time for me to build relationships, build rapport. Let me focus on that. Because AI can't do that, right? And some people and people are wanting that. Clark Wilcox [00:26:32]: And that is what I'm seeing across the board with recruiters, with recruiter, with hiring managers, with candidates. They just want to be, they want to know they're talking to a person, they can understand AI doing something. But at the end of the day, like, where's the person who am I interacting with? The recruiters are taking the most advantage of it. Aren't trying to just be like, I do everything for me to close business, do all that. When I hear, oh, AI outbound call, I'm almost just like, I don't look at the person as a lead or a prospect because their mind is so different. If you have to think that you're going to make a thousand AI outbound calls, that's it's just a waste of time. People in recruiting want connection, right? Hey, this isn't working. Can someone come in and diagnose why we can't figure out our hiring? Right? The bad clients are the bad clients. Clark Wilcox [00:27:12]: But the great clients, that's what they want. They need a leader, they need a recruiting leader. And you could be 25 years old at Airtech and still be a recruiting leader for those clients. I bash on them at times. And I was one of those, you don't know what you're doing, but you can pick that up quick, right? There's some great recruiters, big or small companies, like that's what people want. I think just the society actually needs leadership and people to put the phone down and step up and be leaders and just say what needs to be said. And like this salary is too low or if you're stuck by this salary because of price, equity or whatever, you need to offer better benefits or you need to do this. This is what 20 candidates are saying, 200 candidates are saying. Clark Wilcox [00:27:49]: I know that because I did outreach to a thousand of them. Maybe with some automation, right. It can give you better data points quicker. And I think that's the way to leverage it so you can be better in your actual consultative part of recruiting, then that's what I've seen. And from a candidate side and from helping different people and the feedback the recruiters I work with get from candidates because they've systemized getting them on the phone and then they have that human interaction, they have way more time for interview prep and follow up and text because they don't have to worry about the roles that they're working on. It's like, you're the best recruiter I've ever worked with. This is the most efficient interview process ever. You have more time to be better at the job. Clark Wilcox [00:28:26]: And if the one people that are recognizing that I have more time to build a better relationship. How do you do that? You become better. You better. You handle all the logistics, right. You handle all those gaps that like, oh, I missed that. As a recruiter, figure out what you got to systemize you can clean up. Right? It's a whole game of whack a mole recruiting. So you can clean that up. Clark Wilcox [00:28:43]: Your clients, your candidates. When you start getting that response like, wow, never had a recruiter dive this deep on the question, right? I don't worry about an hour intake call because I got my prospecting's happening for me, my content's working for me. I can spend and be present in that hour. And that is what's resonating. That quote, unquote ROI is worth way more than anything else. And it's like you can do that at scale now and then the people that tap into that and figure that out, schemes that match for them. Kortney Harmon [00:29:10]: It's first identifying what your processes are so you can automate. I was on an American Staffing association call and it was with the top leaders and like, what do you want to hear for topics? And AI is already the buzzword that's like, okay, it's just the vehicle to get us to the conversation. Stop using it a way that it's not. I love the realization of that to be like, it was what email was 20 years ago, or it was what LinkedIn was, whatever, 10 years ago. It's just another vehicle to get you to that conversation. Can it make you do it faster? Yes. Can it give you more information? Yes. Can it help you be more consultative? Yes. Kortney Harmon [00:29:47]: But it's really no different than many of the vehicles that you use today. It's just a little different. Clark Wilcox [00:29:53]: Absolutely. It's just executive assistance on steroids, which can be great, Right. You still gotta work with it. And it's so the people that are doing really well, they're putting a lot of time into it and it's full time and you still like, you can't just be like, oh, I got chatgpt and it's going to fix all my problems. You still have to work with it. And that's the key. It's, it's still work. Right? The people that are down to do the work and make moves right now, those are the ones that are winning again. Clark Wilcox [00:30:18]: I know he's had a lot of success, but I just always laugh at the four hour work week. It's just like why I'd be bored if I only worked four hours in a week, to be perfectly honest. And I think those are the people that are successful. Right. I read a Twitter thread or read a post from some of the one of the guys that sold MVMT the watches for 100 million. He's been very open about his journey the last six, seven years and how he's just felt lost once he sold his company. We need purpose. Humans need purpose. Clark Wilcox [00:30:42]: And to just put your life on autopilot to me, doesn't work. It'll never work. It's never going to be effective. But if AI can help facilitate you living your purpose, sure, that could be happening. But if you rely on it to do everything for you, I think you're not going to have that much fun. Kortney Harmon [00:30:59]: No, I agree. All right, let's, let's pivot slightly. 2024, I don't know about you, I heard it as many people struggled. Now, not everybody struggled, but like 2024, I only heard survive till 25, survive till 25. That's changed, I think from everybody's like, okay, whether it's the election, whatever, if it's anything else, people have had like a okay, pause. I see the movement going. It's not like going crazy yet, but I hear a lot of conversations about, okay, how do I grow and scale this year? I need to make up for lost time for last year. So let's think about that and let's talk about the scaling concept. Kortney Harmon [00:31:38]: A, do you, are you seeing the same thing? And then how do you help agencies maintain a quality service like delivery when their inbound leads starting to start to increase dramatically? This is a different mindset shift than what they've had to probably focus on for the last year to two. Clark Wilcox [00:31:54]: Absolutely. Well, I think last year, and I'm, I'm biased because of the program I run the people, you know, that I help black people have great years that I Work with. Kortney Harmon [00:32:03]: Depending on the industry. Absolutely. Clark Wilcox [00:32:05]: No matter the industry. To be perfectly honest, I'll ruffle some feathers, but a lot of time it's. It's either a skill issue or a foresight issue. To be perfectly honest, if you're having to work twice hard for the same amount of money, like, there's some things. There was already holes there in the operation and is there less hiring going on? Is it a tighter squeeze? Absolutely. But that's going to happen. That's cynical. In this industry, that's always going to happen. Clark Wilcox [00:32:29]: You should know to prepare for that. You should know to make that happen. I think 2021, 2022, a lot of people got fat and happy with stuff, just free money falling out of the sky and weren't admitting that wasn't. They weren't admitting it's free money falling out of the sky and that's not sustainable. So again, it just goes back to if you're honest with yourself, the people that are honest with themselves did just fine last year. And to be honest with them ahead of time. And so that's what I see. There's no reason to be caught with your pants down in recruiting. Clark Wilcox [00:32:54]: Like, we know what this is. It's been around long enough. We know the cycles, we know that all the pieces are there ahead of us. We're talking to candidates and clients every day. We should know exactly what's going on and coming down the pipe and it's stuff sustainable. You know what I mean? Like, I know it's a little bit of tough love, but I can't just like hug everyone and be like, oh, it's the top. Like, no, we gotta fix this stuff. Like, do you have to. Clark Wilcox [00:33:14]: And this happens to me. I raise my. I'm guilty of this stuff too. Right. But I realized, like, I have to pivot. I have to stay ahead. It's my responsibility as an owner. It's what it's got to provide whether you're an owner or W2, whatever it is. Clark Wilcox [00:33:25]: If I'm just relying on inmails, is that good enough? How many people have bought. You should be asking yourself, how many recruiter seats have. Is LinkedIn sold this year compared to five years ago? How many more people am I competing with? Am I sending inmails and all that stuff? Right. People like my messaging. It was working. It's not like, what do you think that is? There's more competition. Have you asked your candidates how many inmails they get? How many recruiters they've worked with? Right. Have you asked Your clients, how many they worked with agencies before, how many agencies they're currently working with. Clark Wilcox [00:33:50]: The amount of time people don't have the answers, that stuns me. The number one thing is start asking better questions, first to yourself, but then also to your market because that's going to give you the data and the intel to stay ahead of the game. Right. Whether Copper Funnel, whatever else, that's the first thing I would fix going forward if I'm. If I felt like I got caught last year. Now you asked me about how to actually do systemize and get inbound leads, right? Kortney Harmon [00:34:14]: Yes. Clark Wilcox [00:34:15]: And how to handle the inbound leads. Kortney Harmon [00:34:17]: How to handle it because not a lot of people are skilled in this area. So I want your advice. Clark Wilcox [00:34:21]: So there's a couple things that happen. One of the things I often hear in going through the program, we've done a lot of work on this is I'm not getting results. Right. I hear that. Right. It happens three years. Right. Oh my God. Clark Wilcox [00:34:31]: He's coaching program. He doesn't get results for his clients. Right. You can look at testimonials. We got video talking, we help plenty of people. The coaching piece is getting someone to say that what actually has happened, they actually have no idea how to identify success in outreach and inbound. And that's typically what I see. So you have, there's a couple phases. Clark Wilcox [00:34:48]: There's the initial problem. I don't know how to get leads or more candidates. I have no systemized. So we fix the first problem only to create a whole heck of a lot more of much better problems. Right. So it's kind of a couple phases. The digital recruiter process. It's we fix your LinkedIn, we fix your. Clark Wilcox [00:35:02]: What's your foundation. We have to understand that we have to get on the same page. Are you targeting. You know, I talked to a recruiter yesterday that's allied, non allied nurse, all that in a certain territory and she kind of place anything. She's like, oh, I don't want to pigeonhole myself. I'm like, all right, well what do you like to play? She's like dialysis. And she's like, well, actually, you know what? Well, you know what? I really don't like to place and work with physical therapist. Okay, so let's knock that out. Clark Wilcox [00:35:24]: So like we are going to pigeonhole you a little bit. You don't want physical therapists. Sometimes knowing what you don't want can help you to get what you want. Right. We have to fix the foundation. We have to demonstrate that on LinkedIn. What you do, who you do it for, who you've done it for before. Right. Clark Wilcox [00:35:38]: Why you do it, that's going to be on your headline. It's going to be in your about section. Right? Put your wins on the about section. If you're not doing that, it's a huge missed opportunity. I've had people get inbound clients for fees that are $70,000 just from fixing the profile after they were doing cold calls for 15 years that never done anything digitally. We fixed the profile. No outreach, no content. A new client found them. Clark Wilcox [00:35:58]: Hey, I think you're the recruiter that we've been waiting for. We want to talk to just from that alone. So we fix the profile, then we figure out which LinkedIn tool are you using. Right. How do we systemize some of that, some of that outreach? Build the right list. Really? Again, who do you want? What clients do you want more of? What candidates do you want more of? And tell your market that. Tell them you want to work with them. Right. Clark Wilcox [00:36:17]: We have to shift that mindset. Get the outreach going, the content. What should I say? Talk about the problems that the people that you want to work with are having and how you solve them and give them stories, giving them behind the scenes. The boring content, the stuff that's obvious to us as recruiters, is not obvious to your next great client. Right. Because if you look at your past great clients, you made the impossible probably seem possible to them. That's good content marketing. That's all you got to do. Clark Wilcox [00:36:43]: So once you get that in place, it's such a different mindset shift of just like chasing, chasing pitch, pitch. Hey, let me know if you're hiring. Let me know if you're hiring. Okay, I'll keep you in touch. Right. The whole the Heisman, the gatekeeper, model, they're never going to follow up with you. I've had to fix that Messaging with an owner that does 5 million with 10 people, like on direct hire. And I fixed that from this month. Clark Wilcox [00:37:02]: He booked five meetings in a day. Just like making a more conversational lean into what you're good at. So that's the first thing. It's like we fix that. That's the system. Then you get responses and all that, and a lot of responses. But people go back to their old habits. Okay. Clark Wilcox [00:37:16]: What they, but they don't understand is that they have fixed. The fundamental issue that we really help fix for recruiting agencies is their framing, their positioning. And we, we reveal them as an authority in the market. And most recruiters have never been an Authority in the first meeting with a client and that's the biggest shift. And so you get treated differently. But so they get a response in the inbox and they'll immediately go and basically gatekeep themselves or end the conversation, which is. No, no, no. When you fix your framing, you're an authority. Clark Wilcox [00:37:44]: You get to now do discovery in the inbox. You don't have to wait for the call for discovery to start. Tell me about this. Okay, you're struggling with iron. It's like, what's going on? What have you guys tried to fix it? How do you guys currently buy your hire in the inbox? And then you get a couple of those and then you set the meeting. Because then both parties are excited for that meeting. Because that manager is like, I think I found a recruiter that actually knows how to like fix this problem for us, right? And we might not be hiring them right now, but like, I'm going to get a virtual coffee or in person coffee. I'm going to meet with them or hey, we needed help yesterday, like, let's talk today. Clark Wilcox [00:38:15]: Get a contract signed. Because like, you clearly can diagnose. Because what managers are looking for is a recruiter that actually can diagnose their situation and their problem. So many recruiters they've worked with just take the J.D. they take the company at the word, the manager at the word, all that stuff and they go. And then they fail. They don't get feedback because the company doesn't know it. But what they're reacting to is this recruiter is just an order taker. Clark Wilcox [00:38:36]: But we don't have the right orders. But they're not the ones fixing that process. So they're looking for someone to actually fix the process and tell them the truth. Now when you do that, is someone going to work with you right then and there? No. You might tell them, hey, we shouldn't be doing this until. We shouldn't start this search for six months. Let's just keep in touch and do that. Right when you qualify, you figure out urgency. Clark Wilcox [00:38:54]: Because you've got to figure out the urgency and threats to a company to know, especially if you're contingent, to know if really you have any price to monitor. Just if you're an agency, if it should be a good client right now. So that's kind of how the whole thing comes together. Kortney Harmon [00:39:07]: I love it. And it's honestly something. We all get into this transactional concept and we get caught in it and we've all been there. You've probably been there. I've Been there. And it's just, how do I dig myself back out of that? And it's a mindset shift for yourself as well as that client that's dealing with you to be like, this is different. I need to explore this. Clark Wilcox [00:39:27]: You want the this is different, not sold. Because what does a signed agreement get you? Even if you get a retainer, 5k upfront, great. But you never fill it. You miss out on the whole fee. I've seen people waste a year, 18 months just holding onto that 5k when a contingent recruiter is running circles around them filling stuff that's actually closing. Right. So I don't care about contingent. I don't care about retained. Clark Wilcox [00:39:48]: The pricing model does not matter. I will go to my grave believing that because I've seen it. It's how you qualify business. That's matters as a recruiter. And do you qualify the urgency and do you qualify the threats? The urgency of filling the role and the threats to you not being the one to fill the role. That's what matters. It's an Aerotech concept. It's so true. Clark Wilcox [00:40:05]: It has run through for the last 12 years. No matter what environment I've been. That's all that matters, is to figure that out at scale. Because that's how you save your time. Right? The top of funnel will create more opportunities. Your qualifying process will actually dictate your growth and profitability. Kortney Harmon [00:40:20]: I love that you mentioned that inbound leads are better than referrals. Clark Wilcox [00:40:24]: Oh, yeah. Kortney Harmon [00:40:25]: Okay. That's a pretty bold statement in our industry. Clark Wilcox [00:40:28]: Yeah. Kortney Harmon [00:40:28]: But I want you to elaborate on that. Clark Wilcox [00:40:31]: I didn't quite piece this together, like, articulate it until recently. Let's talk about the referrals. Right? You. You help a client out, or maybe you have a friend. It's like, oh, that person has a recruiting agency. You should talk to them. Right. But there's no, like, okay, I'm getting on the phone. Clark Wilcox [00:40:45]: Like, wait, what do you do? Right? What do you. What is this? Or, yeah, we have a need. Or like, so and so. You're good. But how many times. I mean, this happened? I learned this at Aerotech. One manager I would fill. I would kill it. Clark Wilcox [00:40:55]: They would introduce me to someone else would be a nightmare. Because, like, that manager, it's just they didn't get it the way that that manager got. So it's so person by person. And a referral, right. To game a telephone, they probably didn't give the right contacts about what you do and all that. Like, there can be great referrals. Do not get me wrong. I've had wonderful referrals, but it's just a harder close, typically, than inbound or inbound. Clark Wilcox [00:41:17]: But even people that reach out because for me, they've read the content, they understand the process, what we talk about, what I'm about, what I'm helping with, and they're like, I feel like you're reading my mind almost. I'm ready for you to teach me automation or teach me content or get more leads. I'm like, all right, let's go. My job is not to screw that up and overcomplicate it, which, honestly, I do a lot of the times, because I get excited, right? I'm constantly learning and all because I just get amped up when people are like that. But it's just been so much easier to just like. People are just like, all right, I'm ready. Like, I'm gonna call. I'm ready to sign up. Clark Wilcox [00:41:51]: Like, let's get to work. I'm like, perfect. That's what I want, right? And that's my style. Like, I want to just get to work. I think most recruiters are like that, right? Give me the. Let's qualify the role. Let's get to work. Let's make it happen. Clark Wilcox [00:42:01]: That's what I get with inbound leads. With that content. They're indoctrinated to what I believe, how I operate, what I'm seeing in the market, and they're bought in, and I love that they're ready to work, and they become amazing clients. But sometimes with the referrals, I almost had to start back at zero. This is kind of what we do or here, like, go learn about us first and then think, then talk to, like, see if you want to talk to me, right? So it's a completely. And again, that's when you really have the marketing dialed in. It just. It changes, you know, it changes differently. Clark Wilcox [00:42:33]: And I have a sales coach, and he's like, you know, outbound's harder than inbound. I'm like, or is outbound. He thinks outbound's easier. I'm like, but, you know, you've never really gone inbound. The level I've gone inbound at, like, you don't know. And it's not easy because I care about taking people's money or whatever. It's like, that person is ready to work, and that is what I love. In day one, they know what they're buying. Clark Wilcox [00:42:53]: They're in the door. We're fixing the profile. We're getting outreach going. We're going content Versus the referrals. Like we automation. Like, what's that? Wait, content marketing. Maybe they got referred by someone that did a complete different service. So they have to almost be educated on me first. Clark Wilcox [00:43:07]: Versus the inbound has already been educated. They're ready to go. And that's probably what I should say at the beginning. But, like, that's the difference, right? If you have to educate a referral, typically you have to educate referral way more than obviously inbound lead, because by definition, inbound lead is wanting to work with you, like with whatever you've been talking about. Kortney Harmon [00:43:24]: It goes back to that mindset shift, too. Their mindset shift is already there. They're ready to put the pedal to the metal, to move the needle. Clark Wilcox [00:43:32]: That's where I would challenge recruiters like, start reverse engineer getting clients that can't wait to work with you versus you just chasing anyone that will sign an agreement, give you the time of day. For me, life is too short to operate that way. So everything I've done is to reverse engineer that piece of it. Because I just want to cut to the chase. I want to get to work and I want to solve some problems. That's. Nothing allows that to happen better for me than great marketing. And it's just like sharing people. Clark Wilcox [00:43:58]: These are problems I like to solve and I want to solve, and I solve them for people like you. And I get it. Most of the people aren't ever going to work with me. That's okay. I don't need that. That's not sales. I just got to find the right people, the right 100 people, the right 1,000 people. They're like, heck yes. Clark Wilcox [00:44:11]: Like, let's get this done. Like, all right, cool, let's do it. Kortney Harmon [00:44:13]: I love it. You, obviously, you're helping others reach out to the. Let's face it, the hiring managers. Right? So what changes have you observed and how hiring managers want to be approached in today's market compared to the traditional recruiting sales model? Clark Wilcox [00:44:30]: Simple, conversational. Don't pitch. Generate conversations at scale. And that's what we do in a digital recruiter. We generate relevant business conversations at scale. And being you in business, it's possible. It's hard sometimes to figure out that's what people want. People want a conversation with a human. Clark Wilcox [00:44:49]: They don't want to be pitched. They don't want eight messages in their inbox. Hey, we do this. Hey, we do that. Hey, we help SaaS founders like you. Wait, no, I'm not a SaaS founder, so why are you messaging me? Right? The people are Sick of that. I don't need 60 leads on my calendar every month because I would lose my mind If I had 60 more calls in a month. I don't want that. Clark Wilcox [00:45:07]: Most recruiter people I work with don't want that either. Right. They just want the right calls with the right people at the right time. And so when you think about conversations at scale, you could send out thousands of connection requests in a year. I think I sent out 8,000 last year, connected about 30, 40% of those people. That's 3 to 4,000 new connections. Did I have 3 to 4,000 new clients last year? No, I did not. Did I have 3000 sales calls last year? No, I absolutely did not. Clark Wilcox [00:45:30]: But within that and people I connected with the year before, we had a great year, right? I got the right clients, I had the right calls, had some wins, probably left some things on the table, lost some deals. Typical sales year, right. It never felt. I spent maybe 10 minutes a month on my prospecting, maybe, maybe I spent three hours total last year on my top of funnel outreach prospecting. I spent more of that time on content. But even now I can repurpose a lot of my own ideas and content or I can come up with a good post in about three minutes that I know is going to do well and create leads for me. So I have it dialed in because I know what matters is conversations at scale. Gives me more time in the inbox, more time on calls to really figure out where is this person along in the process. Clark Wilcox [00:46:10]: Does it make sense for me to help them or not? Or can I point them in the right direction? So that's what. And that's hiring managers want the same thing. And I've seen it with the clients we worked with. It's just letting the conversation breathe, not trying to pitch everything in. One message, answer all their questions, not ask all the questions. Just keep one topic at a time, one question at a time. Let it breathe. Don't be obsessed with one prospect, right? You can't have oneitis and get stuck in the friend zone, right? Just have a life of abundance in sales. Clark Wilcox [00:46:38]: And like I'm in construction, my goal is to generate 10, 20 conversations a week with leaders and hiring managers in the industry. And of that, it's my job to have my top 20 to set some meetings, figure out which of those five to 10 I'm going to are going to be account breakers that year and be great clients. But you should be having hundreds of those conversations, hundreds of people you should be conversations with every year. And of that you get your great clients. So it's like, stop chasing the one or two and focus on. I'm talking to a lot of people that I could always follow up with, but I'm engaging with them. I'm not saying, hey, call me if you need help, or we're better than your other agency. Why do you guys currently go by your hiring? Or I saw this open rule. Clark Wilcox [00:47:15]: Like, I saw you guys reposted it. Like, who's. Who's working on that? Or how do you guys typically. Oh, why do you know we don't use agents? Oh, why is that a policy? I'm curious. Right. And just like, play dumb. Like, conversation. Play dumb. Clark Wilcox [00:47:25]: Just get inquisitive, get curious. That's all it is. You'll get all the intel you need to kind of figure out where. It's like, wait, I could actually. I got to stay on track of these with these guys. That's interesting. Like, that's kind of a dumb policy. And I got this client based off that dumb policy. Clark Wilcox [00:47:39]: And this is maybe how I can open the door with this one as well. Right. Because we all have those experiences, dude. Just trying to figure out what bucket has this company put themselves in. Are they never used agencies, bad experiences? A CFO came in. It was like, we got to cut the spend and not ever work at agencies yet ever again. The year later. What do they do? Our internal team can't hire anyone because they're not productive. Clark Wilcox [00:47:59]: So we actually do need agencies. But it's always getting in cycles. Cycles. You're trying to figure out what season are they in? And do that with the conversational and do that with your approach. Get the intel and you'll be able to just work the conversations. That's what the best salespeople do. They're working dozens of conversations at a time with people that are relevant, that could be potential buyers this week, in a month, or in a year. Kortney Harmon [00:48:19]: Well, I think, as you've seen, I've seen over the past few years, I would say the relationship between marketing and recruiting has changed. My question to you is, looking ahead, how do you see that relationship between marketing and recruiting evolving? And how can agencies prepare for these changes? Because a lot of them are one off, but now they're getting their own marketing departments, they're developing their own podcasts, they're doing all these things. How do you see that relationship between marketing and recruiting or marketing and sales in the recruiting industry evolving even further in the future? Clark Wilcox [00:48:55]: Yeah, it's a great question. I think the stage I see it at now is recruiters are open to it, but they're making. They're hiring people. Oh, I help people on Instagram or my cousin does TikTok marketing. I'm going to have them post my LinkedIn stuff and then they're. Oh, they're posting on our company page. Okay, well, do you know that your personal page gets like three times as much traction as your company page? Oh, I didn't know that. What do I post personally? So it's like, right, so they're trying marketing, so that's good. Clark Wilcox [00:49:21]: I think a lot of agencies never tried marketing. It was cold call. Cold call. So I think it's the. They're in the trying stage and they're learning a lot of times what's not working. My dad always told me, growing up, find do a bunch of jobs, so you know what you don't want to do. I think that's what recruiters are going in, agencies are dealing with right now. They're learning all the marketing that they don't want to do or it's not effective. Clark Wilcox [00:49:41]: I'm kind of there. I can't reach them all right now, but I'm kind of there to be like, yep, I see the problem, I see the issue. Oh, you're posting hashtags like, that's cute. Or selfies or just all about like, come work for us. Right? The we're hiring. Are you really standing out? Are you having an impact? Like, is it authentic? Is it you? Is it really? Talk about what the actual impact you're having day to day, or is it just corporate speak? And I think culturally you've been seeing whatever side of the aisle you're on, left, middle, right. There's been a cultural shift the last few months. You saw it in the election. Clark Wilcox [00:50:13]: Trump going on all the podcasts versus a completely different model than the traditional way for politicians. Again, love him or hate them, it was just different. You can't deny that. But think of that interaction. It humanized them to a certain audience and the polls reflect that. And again, love him or hate him, you got to study it. Because to be honest, there's no more effective marketer or personal brander than Donald Trump. I'm always looking like, what is it? He talks. Clark Wilcox [00:50:39]: And it's here's the thing in the marketing, right? You can hire the agencies, hire the corporate marketers, that's fine, that's cute and all that, but what's working? He talks it like in direct response, copywriting. There's a thing like you Write at a 5th grade reading level and so many recruiters struggle with that. When I work with like fifth grade, I gotta dumb my, yeah, I work with PhD people and yada yada, I'm like, I don't care. Fifth grade reading level, that's what converts. And if you think about it, that's kind of how he talks. People will kind of make fun of like the simplistic way. That's how most people interpret stuff and understand things. You have to realize that as a reality. Clark Wilcox [00:51:11]: So I think what's going to happen is people are going to realize that they can actually just be themselves and simplify it and be authentic. Right? Love me or hate me, this is what I am. And it's going to bring in the right people versus people don't trust the brand and the corporate speak and the hashtags, like it's just salesy, it's just like give me what you got. Like just raw, authentic, show me who you are and then all judge if I trust you and I want to work with you or not. The agencies that evolve to that, number one right now, they're killing it and it's way less stress and way less expensive to produce content like that. And then that's where it's going to be, the evolution, it's already happening. But recruiters, again, maybe not agencies aren't always the quickest hand up. I'm first. Clark Wilcox [00:51:51]: That's where it's going is it's kind of like love me or hate me and that's how I feel. That's been my approach is I expect most recruiters are not going to like what I talk about because I talk about number one, getting the work done and getting over your fears and doing things and evolving your process. And that's not for everyone. But I'm unapologetically that because it helps me and it helps the people I work with. And I'm just raw about that. And so when I study what I see to be effective and I look at what's effective, that's what I'm seeing time and time again. It's happening culturally whether you want to admit it or not, it's happening. So my thing is like how do I ride that current? Because marketing and sales, it's like knowing where your market's at, what are they consuming, how are they consuming, how are they making buying decisions? The agencies that are studying that, that's what they're going to find is we need to arm each of our people not to be an influencer, not to go viral, but to be A micro influencer to impact and to resonate with their next 100 placements every single day. Clark Wilcox [00:52:45]: If you do that with a hundred recruiters, with a hundred people that are bought in, they're going to let you know when they're looking. Right? You're 100 top MPC candidates, they're going to let you know when they're looking and all that. You're putting that in front of your clients and then your salespeople are getting in front of their market that way. I'm already seeing it. There's some agencies out there that are doing a killer job with it with 15, 20, 30 people that are scaling like crazy and it's from that. So I told you I might go a little rogue. Kortney Harmon [00:53:07]: So I love exactly what you said because you're not wrong. People are consuming things different ways. But I think my only as I look at this in the next three, five years, you and I, whenever you had amazing training at Aerotech, it was like, well, we move this. Here's your response to resistance. Here's how you should answer that. Training going forward and operationally is how to scale this bad boy. Going forward is really like, okay, here's how your storefront on LinkedIn should look. Here's what you should think about, here's what you should post, here's what you should be doing differently. Kortney Harmon [00:53:39]: Again, not that you need to be the influencer, but here's our playbook of success. You can't think of this as a one off anymore. This is how do I make my entire team as efficient as possible on this platform and alter this process as it changes as we continue to change overall in our economy. Clark Wilcox [00:53:57]: Yeah, you're spot on. And that's exactly where the digital recruiter is going to. I guess what I'm building it towards is being the one stop shop for traditional and digital recruiting training right from the day one, even before that. Like the first six weeks, but six months in split desk, full desk, like all the different playbooks at every single stage. Calls are amazing. There's nothing wrong with a cold call. I'm not against cold call email. I'm for effectiveness and efficiency and there's an order of operations is going to change and that the agencies that are ahead of the game are fixing their order of operations. Clark Wilcox [00:54:30]: They're not relying on inmails or just zoom info. They're relying on that creativity, that structure, but then creativity within structure. People that work hard to get their stuff done but can be creative and think on their feet and manage the conversations with Clients and candidates, but also think strategically and creatively with digital prospecting and marketing and innovative and not afraid to just try things and people resonate with that. People are resonating more with people that are just trying and willing to make failure and picking themselves up and going on again. I think this HR principal culture, thankful or vice principal culture I think is going away thankfully the heavens and because every single one of us is flawed and imperfect, but we all deserve. And this is where I felt like I got an opportunity to attain success. And that's the goal digital recruiters, to give people the opportunity to learn a traditional way, learn additional way, bring out that creativity, build it as a muscle, have you kind of thrive in that, in that structure, in that creativity and give you the opportunity to take this thing wherever you want to take it to. But all the olds like, oh, this got in the way, that got away. Clark Wilcox [00:55:33]: We're going to get rid of all that and just like, you know what you to do, you know what you're doing, you know how to what your fundamentals are that you have to stick with every day and be consistent and you know, kind of where there is that room for creativity and innovation, it's doable. It's never been more doable to package that all together with AI, Internet, all that stuff crazy. Our phones, right? And that's what's super cool. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to do that anymore. And that's what's exciting. Kortney Harmon [00:55:56]: I love it. I can't wait to see your continued success. We will put your digital recruiter website as well as the podcast in the show notes for our audience. And I only have one more question for you and then I'll let you go, I promise. How do you see the recruitment industry evolving over the next three to five years? Clark Wilcox [00:56:13]: I think there's going to be some trimming of the fat, number one, just to put it bluntly. But I also think there's going to be. It's like a rising tide. You got to stay above. But if you raise your standard and raise your standard of excellence and your productivity, the world is your absolute oyster in recruiting. And you could. I think we're going to see more mega agencies because there's only like so many that hit a certain revenue mark. I think that number, I don't know if it'll double, it'll triple. Clark Wilcox [00:56:37]: But you're going to see way more agencies doing 20, 50, 100 million, I feel like. But I think overall there might be. There's probably going to be less ones making money. There'll be more that are agency and name only, but then you're going to see some, like, really heavy hitters come up that are going to be digital focused and that's going to be your next big staffing agencies are going to be ones that build. They'll probably do it with about a fraction of the people of, like the Aerotech and the rubber half, but they'll hit some of those revenue numbers. Kortney Harmon [00:57:03]: It'll be interesting to watch, that's for sure. Clark Wilcox [00:57:05]: Yeah, I could be wrong. That's the fun part about predictions. Kortney Harmon [00:57:07]: We'll revisit this in three to five years and we'll talk about it again. Clark Wilcox [00:57:10]: Absolutely. Kortney Harmon [00:57:11]: Any last words of advice or anything about the digital recruiter that we didn't talk about? You want the audience to know because this has been amazing. Just another lens to look through in this ever changing, yet oh so similar world that you and I whenever we ran desks as well. Clark Wilcox [00:57:26]: I know I can be intense. I can be passionate, I can be loud, I can give tough love. I can be kind of see things like, oh, man, he really said that. But the biggest thing is, as much as you can, I want people to have fun doing the work and have fun. Be grateful that you get to do this. Be present, be in the moment. Tell your clients that you appreciate them. Tell your candidates that you appreciate them. Clark Wilcox [00:57:49]: Vocalize that more. Have fun with it. It's the best part of my life and best part of my family, but I get to be me in business. So if you're not able to get there, find a way to be you in business and have fun with it, along with being productive and getting the results and all that. Life's not all about work, all that stuff, but man, to me, it was. I built all this because, like, what if every day I could be so pumped about the clients I get to work with, about people I get to interact with, like you, Kortney, and meet and do fun podcasts like this. That was my vision. That's all. Clark Wilcox [00:58:18]: I've reversed engineered all that with that. How can I be present with my family when I have one? And hopefully, God willing, I build one, which I have and still be productive, valuable, but enjoy my work and enjoy the clients I work with. And if you reverse engineer that, I'm telling you it's possible and it's fun and nothing is more worth it. So that's what I got. Kortney Harmon [00:58:37]: This has been amazing. I appreciate your conversation and your incredible deep dive into talking about transforming the way we approach recruiting sales and marketing and for our listeners. Remember, you can find Clark on LinkedIn. We'll put his stuff there, as well as the Digital Recruiter podcast and website, and you can look forward to looking more about his programs and strategies. Until next time, keep building those meaningful relationships. Don't get lost in the shiny with all the wonderful things and be true to who you are in this industry and why we really got into it in the first place. Clark Wilcox [00:59:08]: Love it. Thanks, Kortney. Kortney Harmon [00:59:11]: Kortney I'm Kortney Harmon with crelate. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Industry Spotlight, a new series from the Full Desk Experience. New episodes will be dropping monthly. Be sure you're subscribed to our podcast so you can catch the next Industry Spotlight episode and all episodes of the Full Desk Experience here or wherever you listen.