What makes a great recruiter and how can you discover whether the person you’re interviewing is one or not? That’s the theme of today'sMike Ames Recruitment Show. Over the years I’ve employed well over 100 recruiters and estimate I’ve interviewed over 1000. I’ve learned some very hard lessons along the way (some cost me a lot of money). But I belie…

If the gods decreed all the possessions I'd gathered over the years were to be taken off me, except for one thing it would be this. My network, because with that intact I could get all my other assets back over time. That's the power of a strong network - it makes it easier and quicker to get things done. The problem is, the concept of modern netwo…

Would you like to know what you have to do to recruit and retain the best recruitment talent out there? If so, check this out. Lysha Holmes (www.linkedin.com/in/lyshaholmesr2r) is our guest on this week’s show. She is a skilled and experienced rec-to-rec professional who has many years’ experience of recruiting recruiters. On the show we focus on d…

One of the biggest complaints I get from recruitment leaders is “I don’t have enough time to do everything”. If this is you, this show is for you. In the fast-paced world of recruitment, time is our most valuable asset, but the modern world conspires against us. Countless emails flooding your inbox, a never-ending to-do list, firefighting, BD, clie…

When you run a recruitment firm the dream is to sell it but, how likely is this to happen and how much will it be worth? In this episode of the #MARShow we will answer both questions. We’ll also share the characteristics of recruitment companies that are particularly attractive to potential buyers. Well, when I say “we” I mean our special guest, Ca…

This is for anybody who hates attending networking events or feels they don’t get very much from them. The good news is they are optional. A Real Network is a group of people who are willing and able to help you in your personal, and professional lives. Real Networking is the act of building and maintaining that network. But why bother? Because get…

Ever considered an MBO as either an exit strategy, or as a way of taking over the firm from your boss one day? Well, our next guest is Alan Shave who several years ago, successfully completed an MBO with his colleagues. The process of a MBO is more complicated than many believe and is fraught with danger on both sides. But Alan and his team steered…

Probably the most common obstacle to growing a recruitment company right now is a lack of suitable candidates. Just imagine how much more money you could make if you could find more talent and then place them (the easy part). In this #MARShow our guest is marketing expert, James Whitelock who specialises in marketing techniques to attract candidate…

Imagine you had a magic wand that instantly made you better at sales pitches, calls, emails, presentations, proposals et al. There is, and it’s called AIDA. AIDA is a simple technique you can use when you want somebody (who doesn’t know you very well) to do something you want. Hence, it’s brilliant in all things sales and marketing. Anytime you hav…

Recruiters, did you know there are two kinds of BD: strategic and tactical. You need both, they’re very different and most recruiters only do tactical. This show is on this subject but let me quickly explain the difference between the two. TACTICAL BD Is either, “giz a job” or “I’ve got this great candidate…” by message or phone. In other words vac…

Websites are like food processors, everybody has one, but few of us really know how to use them fully. Yet, learning just a few tricks can deliver some great results. In this episode of the #MARShow we’re delighted to welcome Rob Garner, a seasoned expert in optimizing websites. We'll be sharing free or low-cost changes that can bring in more candi…

Whether you’re a solo recruiter with ambition or have hit that 3 or 4 employee mark and got stuck, you may be wondering how you can scale up. Scaling a recruitment business is soooooo much more than just adding staff and turnover. If that’s all you do, there’s a very good chance your company will lose its shape as it grows. That means one or more o…

Having seen many highly profitable recruitment companies the majority have one really big thing in common. They have stable, empowered, motivated and highly equipped teams. “Get outta here Sherlock”, I hear you cry. Obvious, yes, but since most recruitment companies aren’t highly profitable, it’s clearly hard to do. There are several factors involv…

If you’re a solopreneur recruiter or own a small recruitment firm and want to break the link between the hours you work and what you earn then this show is important. Virtual teams are a great way to grow your business without committing to permanent staff, plus you can now hire people anywhere on the planet. But this approach does come with some r…

For some years now, the only people who did cold calls were the ones that liked doing it or were forced into it. The market was good, active clients were feeding in new vacancies, email marketing was working OK and LinkedIn was also very productive. But two things have happened to change that: - ❶ the market tightened up ❷ AI started generating a l…

We all want to improve our profitability and one way to do this is build offshore people into your team, but how do you do this successfully? Well, that’s the topic of our next Mike Ames Recruitment Show: offshoring for beginners. It’s also for those who’ve tried it, and it didn’t work out. On this, we’ll be exploring the reasons offshore projects …

360 recruiters have been the mainstay of the industry for years, but things are changing now because as a model it’s unreliable. How can this be? I hear you cry. Well, 80%+ of the recruitment companies out there have less than 10 staff, growth is clearly a problem. Good 360s are hard to find, hard to make yourself and hard to keep. And if they go, …

Every now and then you meet somebody who achieves great things but think themselves ordinary. Wendy Merricks is one such person. This is her story. A story that just culminated in the successful sale of her business to an investment company. Wendy has more recruitment experience than anybody I know, including me! She worked for Software Knowledge, …

Not having a noticeable fear of failure and 35 years doing the same thing, teaches you an awful lot. Well, it’s time to share the best bits. Quite frankly, I’ve learnt more by working closely with over 100 recruitment company owners than I did building and selling my own two recruitment firms. One thing I have learnt is that recruitment is easy but…

Picture this. You’re discussing terms with a new prospect. They want as much as possible for as little as possible. You want retained and a good fee. Even though you’re damned good at what you do, that often isn’t enough to win the deal on your terms. Bummer! Well, our guest on the Mike Ames Recruitment Show has a blemish-free record of getting wha…

12 months ago, The recruitment world changed utterly and forever – CHATGPT launched and incited an arms race. Where it will all end up is still to be seen, but in just one year, the world has witnessed a surge in AI-driven services, particularly in recruitment. ATS & CRM systems have integrated AI into many of their services. (or at least their mar…

Did you know that all of us have a way we prefer to buy things, and if suppliers sell to us in that way, they will be more successful? It’s called our Buying Style. Knowing how to spot, and then sell to a person’s buying style, is a bit like cheating, and will give you a massive competitor advantage. It makes sense when you think about it. We’re al…

Over 80% of recruiters never bill more than £1m a year, so those who do must have a secret growth sauce. Like to know what it is? Our next guest on the #MARShow is Roheel Ahmad, founder and MD of Forsyth Barnes. Started 8 years ago, they are now an international perm business with a turnover of £20m. Roheel will be talking about his journey and the…

Everybody has to write job ads from time to time, some more than others, but could they be better? Well, the stakes are high because we know great ads attract better candidates. We also know that everybody’s attention span has diminished so it’s increasingly hard to attract attention. Question: has your attention span diminished over the last few y…

Growing your revenues is easy, right? Hire more people and they will do more business. But there’s a problem. 82% of recruitment companies have less than 10 staff and half of those are solopreneurs. In other words, if growth was as easy as hiring people, a lot more recruitment firms would have more than 10 staff. There are several reasons for this,…

If you presented your offering to 100 people all at once, approximately 5 would be open to a pitch, 50 would blank you, and 45 would be like, “maybe but not now”. These are called the “Forgotten 45%”, and they hold potentially 9 times the revenue you get from those ready to buy right now. YES, A POTENTIAL 900% LEAP IN YOUR REVENUES! Maybe they don’…

Everybody is looking for a silver bullet that will speed up winning high value clients. There is one, but most people ignore it. Or, they know what it is, but dismiss it out of hand for a range of reasons (none of them are valid). In this #MARShow we will be covering this very powerful BD tool – webinars. See what I mean – your instant reaction was…

Statistically you only place 1 in 5 contingent roles you work. For retained its closer to 98% and here’s how you convert to be retained. But first a warning. If you’ve been used to working contingent or even exclusive roles, making the jump to retained carries risks with it. In this week’s #MARShow we have a double whammy. Backdoor Barry Cullen wil…

Winning clients hasn’t been a big problem recently, but it will be if the recession bites hard. Vacancy scraping and speccing candidates won’t be as effective, so what can you do? That’s the theme of this week’s Mike Ames Recruitment Show – a proven system to win new clients in a recession. Here’s a run down of what we cover: - ✅ Why vacancy scrapi…

Like it or not video is here to stay and many have dabbled with it in one form or another. But few have really made it work as an effective sales tool to win new clients, except for one person I know. Jacob Ireson uses video to great effect as a potent sales tool and he’s on the Mike Ames Recruitment Show to share all his secrets. He uses videos to…

You’d have to live in a cave to not be aware of how powerful building an online community can be, especially for recruiters. A tribe of people who have opted to join your WhatsApp, Facebook, Mighty or Six Circles group. They post, comment and help other members where they can. Each time you engage with your members another layer is added to the rel…

There are a lot of recruitment companies in the UK – over 30k in fact. But, why are some successful and others not? Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a discussion around this with somebody who speaks to 100s of recruitment company owners? Somebody who knows the “secret sauce” that makes one company succeed whilst others around it fail. Well, no…

Probably the most common obstacle to growing a recruitment company right now is a lack of suitable candidates. Just imagine how much more money you could make if you could find more talent and then place them (the easy part). In this #MARShow our guest is marketing expert, James Whitelock who specialises in marketing techniques to attract candidate…

Whether you want to change to scale up, become more profitable, win more new clients or attract better employees there are four obstacles you ALWAYS have to overcome. We see it all the time. The owner of a recruitment company is keen to develop their firm but it just doesn’t happen. Or it does for a bit, then it peters out and they go back to solel…

Todays episode handles one of the great rivalries in modern business. Marketing vs Sales. We talk about Mikes hypocracy on the subject (always fun) and we dig into how you should really look to support your business development with marketing. There's some tips on where to start, but great advice for anyone with a functioning marketing and sales te…

Virtual Assistants can take on a surprising number of tasks from you, leaving you free to do more of what makes you a success as a Recruitment leader. Today we talk with two small business owners, Lee De Souza and Martyn Coton, on how they get value from virtual assistants. Filled with ideas and tips, it's a great listen.…

You can't do it all. No one can. Mike learned this lesson the hard way, through a near nervous breakdown but thats another story for another day. Once you understand the power of delegation, how to do it correctly and what you get back then your business will change. Todays podcast we talk around and about this most vital of management skills.…

I thought cybercriminals wanted to hit the big boys, steal a load of payment details and make off into the sunset. Turns out I'm wrong. They want to hit you and me, in all sorts of painful and expensive ways. Listen to find out where your risk is and the solutions. Jonathan Miller of the cyber company Broken Stones explains it all.…

Senior members of the team giving quick tips and guidance to juniors has really been the bedrock of many businesses training. This proximity training has taken a hit, and may not return. But that doesn't mean you need to pay out to replace it. Our guest, Diane Law is a leader in learning and development. She talks you through the options to replace…

This week we will look at what happens when you audit your clients and find a few of them are wanting. Dan is MD of Pertemps Network Catering, and will discuss how he saw turnover drop and profit go up by cutting away some poor performing clients. He's not the only one to have seen this.

What will happen once Furlough ends? We interview a Global HR director and former HR consultant about furlough, preparing for redundancies and what we can learn form China as it leaves lockdown. Note: resources mentioned in the podcast can be found on flair.co.uk/recruitment-unpacked-070520

No one is 'fine'. Not in this current situation and we know that. So we reached out to someone who specialises in managing such situations. Emma Dredge is a Mindfulness and mindset coach who works frequently with recrutiers. She speaks candidly about the signs of stress and how leaders can help their team manage them.…

Alan Kenny ran the European arm of Mimecast, a legal technology business. A self confessed fan of proximity manangent he was forced to embrace remote management and he made an astounding success of it. In this interview episode Alan shares his thoughts on what any leader can do to help their people through the Covid-19 crisis.…

NOTE: this is the audio recording of a webinar held earlier in the year. it can be found on flair.co.uk/prospering-recruitment-downturn During the recruitment downturn of the early 2000s Jumar Solutions, led by CEO Wendy Merricks, was the winner in Deloittes Fast 50 awards on four occasions. Clearly, it’s possible for recruitment companies to prosp…

저자 Flair Business Growth Consultancy

In the UK, 0.2% of recruitment business are sold via Trade Sale - those aren't great odds. So what can you do to be more appealing to a buyer? How can you maximise the value you get? What can you do if trade sale isn't an option? All these questions will be answered in this Podcast version of our webinar with guest panelist Carl Swansbury, Head of …

저자 Mike Ames