Stop Chasing Shiny Objects: Proven Recruiting Systems & Mindsets (No AI Hype!) with Keely Flood

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. The Elite Recruit Podcast has multiple summits coming up that you need to make sure that you are registered for. We have the AI recruiting summit 2025 coming up and on top of that, finish the year strong. These two summits are going to help you move the needle, help you achieve your goals, help you achieve your dreams, and make 2025 the year that you started out and you want it to be. Make sure you get registered and also stay tuned. Got something cooking for you guys. Working on another project that you guys are going to absolutely love.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:46]:
All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon. Enjoy this episode. I'm so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because this is something that could be holding you back from this year. Shiny object syndrome. Shiny object syndrome. To the point of it's keeping you from doing what you need to be doing and you're recruiting desk to still win. Yes, I get it. I talk about AI tools all the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:11]:
I over play with AI tools. You know, a lot of stuff gets thrown at me because of being on a podcast and there are tools out there that can work. The recruiting industry is changing so fast when it comes to the backend tech and the capabilities of it. But at the same time, you can't forget what you need to do as a recruiter. Building the relationships, influencing people and making things happen. So I'm so excited to have Keely back on the podcast. So we're not going to do a deep dive in his background. You can go back to the original time that we sat down, as we walked through that.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:47]:
We're going to talk about what it takes to actually win and stay away from shiny objects or syndrome. So welcome back to the podcast.

Keely Flood [00:01:53]:
Thank you for having me return. I can't believe it's been now almost like a year and a half since we first did this, which is crazy to think.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:59]:
I think it's kind of funny because like we talk like at least a few times a month, so it doesn't feel like it's been that long.

Keely Flood [00:02:05]:
Agreed. Yeah, I mean, I think we were just chatting the other day about like you talked about AI. So it has been a fast year and a half, but at the time sometimes it has felt like a long year and a half too with some of the ups and the downs that is facing the market so.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:18]:
So before we start talking about what recruiters need to do real quick, 30 seconds, a little bit about, like, what you're doing now.

Keely Flood [00:02:25]:
Yeah, what I'm doing now. So coming up on two years, I am a sales coach consultant. So I've been working specifically with staffing recruiting firms to fix all things sales from an operational standpoint to top a funnel to closing deals. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:40]:
So, you know, since you get to have all these conversations inside the companies. Have the conversations. What do you think is stopping people from winning?

Keely Flood [00:02:47]:
To put it simply, lack of a plan. I'm still shocked at how few people know what they need to accomplish day over day and week over week. A lot of it comes back to just simply having a plan. I mean, I was having dinner with someone who they run a $20 million firm last week, and I was asking around some of the KPIs and metrics, which it has, like a negative connotation, unfortunately. Some people, like, hear that, like, oh, KPI metrics. Like, those are like the boiler room type setups. And while, yes, there are boiler room firms out there that do manage through a dashboard, if you don't have goals, how are you ever supposed to know if you're improving or not? What's the saying? You can't manage what you can't measure. And a lot of it comes back to having a plan in place and then setting up things like goals, KPIs and metrics in order to accomplish what you want to do at the bigger level.

Keely Flood [00:03:35]:
Right, because we all want to bring in new clients. We all want to grow revenue, but how do you break that down into smaller goals in order to get to the large goal?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:42]:
And I want to talk about this planning thing for a second. I work with the Pinnacle Take podcast, so it's a lot of big billers, and almost everybody has a plan. I don't think you got a chance to see Dante Nino at Rock the Year. So if you have the VIP replace, definitely worth checking that talk out. But one of the things he says for all his big billers is at the end of the day, between four and five, they have to work on the plan for tomorrow. For a recruiter listening to this, like, you know, you think of, like, the plan, like, top three things you need to do. But what. What is actually planning to have a successful recruiting day look like?

Keely Flood [00:04:13]:
Yeah. So what Dante says, like, I think him and I, and I've never actually spoken to him directly outside of a few dms, but I think we're kind of cut from the Same cloth in which I was always taught. There's an A time and a B time. Meaning like a time is when you focus on the highest value activities to grow your business. So if you're a recruiter, whether you're 360 or 180. Right. What are your high value activities? And if you ask me, the two highest value activities you can do in this business are talking to candidates and talking to clients slash prospects. Everything else is secondary compared to those two things because if you're not doing enough of that, you won't be successful long term.

Keely Flood [00:04:49]:
And so that B time that like four to five time is where you plan for the next eight times. Meaning what do I need to accomplish tomorrow? Like, who am I reaching out to? Do I have a plan set? So when I walk in the office tomorrow morning, I'm not wasting the first hour of my day figuring out what I should be doing. I'm just simply out there executing on the planet already prepared the night before.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:11]:
Okay. And you know, is there systems that you can use to make this easier?

Keely Flood [00:05:17]:
Yeah, I mean, look, time blocking is a big deal. I was talking to Climb the other day about the Pomodoro technique, which is 25 minute intervals where you just lock in on a single task. And not that I'm going to recommend a ton of books, but there's a book called Deep Work because by Cal Newport. And he talks about how people like Adam Grant, for example, they can block off four hours and be more effective in those four hours than most people can do in eight. And a lot of it has to do with they have a singular focus on a task at hand and block everything out. So going back to the Pomodoro technique, you would say, hey, for the Next, let's say 50 minutes, I'm going to work on researching prospects and learning about their business and who the key decision makers are in each one of them. I actually call it like the 5, 550 method. You block off 50 minutes, you find five accounts and you find five names in each of them.

Keely Flood [00:06:07]:
But that's all you do. You shut down LinkedIn, you shut down your email, you turn your phone on silent, you close email like that. It can be hard to do, but you could be so much more efficient if you just focus on one thing at a time. Take a quick little five minute break and then come back and repeat.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:23]:
We say that again. The five what?

Keely Flood [00:06:24]:
Five, five fifty. So basically, and I like to come up with like catchy ways. This is another thing I talk about is the 30, 30 30, but 5, 5550 is you find five accounts. So first up, block 50 minutes off. Right, let's just start there. Find every day, or probably at the very least Mondays, lock off 50 minutes where you're going to find five new accounts and you're telling yourself, my goal is to find five new names in each account. So through those 50 minutes you're going to do research, you're going to find out who the decisions makers are. You put them into your CRM, you can put them in your Excel doc, wherever it is, you capture the information.

Keely Flood [00:06:55]:
And then later on through the week and like that 30, 30 block where you're blocking off the 30 minutes to do outreach, you can spend the first 30 minutes doing things like phone calls, 10 minutes, like 10 phone calls out there. The next 30 minutes you could do LinkedIn, DMS. And then the last 30 minutes you can do emails and you're doing 10 in each one of those. It adds up to 30 that way too.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:14]:
Okay, cool. And then, okay, so that's only one hour of your day. What else should you be doing to be successful?

Keely Flood [00:07:19]:
Yeah, that's only one hour, right? I mean, look, I will tell you this. Early on in your career you're going to be doing a ton more prospecting and outbound than as the book of business grows, you'll do more and more account management. So I tell everybody, like in your early days, if you're building a territory from scratch, what I just described there, you're going to be doing that for probably six to seven hours a day, let's not kid ourselves, because you're going to be out there winning business. And once the business starts coming in, that's where if you're doing 360, you might be doing more fulfillment. You have to do more account management, AKA more keeping your current clients happy and like kind of building that moat to around the account because as we know, there's always someone out there trying to take your business. And if you're not building that moat around already established relationships and accounts, you could end up losing it as well. So I don't know if that exactly answers it, but I would say early on your stage you're going to be doing BD for most of the day and that could be using LinkedIn. That could be hell.

Keely Flood [00:08:14]:
I still go and do in person drops. I know it's kind of out of vogue, it's been for a while now. But you go on site, drop off your business card and do something fun, you'd be surprised the amount of positive reactions you get because no one, no one's even doing that anymore. Like, I'm a big believer in dominating the local market first of where you're in and then looking to expand nationally from there.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:34]:
I want to dig on this like market mapping. So you're sitting there, let's take this a few steps back. And as somebody just starting out, either a brand new desk, brand new territory, or whatever business they had this year, they just wait, crinkled it up, tossed it away and they're like, you know what? I'm starting brand new. When I'm looking at market mapping, what should I be doing first?

Keely Flood [00:08:53]:
Who's your icp? Like, you gotta start there. Who is it you like best serve or want to serve? Right. Because maybe you came from an accounting and finance background and you want to do it for whatever reason. I'm just making this up. But ultimately, like, who is your ideal client profile? Because whoever that is will guide all the following actions you're going to take from that point. Let's just say hypothetically, right here in Chicago there's a big med device and biotech, because I was in life sciences, there's a big scene around that. So how do I narrow that down? Right? Am I going for 5 to 25 million revenue companies in the med device space in Chicago? Because that would be my icp. And then from there I have to go out and find the accounts that actually fit that icp.

Keely Flood [00:09:36]:
Next they have to then figure out who in the accounts I'm actually going to reach out to because that is the market mapping parts. One thing to know the accounts, I didn't know who the decision makers. And it's more than one. I think a lot of people overlook this step. They think, oh, you know, I do quality engineers, I'll reach out to hr, for example. Can't get a hold of the end. It's like, no, no, no, no. There's a lot of people within the decision and buying process in each account.

Keely Flood [00:09:59]:
And if I ask you, do you know who all the players are? If the answer is no, it means you need to go back and find out the answer. So you should be able to understand every single decision maker, from the manager to the director to the VP to the CEO. Because in today's day and age, there's more and more buyers being involved in the buying process. And the other thing too, I like to tell people, is knowing all those names. Each one of those is an opportunity to generate a conversation that could lead to getting a contract in New business. It's like playing baseball, right. If you go to the plate one time and strike out and never go to the plate again, it's like, are you a bad hitter? I don't know. Right.

Keely Flood [00:10:33]:
But you want many at bats and by having more and more people to reach out to, you get more at bats at the plate, which leads to better things. Opportunities to hit home runs, singles, doubles. Right. I'm about a baseball kick because the Cubs started their season off just like a little bit about me was watching those early morning games. Didn't go so well for him. But hey, it is baseball season now here in Chicago.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:51]:
What's the Cubs?

Keely Flood [00:10:52]:
The Chicago Cubs.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:53]:
What are they?

Keely Flood [00:10:53]:
They're, you know, they're like a historically bad branch tribe. But we did have that one year, you know, years ago now at this point, 2016. So maybe I'll see another championship in my lifetime, but at least I saw one.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:05]:
Okay, so we've talked about market mapping, but let's take it a few steps back. Let's just say, you know, not everybody's had a great industry. The industry's falling apart. We'll just throw an example out there. My industry got dosed.

Keely Flood [00:11:16]:
Okay, fair, fair.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:18]:
You know, what should I be doing? Like, where should I be potentially looking at, like picking back up or maybe just going somewhere else?

Keely Flood [00:11:26]:
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the hardest questions I get is, hey, Keely, my industry is not doing well. Should I pivot? And I always say the best way I would go about doing this is go back to your current clients regardless if you're hiring or not. Right. So again, I'll make up a story here around why I think this is helpful. So I'm working with someone one on one capacity. And he's had experience working with manufacturing companies, construction companies. There's one other one I'm blanking on. But like three different industries.

Keely Flood [00:11:54]:
Right. His success though most of the time was accounting and finance in the manufacturing space. He was able to pick up a few construction clients here or there. Let's just say everything shut down in both those areas. In the accounting and finance space, I would go back to my clients and say, hey, look, I know you're not hiring in the department I usually work in, but I know you have some IT roles. Right. You've had some great experience working with me. I'm not going to sit here and promise that I'm have a candidate by tomorrow.

Keely Flood [00:12:17]:
But you know, the quality of work I bring to the table based on our years of working together. Give me A shot on some of those roles because it's a lot easier to go to those pre existing relationships because they're willing to take a chance on you, right? Because it is a chance to give you a role that you don't continually work in day over day. But if you've done a good enough job in the beginning with them, they're willing to give you a shot if you set proper expectations versus if you go out to the market and you say, well, man, you know, I got doge, or the government's not going, well, I'm gonna try this whole construction thing. You go to a construction company, they go, awesome, Ben, who do you work with? You go, well, nobody, right? They're like, why would we trust you then? We don't know who you are. You just admitted you've never worked within the construction space. Why would I choose you over the hundreds of other recruiters that have been in this space the last five years? Versus if you go to your preexisting clients, you build up those success stories, right? Let's say they give you the opportunity to work on that IT role. You place it, they give you a testimonial, and there's this positive flywheel that occurs because you could take that story to market. So the next person who says, hey, who do you work with? You point to that client, you win them over, and you've got another success story.

Keely Flood [00:13:22]:
And there's this whole positive flywheel that starts to occur when you do that, in addition to building the confidence up too. Because let's not kid ourselves. Going into new industry is terrifying, right? You're like, I gotta learn all these new things, I gotta learn these new technologies. I gotta learn different buyer Personas, whatever it is. But as you start building success, the confidence starts to pick up and the prospects you reach out to later on start to like, feel and see that confidence as well, you know?

Benjamin Mena [00:13:48]:
And let's take it one more step further. The whole industry got dosed. Sure. And I actually have to go like, look at the construction industry and overcome the, hey, you've never. Which I have done construction stuff in Afghanistan. But anyways, I've never done construction recruiting or pretend I've never done construction recruiting. How do I overcome that. That barrier where they're like, yeah, like, I got Dante's firm across work with you.

Keely Flood [00:14:10]:
Yeah. Question. So maybe a cheap answer again, but. And it's a cliche saying, right? But your network is your net worth. They say, I would almost guarantee some of the people you've worked with have Some sort of connection to other people in the industry. Right. Like I'll use myself, for example. I was prospecting into a small little startup the other day.

Keely Flood [00:14:30]:
I came across a sales manager's name. You had a last name I kind of recognized. I was like, wait a minute. I knew of someone named Sean by that last name at a company I worked at called adp. I reached out to Sean. Turns out that person is Sean's brother. So now Sean is making me an introduction to the sales manager to help for an AE role they have open right now. But it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone back to my network and said, hey, can you help me out here? So that's like one of the first places I start.

Keely Flood [00:14:53]:
Because referrals are worth their weight in gold. If someone refers you over or copies you on email or says, hey, so and so is going to reach out to you on your behalf, the likelihood of that closing, and they've done studies, but it's like over 50 some percent. So that's one of the. I would say the best ways to go about doing it is go still back to your network and see who they know. Because ultimately I think people still want to help other people. And if you've got a good relationship, you've done a good job for them, they want to help you out, they want to see you succeed. So that simple ask could lead to big things.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:23]:
I feel like I also need to go clean up my network. I feel like every recruiter's network is also chaos. Like, how do you clean that up?

Keely Flood [00:15:30]:
Well, I mean, one, you can export all your LinkedIn connections if you want to do it through Excel. I'm more of a visual person. So I literally this week was scrolling through 10 different pages of my network and seeing people I knew and the connections they had and asking for introductions that way. Because sometimes, like, and people aren't going to love to hear this, sometimes it just comes down to putting in the work, right? There's tools.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:50]:
Ah. Why are you trying to say that? Because the AI tool is going to save the day.

Keely Flood [00:15:55]:
I mean, I wish AI tools could save the day, but they don't and can't right now. As far as I'm concerned, like, at the end of the day, the sweat equity you put in is what can make the difference between you being successful or not. Because there's a lot of people out there looking for shortcuts. They're looking for the quick fix, the easy way out, and they're not seeing success immediately. So they quit. On the other side, there's someone like me who maybe I'm not the world's greatest salesperson, maybe I'm the world's greatest speaker, whatever it is. But like, I will outwork you and I will last longer than you, which, that alone will differentiate me from you when it comes down to winning new business.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:32]:
Okay, let's go back to this work thing.

Keely Flood [00:16:34]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:35]:
Like, what kind of KPIs does it take to succeed as a recruiter?

Keely Flood [00:16:41]:
So it's a big question. I'll try to break it down into like smaller parts for people that then like self analyze because there's different standards depending on what you're doing. Right. If you're an executive headhunter, you may only want to get five to 10 placements a year to hit your goal. If you're in the staffing and recruiting world, where it's high volume, 5 to 10 is not going to cut it. Right. So ultimately I think what everyone needs to do is self evaluate and say, how many meetings does it take to get a contract in place? Because what we're about to do is we're going to work backwards from here. Right.

Keely Flood [00:17:13]:
So how many meetings does it take to get a contract in place? And then how many outbound activities does it take to get one meeting? If I know those two data points from talking to somebody, I can then, as anyone can extrapolate what you need to do next week in order to start hitting the goals you set for yourself from a revenue perspective. But if you don't know those numbers, if you're not sure, I tell everybody, start at least 25 to 35 outreaches per day. You just have to do it like start there and see if you can scale up from that point and see what success you have over the course of four to five weeks. Right. Some people are really good at messaging. Right. They're great at writing emails, maybe they're great at cold calling. They may have a high conversion rate and they don't have to increase their numbers.

Keely Flood [00:17:55]:
They're already on track. Others might not. Right. And I was in the not camp. And I'm not ashamed to admit that, like I was early in my career not a great salesperson. The only way I was successful was just putting in more and more effort and more and more time to get better at my craft. Because a lot of people, they don't want to do the necessary again, back to the baseball effort, the necessary bats to be successful. And sometimes you just got to just, you just got to suck at the job.

Keely Flood [00:18:19]:
For a while. But if you're willing to, like, keep pushing and keep persevering, you will be successful long term, provided you have that growth mindset of, I'm always trying to learn, I'm always trying to get better, and I'm always willing to show up the next day and put in the work.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:33]:
Do you see a lot of times where people in your analysis, I don't want to say lied to themselves, but they've lied to themselves on what they think they've done versus what they've actually done?

Keely Flood [00:18:43]:
Oh, 100%. That ties in directly to the question I asked earlier to, like, a group of four people there this week. I said, what is your meeting goal for the week? And people, like, couldn't even give me a straight answer on that. I'm like, okay, guys, like, if we don't even know what our meeting goal is, how can we ever get to where we want to do go from? Revenue goal? Because, as I said, like, I can count on one hand the amount of times I ever got an inbound lead and got a wreck and never had to even meet the person they'd, like, signed off in the car. Yeah, I'll pay you 25. Like, here's an engineer. We'll work on it. Like, I don't need to meet with you.

Keely Flood [00:19:11]:
Like, cool, here you go. I trust you. It's like that almost never happens. You have to meet people face to face. You have to go on meetings. So, like, don't lie to yourself and feel like, oh, I'm doing enough. Don't have rocking horse syndrome. I know a little bit off a tangent, but rocking syndrome is.

Keely Flood [00:19:25]:
Imagine yourself on a rocking horse, right? A lot of movement is happening. You're not going anywhere. You're just sitting there. You're just. You're like, it feels like I'm doing stuff right. And people fall in this trap of I'm busy versus I'm productive. They're very different. People that are busy are stuck on a rocking horse.

Keely Flood [00:19:39]:
They feel like they're doing a lot, but they're not going anywhere. The people that are productive, they're the people who have a plan in place. They execute on it, and they're actually going places. They're the one who's on a horseback, and they're. I mean, for lack of a better term, they're running past your ass because you're sitting there, hey, I'm busy. Like, I'm doing stuff. Like, you're not, though. You're just being busy and you're lying to yourself about what you're actually accomplishing.

Keely Flood [00:19:58]:
You're not being productive in the recruiting space.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:01]:
What are the biggest catches of the. The busyness that recruiters don't realize that they are.

Keely Flood [00:20:07]:
You could definitely fall into the prospecting. Prospecting sl. Planning trap, Right? And I know. I'm like, we just talked about that for the last, like, 20 minutes. Right? You have to do those things. Like, yes, you do. But once you start, like, formulating a plan and have some prospecting, you have to put action. Like, don't fall in the trap of feeling, oh, I just had a great planning day.

Keely Flood [00:20:25]:
It's like, yeah, I'm cool with you doing that. Like, once a quarter, you set out your plan. Because I talk a lot about, like, account, focus, stock, and, like, having a plan by each account. Like, once that day has been put aside and you have that plan mapped out, spend the next 89 days executing on that plan. Don't sit there every day thinking, oh, I've been really productive because I researched the last seven hours. It's like, you can't do that every day. You have to take action. And you have to take action more so than you take planning.

Keely Flood [00:20:50]:
Once the plan's in place, just get out there and start putting the plan into action. And then the other thing, shiny objects in which I always talk like people, myself included. Look, there's a new tool that comes out every single day, and I go down the rabbit holes. I'm like, oh, this could be cool for my business. Let me look into it. And I'm like, well, there's 20 minutes I just wasted during a time that I should have just said, oh, this look cool. Let me do it during B time. I'll put it off on the side.

Keely Flood [00:21:14]:
I'll come back to it later. That's another trick of, I was busy, but I didn't move the needle in terms of growing my revenue or winning new clients.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:22]:
I think that's like, I used to be an app sumo junkie.

Keely Flood [00:21:25]:
A what? Appsumo. Oh, yeah, man. I still get those emails. I got a couple things from there, but I need to turn off those emails because, yeah, if it catches your attention, I know where you're going with this. If it catches your attention, I will blow 30 minutes to an hour because I opened that damn email and now it's.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:41]:
You know, appsumo used to be the thing. Like, you know, I love appsumo, like, instantly the email software.

Keely Flood [00:21:47]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:47]:
I got that on appsumo.

Keely Flood [00:21:49]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:50]:
Most of my podcasting SaaS I've Gotten on appsumo, but I feel like the new Appsumo is every single recruiting tech. I feel like there's a new one coming every single day.

Keely Flood [00:21:58]:
Yep. And that's, again, that's a mistake. Like, I think a lot of people, they look to tools to help them with their strategy and really they need to map out what their strategy is first and then look for tools to supplement or enhance areas that they're already doing, doing. And like, one of my favorite things I always point out to people is, look, if you hand me a paintbrush, I will draw you stick figures. If you hand Michelangelo a paintbrush, he'll draw yourself. He'll draw you to Sistine Chapel. The tool's the same. It's the person using it and the skills they have that make all the difference.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:30]:
Where should a recruiter even be thinking about AI then? Even though I talk about AI all the freaking time.

Keely Flood [00:22:35]:
Yeah. I mean, one of the best places I've like personally used AI is doing some of the heavy lifting when it comes to like researching. Right. So if anyone has access to like deep research or the operator part of Chat GPT, you can do some really cool stuff with some props where it'll prospect into these accounts for you and provide you a really detailed explanation of the company, of the key players within it, of like potential openings. Right. There's a lot of stuff you can do on the back end side of things. Right. And that's where I think AI has its most value, is its ability to take all this data, give it to me, the user, right.

Keely Flood [00:23:15]:
And then I go out to market with it and use it in my outreach. Because again, going back to what I think are the two biggest drivers, talking to kids and talking to clients, slash, prospects like that still should be handled by me, myself. And I, I don't want AI doing it. The amount of terrible AI emails I get every day or AI LinkedIn messages, like, everyone can spot that a mile away now, your prospects included. So they see that and they're just like, they immediately ignore you. Right. Let me do it. I spent 10 minutes this morning crafting up one single email.

Keely Flood [00:23:45]:
But it was a well thought out, well written bunch of data. Like, we'll see if they respond back, but I know immediately when they open that they know it's not been written by AI. I was able to craft that well drafted email because I let AI do all the research. That would have taken me an hour to figure out all this data points. And I was able to write an email in 10 minutes off of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:02]:
But, like, you know, it's one of those things. Like, at the moment, one of the challenges is a lot of the rec tech that has AI built baked into it is great.

Keely Flood [00:24:11]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:12]:
But there's a lot of promise on what's going to happen in the future. And I know, like, everybody wants to kind of stay ahead of the curve, but I feel like some of this stuff is just like, too complex for the normal recruiter.

Keely Flood [00:24:22]:
Yeah, I mean, 100%. Like, I wish I had the exact data too, but someone did a study just around, like, the use of, let's just say Chat gbt because it's one of the most used AI tools out there. Most users are asking chat GBT like, what's a dinner recipe? Like, what's a good movie recommendation? Like, they're asking it, like, silly basic level stuff. So I always think, yes, there's some really cool things you could do with AI, but for most of the user base, they're still at like, the basic levels, so you don't have to, like, freak out thinking, oh my gosh, AI. Like, I have to be on top of. It's like, most people aren't anyways. Figure out a few areas that it can help do some heavy lifting for you, but then ultimately get back to the basics of driving conversations with clients and prospects. I can't harp on this enough.

Keely Flood [00:25:05]:
You do that enough times, you will be successful. It's almost impossible not to be successful if you're going on meetings, even if you're failing. Right? Because guess what? Failure is the greatest teacher. Anyways, you go on these Discovery meetings, you don't do well, you learn from it. And then the next Discovery meeting, you're a little bit better, and the next one you're a little bit better. And it goes back to again just getting the reps over and over again because that's how you improve. You don't learn from just reading a book or buying a course or working even with, like a coach. Right.

Keely Flood [00:25:33]:
Like, you have to still go out and do it yourself. And a lot of people, I think, are apprehensive of going out and failing, and that's okay. Like, you have to accept the fact you're going to fail more times than you're going to win. Like, that's what you sign up for in recruiting, especially in the sales side. If you are a salesperson, you are signing up to being a failure, which is weird to say, but ultimately you have to accept you will fail a lot more times than you will succeed once you are okay. With that fact. It really lifts a weight off your shoulder where you're cool going out there and learning from those failures and getting better.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:10]:
So when it comes to the short amount of time recruiters have, should it be focused like just on the actual, you know, the, the KPIs of recruiting and not like getting lost in like make.com agents, N8N agents and Clay?

Keely Flood [00:26:27]:
Yeah, because like again, those tools are, are. They're cool and all, but they're not going to close me deals, they're not going to run discovery meetings for me, they're not going to run cold calls for me, even though I know there's some softwares out there. Like, I think you even did a post recently you said you weren't even impressed by the cold call AI agents out there. I, I've called into places that are using AI jints or gotten to myself. Not impressed. They're not, they're just not there yet. So if you're sitting around waiting for your white, you know, the white knight and shining armor, AKA these tools, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. You still have to go out there and put in the work and improve yourself.

Keely Flood [00:27:01]:
And yeah, maybe one day AI can do a lot more and they'll make us more efficient. I mean, it already has, but like, maybe they'll be able to do some things. I'm saying right now it can't. I'm not waiting around for that. Like, I, I don't have time to wait around for the tools to help me out. I need to go out and make myself better and I'll find spots where the tools can enhance what I'm already doing.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:19]:
And you, like, I know you, we were talking about this offline, but like, it sounds like you're on a mission to also like, do some of this stuff without some of these AI tools.

Keely Flood [00:27:33]:
Yeah, I am actually. Because I can't tell you the amount of like, horror stories I've heard over the last month or two from people that have fallen in the trap of buying something that was billed as the world's greatest tool for a bd. Right. Whether it's clay, which again, I think clay is great. It's a very cool tool, can do some really cool things. I'm not putting my entire BD strategy on it. I'm also not putting my BD strategy into the hands of somebody else that's a Legion agency, because they're going out there and they're finding, they're buying these tools and they're finding out it's just not working. And ultimately I've worked with people that have had a cell phone, LinkedIn sales nav and an Excel doc and they build 100k months as a solo producer.

Keely Flood [00:28:19]:
So like, don't sit here and tell me these tools are needed to make your business successful. It's just not true. That's an excuse. You're telling yourself what you get is a plan in place 100k months, one tools. Do they have a phone, LinkedIn and an Excel doc? That's it.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:35]:
What was their KPIs and stuff like that to hit the hundred K?

Keely Flood [00:28:38]:
Yeah. So we started working together in October and over the course of like three months we a blend of using LinkedIn multichannel outreach. But going back to what I said in the beginning of the call was 25 to 30 outreaches a day. And she was doing this consistently over and over again. She started having more and more conversations. She started getting in front of the right people, she started signing them and she went from at that point in October, she was about 100k on track for a little over 100k for the year. And like I said, fast forward to January of this year. She did 100k in one month.

Keely Flood [00:29:09]:
She actually got so busy that she went into discovery meetings and told them it's retained or the highway. And literally she's like, I'm not taking you on unless you agree to retain because I'm too busy to waste my time with contingent right now. And she signed two retained clients off of that too. So it goes back to the confidence piece I was talking about as well. She was confident enough in her pipeline or book of business. She actually overhauled some of her discovery meetings to where she went in and said, hey, this is what I do. This is how I operate. This is how if you want to work with me, you have to sign up on this retained model.

Keely Flood [00:29:37]:
And they said, yeah, sure, let's do it. And they did.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:40]:
In this market, like, you know, how did she get? Like some people are struggling.

Keely Flood [00:29:46]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:47]:
But she's like sitting there like almost trying to push away business.

Keely Flood [00:29:51]:
Yeah. In the tech space, nonetheless.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:53]:
In the tech space.

Keely Flood [00:29:54]:
Yeah. Construction tech specifically. But yes, in the tech space, she is crushing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:00]:
Is there any other things that she did or just. She actually just built the plan that or you guys put together a plan. She actually did it.

Keely Flood [00:30:07]:
Yeah. I mean when it comes down to it. Yeah, she just did it. Right. She also, like I did post about this recently, there's two kind of things. I'll go with this One, her mindset, she has a growth mindset, right. She's always out there trying to learn and improve. And the other side and this posted the other day, I called it fitfo, which is figure it the blank out, right? That mindset, if you just fig, if you're just willing to go in there, like, I'm going to figure this out, you will find ways to be successful.

Keely Flood [00:30:33]:
So when she like hit Roblox, she didn't say like, oh, whoa, it was me, it was okay, this didn't work. I'm going to figure out a different way, right? I'm going to find a way to win this client over. I'm going to find a way to fill this damn wreck. I'm going to find a way to have this tough conversation, right? Ultimately, she got it done and she was successful because of those two mindsets, if you ask me. In addition to, of course, having plans, having cadences, like putting together the plan, slash executing on it led to the month that she had.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:02]:
Did she have like, you know, templates built up or was everything like custom written per person?

Keely Flood [00:31:08]:
Yeah, I mean, we worked on some templates, like we created some like email outreach, but a lot of it came down to just executing on proper account research, understanding her buyer Persona, right? Going back to that ICP and understanding like the pains and challenges about her space. Like, she's so knowledgeable about the construction tech space, specifically within like the sales departments. That's a lot of roles she did. She had hiring managers asking her, what should we be paying these people? Like, what does a good compensation plan look like? How do we do interview? Like, what's a good interview process look like? She was the go to person for these people because she, you know, she presented herself as the consultant for hiring sales reps in the construction tech space and they loved her for it because they looked to her for guidance. And talk about a position of authority to get yourself into that point where they're saying like, ah, is this a good salary for a sales rep? Like, what should we do for bonus plans? I don't know. She's able to answer those stuff. So who do you think they're going to want to work with moving forward?

Benjamin Mena [00:32:09]:
There we go. I love that.

Keely Flood [00:32:12]:
Yeah. I mean again, she put in the reps though too, right? Like, I just cannot harp on that enough. Like, she put in the reps to put herself in the position to be the successful. And I mean she's, she, she'll hit a half a million dollars this year, like guaranteed.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:30]:
That is awesome. And Definitely. Like we're pretty early in the year too.

Keely Flood [00:32:33]:
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean again, like when you start off the year six figures, the very first month, like you've definitely signed yourself up for some long term success. It also helped getting some retained clients. And she's never stopped building her pipeline. Right. That's the other thing too. A lot of people, when the going gets good, they take their foot off the gas.

Keely Flood [00:32:52]:
From a prospecting perspective, don't ever do that. You cannot. There's no guarantee. Like you might as your point, as you said, you might get doged, right? If you're sitting there thinking like, hey, I'm all set. I've got all these clients I'm projecting for half a million, a million dollars, Everything's great, gone. One phone call out the door and you're sitting there going, well, my pipeline's empty. Like no one wants to be in that spot. And I speak from my own experience where I've had clients half a million dollars more projected.

Keely Flood [00:33:20]:
They called me up, the end, we're done. We lost our biggest client. You just lost your biggest client. That's a hard lesson to learn. But if you're not abp, right, Always be prospecting. You're going to have some really tough times when things slow down.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:35]:
All right, so we got a few terminologies, just to recap. Okay. We have ABP stands for Always be Prospecting. And what was the fif. Was it five?

Keely Flood [00:33:46]:
Figure it the out.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:48]:
Yeah, and then we have 30. 30, 30. What does that stand for again?

Keely Flood [00:33:52]:
Yeah, for like outreach time. Right. Block off like 30 minutes throughout the week. Like, hey, I'm a block off 30 minutes here. And within those 30 minutes I'll do 10 manual emails. And then the next 30 minutes I'll do 10 linked invoice notes. In the next 30 minutes, I'll do 10 cold calls. Right.

Keely Flood [00:34:06]:
It's really just a clever way of disguising up the Pomodoro technique and just saying, hey, blocking off these things and focus on one single activity. Don't go from cold calling one minute to email the next minute to LinkedIn voice notes the third. And I'm not a psychologist by any means, but I have read enough to know doing that triggers different parts of your brain to work. And that context switching from one activity to another is actually detrimental to your efficiency and success. Because they've done studies like context switching. It takes your brain 20 some minutes to get back into the, the groove, so to speak. So if you block off 30 minutes, right, of only that activity it allows your brain to focus on just one thing and get really good during that period and then take a little bit of break and then do the next thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:49]:
And then we have the five. Five. 50.

Keely Flood [00:34:51]:
Yeah, 50 minutes every week. Like, this is going back to like the abp, right? It really ties in this, if we're going for full circle here of like the systematic recruiter approach. 50 minutes every week you block off to find five accounts and define five names in it that you're going to reach out to. Because if you force yourself to do that every week, you're always going to be prospecting because it forces you to do that. So if and when your biggest client says, hey, we're done with you, you get there and say, well, that stinks. But I've been prospecting for the last four months in this account. I'm about to sign the deal with them. It'll replace this big account I just lost.

Keely Flood [00:35:22]:
I'm not even losing sleep over it because this half a million dollar account went away. I've got another half a million dollar account coming into the fold right now. I'm in a good spot.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:29]:
Last question before we jump over to quick fire questions. What if a recruiter doesn't know what the fuck they want to do with their icp? Like, they don't know where they want to go digging.

Keely Flood [00:35:37]:
Like, they can't even, like, tell me who their ICP is?

Benjamin Mena [00:35:40]:
I mean, they could probably tell you, like, what they do, but what if it's not, like, what they want to do? Like, how do you really zero in on, like, where to dig?

Keely Flood [00:35:47]:
Yeah, I mean, I read it recently too, and I really liked how it was phrased. Right. So there's a lot of industries that could use recruiting services, like, basically all of them. Right. As you look at yourself, when you go and prospect, what industry do you lose yourself in in terms of time? Because if that industry, let's just say again, going back to, like, maybe you're an accounting and finance guy, but whenever you prospect into Med Device or IT or construction companies, the time flies by and you really enjoy it. Well, that tells me is you have a passion for that space. And that passion can take you places. Right? Because when time comes, when it sucks, you're still excited to want to work in that industry, to push through some of that adversity.

Keely Flood [00:36:28]:
Now, again, passion doesn't get you everywhere. I can't harp on enough. Right. Plans in place still help because at the end of the day, we don't rise to our passions. Right. We fall to our systems. That's just like a little tweak on James Clear quote. But if you have a passion about a space, like lean into it more and more.

Keely Flood [00:36:43]:
I'll use myself an example. I've sold life sciences. I could do med device, food and beverage, pharma, biotech. I really like the med device space. I like got lost in the processing of those accounts, talking to those managers. And I kept doing more and more business in that space because I was excited to show up to the next day to work to learn about like the new technologies, the new products. And it made my job easier and more fun. So I don't know if that exactly answers it, but you could use AI too, if you wanted to help from an ICP side of things.

Keely Flood [00:37:09]:
I mean, there's a bunch of prompts out there if anyone needs them, like, reach out to me directly. I'm happy to share some prompts that'll help, like refine your ICP and even take it a few steps further. But I guess to answer your questions, it is lean into like your passion because it will make this job better.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:23]:
And real quick. Before we jump over to quickfire questions, you had that spreadsheet available that people that she built 100k months on?

Keely Flood [00:37:30]:
Yeah. The systematic recruiter blueprint. Yeah, I created it. So she used it. And I. Thanks to you. Right. The last talk I was with the summit back in January.

Keely Flood [00:37:38]:
I talked about it. I had quite a few people reach out to me and ask about it and people loved it so much, I was like, do you should just charge for this? So I created a full little mini course around this entire document that people have loved. It's helped them refine their icp. Because I walk through in the video format, like how to do this stuff. I've got AI prompts included with it. It helps you create that plan we've been talking about for the last, whatever, 40 minutes now when it comes to like target accounts, account focus, knowing your numbers, all that stuff is completely added into this thing because I want to make this as much as like plug and play as possible. Because I got into the business that I'm doing now with the goal of helping as many recruiters as I possibly can. And I realize, right, hiring a coach and consultant, it's not cheap and it shouldn't be, to be quite frank, but if I can help people with some of these, like little mini courses I'm creating, I'm going to do it because I want to impact not only the person who's been in the industry for 20 years because people have bought it and love that.

Keely Flood [00:38:32]:
I want to impact the person that's been here for two months and who says, look, I want to be good at recruiting. I'm struggling in my current place. I need to figure out a plan, but I can't afford to pay. Whatever this is, what that type of stuff, they're meant to help you out. Because I was that person. I was struggling. I was looking for resources and ways to get better. And I was a person who was married with a kid, and I was making 30 grand a year when I started out.

Keely Flood [00:38:55]:
Like, I barely had enough money to pay for bills. Like, I was. I was the guy who was like, yeah, I got less than four digits in my bank account right now. And so having accessible information, that can be not a costly investment. It's important to me.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:08]:
Awesome. Speaking of that new recruiter that's been in recruiting for two months, quick fire questions, what advice, like, would you actually give them to have a successful career?

Keely Flood [00:39:17]:
I'm not going to say plan, because I've said that enough, but I am going to go back to the mindset side of things. Right? It is having the abl, right? Always be learning mindset. And that's another way of saying growth mindset. If you treat every day as a learning opportunity, you can be successful long term. If you come in with that fixed mindset where you say, like, oh, woe is me. It's the market, it's this, that, and the other, what that does, it closes you down from learning opportunities because you're placing the blame externally on something else. You're not learning from it. If I come in and say, hey, I screwed up, I can get better, that allows me to open it up to the feedback I'm getting from my bosses, from the market, from my prospects, from my candidates, and it allows me to improve.

Keely Flood [00:39:56]:
Like, ultimately, just lean into the discomfort. Like, I'm actually, the book's next to me. I've been rereading A Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, and he talks a lot about that. Like, there's a whole blurb about these people that learn new languages. And one of the key points they say is people that learn new languages quickly, they're not afraid to fail. They lean into the discomfort of being awkward trying to talk to someone in their native tongue. Like, that was a long winded answer. But that will make you successful.

Keely Flood [00:40:21]:
And that's what I'd say to anyone starting out. Like, have that growth mindset. It will serve you well long term.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:27]:
All right, so stop Being afraid to speak a language that I'm trying to learn.

Keely Flood [00:40:30]:
Okay, don't be afraid to fail, right? Like unfortunately, like a lot of people are and probably doesn't help with social media today. People are afraid to fail for the fear of what people will think about that. It's very unfortunate. But ultimately the only way to improve in life is to fail. It's to get out there and fail and get better because that's how you learn new skills and improve upon them.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:49]:
All right, let's same question about the old dog been in the space.

Keely Flood [00:40:53]:
The old dog, I mean again I could say always be learning because the industry's always changing. That's a cop out answer I guess. But I mean the old dog, honestly though I, I still would say ABL because you talk to the people that industry for a long time and they say one of the most dreaded terms of all time which is, well, that's the way we've always done it. That's awful. That to me, I hear that, I'm like oh cool, status quo. That's the people. It's always they've done it. That means they're not open to new approaches.

Keely Flood [00:41:19]:
They have a fixed mindset. So I would say the same person that's just starting out to 20 years, like always be learning, always be looking to improve and always be okay with failing. Like leaning into that discomfort.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:31]:
Since we've talked about the tech tools, we've talked about AI, we've talked about how like the shiny object is probably hurting your career. Do you still have a favorite tech tool?

Keely Flood [00:41:44]:
A favorite tech tool I use, I use cloud AI, I use chat GPT. I buy those plans to one mess around with them because to your point, right. I still shiny up Anderson myself with like every new model. I'm like let's try out this new thing. But they are, they are great tools to do some of the heavy lifting and some of the boring stuff I don't want to do. Right. I don't want to like spend the 20, 30 minutes processing into a full account. If I could just drop it in chat GBT and let it do it myself and send me the report.

Keely Flood [00:42:12]:
I love doing that. So I know it's a cop out answer but those are two of my favorite tools. May also post a lot on LinkedIn. I use those tools to help with my writing as well. Both my content I put on LinkedIn but also my writing that I can send out to prospects and candidates as well. You'd be amazed at like some of the feedback you get, if you prompted the right way and drop it in, it gives you some of the strength and weaknesses where I can say, okay, I could tweak this. I make this a little better before I put it out in the world. It's almost like having your own editor.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:38]:
Is there a tool that you see a lot of people getting the most lost with?

Keely Flood [00:42:42]:
Hmm. Oh, man. I feel like I'd be disparaging tools then, though. Okay, let's not.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:48]:
We'll skip this one then. Okay.

Keely Flood [00:42:49]:
No, no, I mean, I'll say it because as we've talked about offline too, right? Like, I think clay right now is the biggest, like, quicksand tool out there because it builds itself as this automated tool that can do all these things. One, you'd be amazed how quickly you can burn credits, which is money down the drain, right? You and I, we laugh because we've talked about it, but like, you could burn money real fast using clay because it seems like, oh, it's only a couple of credits. Like, yeah, but it goes fast and your credits are gone. And just like that, you're out hundreds of dollars. The other thing too, I call it like quicksand or fool's Gold, is because people look to clay as the answer to their BD problem. They see these people posting on LinkedIn like, oh, we have these like clay templates and it's automate looks all fancy, it's cool. It's all that stuff. Like, honestly, I don't give a shit.

Keely Flood [00:43:38]:
At the end of the day, I need to figure out how do I have conversations with candidates and prospects. I don't need 27 different steps of identifying unique website visitors. I run through this. I enrich this, I do this, automate this, like I don't care. At the end of the day, I'm talking to the person, the person is talking to me. It's still a human to human job we're in and industry are in. So don't fall into the clay trap of it'll solve all your BD problems, because it won't. So there you go.

Keely Flood [00:44:05]:
That's my honest opinion. Like, I was, I was about to skirt that one, but I just, I can't, I can't help it anymore. I'm sick and tired of jumping on LinkedIn and seeing people who are these clagencies who have never worked a day in recruiting, selling fool's gold to people who are wasting money on something that will never fix their problems because they're trying to build a mansion on top of quicksand. They're not putting together the foundation, the sales strategy, the plan, and they're thinking Clay is going to come in and be there, know knight and shiny armor. It's not. It just won't.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:35]:
Favorite book?

Keely Flood [00:44:36]:
Favorite book. I mean, I said it like I'm rereading Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. I think last time was on your said challenger sale. But the whole book itself is just around. It's around like team performance. It's around like learning. And it really, I mean, Mark Cuban like says it best. He basically says like every coach, teacher, parent, kid, everyone should read this book because it really opens your eyes around how potential is built.

Keely Flood [00:45:02]:
It's not just there, right? It's like going back to like the God given abilities of like athletes and stuff. We all look at people like LeBron James and say, well, he's just so gifty, six foot six or whatever. It's like that man has put in work over the last 20 some years, right? And he's put in millions of dollars, countless hours of work in the gym, outside of the gym to be successful. It wasn't just God given potential and ability. He had to refine it. And this book kind of echoes that point as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:28]:
So this is gonna be for you and your coaching business. Like, you know, it's been a year and a half since we've had a conversation. I know, like, we have conversations a few times a month. But if you can go back in time to talk to yourself early, your coaching business with everything that you know now, what advice would you go back and give yourself?

Keely Flood [00:45:46]:
Oh man, that's a good one. Honestly, I would say, like, hey, don't be afraid to go after the bigger fish, right? Like, I think early on, even to this day, there's times where I have imposter syndrome. And I think I said earlier, like, I had dinner with someone who runs a $20 million firm and it was just a casual dinner, right? And I'm sitting here, I was nervous as hell to go to it. I'm like, what? Like, if he brings up business, like, how am I ever going to help out someone who's been this successful running their staffing firm? And within the first 10 minutes of talking through stuff, we were able to like overhaul some of his internal processes. Like, again, I don't know if he actually did it. It was just advice. But like, his eyes were open to some of the coaching points I was able to provide. And I know when I first started out, I thought to myself, like, who am I to like tell somebody how to run their business that's been this successful.

Keely Flood [00:46:30]:
I should have just trusted myself in what I was doing. And also understand there's people out there that just because they have money doesn't mean they have it all figured out.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:39]:
You talk to a lot of recruiters, you get a lot of questions. What's the perfect template? Can you help me write this perfect email structure?

Keely Flood [00:46:47]:
What should I do for my day?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:48]:
What should I do for my day? Yeah, what's the question that you would actually wish they would ask you? And what's that answer?

Keely Flood [00:46:54]:
Hmm. What do I wish they would ask me? Like? And that's one of the hardest questions I've gotten. I would say I wish they would ask me. And maybe it's geared towards myself too, but it's like they should ask, like, hey, how are high performers? How do they get to where they're at? Because a lot of people, I think, look at high performers and they only see the successful part of things. Like, oh, wow, things are going so well for them. And a lot of people don't ask what it looked like in the beginning. They don't do, like, an apples to apples comparison. They look at the high performer, who they are today, and they don't go back and look at who they were when they first started out.

Keely Flood [00:47:27]:
Because I can almost guarantee every high performer out there struggled in the beginning. Like, no one, like, walks into this industry. Day one is successful. Like, you might have some success, don't get me wrong. But over the course of time, things will go poorly for you. You'll have bad quarters, you may even have bad years. But the high performers, the ones that keep showing up, they have that ABL mindset and they're willing to, like, persevere to get back to the good times. So, yeah, I guess that'd be.

Keely Flood [00:47:54]:
My question is like, hey, what? How did high performers get to where they were at? Because a lot of people, they just. They see the glitz and glam and think it's easy, and that's just a misnomer. It's not true. Like, even to this day, like, even with my own business, I'm sitting here and I do the same thing. I compare myself to other coaches. Jesus, they're so good. They're so great. Like, and I realized, like, keely, the person's been at for five years, 10 years, like, who knows who you're going to be 10 years from now? Maybe you are that person.

Keely Flood [00:48:17]:
Maybe you are as successful as they are. But at the end of the day, the only person you compare yourself is yourself, right? You have to continue to look to improve yourself over time and then look back and who you were a year and a half ago, right, to your point, like, who I was as a coaching year half ago is very different than who I am today. And that's who I really should be comparing and ultimately competing against is myself, because that's the only one. That's it. Like, I can only improve myself. I can't. I can't get to the level of some of these other coaches in one day, but I can be better than I was yesterday.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:47]:
And, you know, looking at it forward, where do you want to spend, like, the next few years helping recruiters?

Keely Flood [00:48:55]:
Oh, man. It's a timely question too, probably because we've talked about it. But I mean, like I said about the imposter syndrome side of things, like, I, I do want to start working with bigger and bigger firms because I'm realizing, like, the value I can bring, the way I can help out. And also, selfishly, I can impact more lives that way, right? I love working with the solo operas. That person that had the 100k month, like, I'm pumped for Sam, right? She's done amazing, like, her life this year and probably beyond. It's going to be better, a lot better because of less stress she has and all that stuff. But that's one person, right? I get to work with these firms. I can impact the lives of 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 people, right? And that's what actually excites me.

Keely Flood [00:49:35]:
It's the reason why I'm doing what I do. I love coaching. I love helping people, and I love helping people get to where they want to go. I mean, I'm a football coach by trade. I actually just now got back into coaching high school football. So, like, it's who I am. It's in my DNA. So the more and more people have an opportunity to coach and have a positive impact on their lives, more joy it brings to me, my business, my life.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:58]:
Love that. Well, for anybody that wants to follow you, Ailey, how do they go about doing that?

Keely Flood [00:50:02]:
LinkedIn. I'm on there posting every day. If you ever leave a comment, I'll make sure I'm not a big enough name where I don't respond to every comment. So I'll make sure. But like, send me a DM. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I've got a free newsletter if you ever want to check that out as well. But those are like my two main ways to stay on top of, like, what I'M doing, what I'm coaching and what I'm preaching.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:21]:
And secondly, is there anything else you want to share with the listeners before I let you go?

Keely Flood [00:50:25]:
I mean, this might be like a little bit too grandiose, but like, I do think, I think a lot of us came into this year, you know, the start of the year, calendar year, thinking like, hey, things will start turning around for the recruiting industry. And I even said that too. Like, I made a prediction, like, this year is going to be better, I think, because the last couple years have been, they've been tough, been really freaking hard, I still think. And while it isn't easy, like, it hasn't gone easy straight by any means, there's still business to be won. So, like, keep your head up. Everyone here is going to hit rough patches again. I, I speak only from my own personal experience, right? I've hit rough patches. If you keep persevering, you keep having that ABL mindset, like, I think long term you will be successful.

Keely Flood [00:51:03]:
And also, like, come if every day, like, ready to win the day again. I love cliches, but they work, right? Come ready to win the day. Like, attack the day, Come in with a plan, execute on a high level, and put your head down the pillow at night knowing you did everything you could that day to win. And then repeat that over and over again and you will be successful.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:22]:
Love that. Well, excited to have you back. I still can't believe it's been a year and a half. It's just kind of crazy where things have gone like in the past few years and so definitely excited about having this conversation again. But, you know, back to the original point of like, you know how we started off this episode, do not let Shiny object Syndrome, AKA the AI tool hunting, be the thing that stops you from having a successful year.

Keely Flood [00:51:44]:
Amen.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:45]:
So I want you to crush it. Go chase your dreams, go chase your goals. Put in the work, as Keely said, and make 2025 the best year ever. The Elite Recruit Podcast has multiple summits coming up that you need to make sure that you are registered for. We have the AI recruiting summit 2025 coming up. And on top of that, finish the year strong. These two summits are going to help you move the needle, help you achieve your goals, help you achieve your dreams, and make 2025 the year that you started out and you want it to be. Make sure you get registered and also stay tuned.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:17]:
Got something cooking for you guys. Working on another project that you guys are going to absolutely love. All right, see you guys at the summits and see you guys soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena.

Keely Flood [00:52:31]:
If you enjoyed hit, subscribe and leave a RA.