From Recruiter to CEO: Belinda Kerr's Blueprint for Scaling and Thriving in Business

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Belinda Kerr [00:00:03]:
My vision was always to grow. But. But having said that, I had no business plan. I had no like written down goals. My plan was just open it up, see how I go. If I don't have to go and get another job, I've made it.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:17]:
What other blind spots do you typically see with founders and people that are actually trying to grow that they just don't know that they don't know?

Belinda Kerr [00:00:25]:
Yeah. Such a good question. And there's so many.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:29]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter PODC 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. I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. My guest has sold her company twice. But here's the most important thing. We're going to talk about how to go from the recruiter seat, you as the recruiter doing the headhunting day in and day out to you becoming the founder. And then from being the founder. And when I talk about founder, I'm talking about most time a solopreneur and then talking into how to actually become the CEO of a team that is actually scaling, a team that is growing, a team that is like making things happen.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:17]:
Because it's a lot different being a recruiter to being a founder and then to a CEO. So, Belinda, I am so excited to have you on the podcast today.

Belinda Kerr [00:01:26]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:28]:
So real quick, before we get started, like quick 30 second introduction about yourself.

Belinda Kerr [00:01:33]:
Sure. So after launching and selling a couple of my own businesses, I started Recruitment Garage about eight years ago now with the idea of helping founders scale and grow their businesses. Some of them might want to exit. Most, to be honest, don't. And so now we help them. We help founders in America or in North America and APAC to increase their revenue, but not just that. Also free up their time and build businesses that are sustainable that they can actually enjoy that don't become like a noose around their, around their neck. And so that's the game we play in right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:03]:
Business that's enjoyable. That's like the, the number one thing that everybody wants that everybody dreams about. I know. I've been talking with some friends behind the scenes that like some of the things that we need to focus on in 2025 is building a business that works for you. So I absolutely love this. So before we even get started on that, how did you even end up in the wonderful world of recruiting.

Belinda Kerr [00:02:21]:
It's funny, everyone's got a story, haven't they? We never leave school saying, I'm going to become a recruiter. But I actually worked on the Sydney Morning Herald, which was a big paper here in the days when there was recruitment advertising in newspapers. Actually the print version that's showing up about my age. And it was like, you know, half a million dollars a week just coming in from recruitment advertising. And so I got exposed to the world there. And then I went off and did A season in the Snow and I was like late 20s. And then I came back and I thought, oh, this whole recruitment world seems kind of interesting. So I went for some interviews and landed a job as a recruiter and then sort of had a pretty typical journey from there into then leaving and founding my own businesses.

Belinda Kerr [00:03:00]:
So yeah, that was, that was how.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:02]:
I landed in it for people listening that have no clue about this kind of stuff. But companies were spending five or a half million dollars a week on print advertising.

Belinda Kerr [00:03:10]:
Recruiters were so not one company. That was a compilation. So we used to, I used to sell it in what they'd call egn, which was early general news, and the Sydney Morning Herald. And so every week it would, we'd say, we just open the window and the money would fly in. And they'd all fight over positioning because having a premium spot in the Sydney Morning Herald with your job ads was gold. And of course, a lot of the companies would on sell the ads to their clients as well. So they take a search assignment or exclusive assignment. They'd sell as part of that package advertising in the Sydney Morning Herald or what other paper they were using.

Belinda Kerr [00:03:40]:
And we, we'd have this like every six months. We had to like, was like Tetris. We'd have to meet up with all of these companies and decide positioning and make them all fit in. It was crazy. They were like falling over themselves to get into the right spots and talk.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:53]:
About how times have changed. Now, like everything, it's digital. Feel bad for the people that are still there trying to sell that stuff.

Belinda Kerr [00:04:00]:
I don't think they are. It's all online. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:03]:
Okay, so you became a recruiter. What made you hit the point where I'm like, I can go do this on my own?

Belinda Kerr [00:04:10]:
Oh my God, so naive. And I think a lot of people have this conversation in their head. They go, I'm billing, you know, $300,000 and I'm only taking home a third of that. If I work for myself, I Could have all of that. And I genuinely. I know it sounds ridiculous and very blonde, but that was pretty much my logic. I can, I can do this and, you know, go and take a lot more home. And embarrassingly so that was pretty much my business strategy.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:35]:
I mean, that's like so many others business strategy, like. And we'll talk about that in a second. So, like, you know, you'd written, did that and this is. Before you start scaling, if you can go back and give yourself advice, as you are looking at making that jump, what would you tell yourself right then and there?

Belinda Kerr [00:04:51]:
I would say you understand that you've got. You've got everything that you need to do what you don't need to do. Go and find out. So find out what you don't know, you don't know. Get some mentors and set yourself up properly in the beginning. Don't just wing it. But there's. I think there's this fine line.

Belinda Kerr [00:05:04]:
I think when we set up as an entrepreneur, there's this certain amount of energy and just raw hustle that goes with it. But you got to find that balance between the raw hustle and just going out and doing it and actually building some structure and getting some advice and really understanding the commercial viability of what you're doing. And I certainly didn't do that. And it did. It did cause me a few problems in the beginning. But, you know, you get a few bruises, you get up, you learn, and then you go out and find out what you need to. What you need to learn.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:30]:
What was one of those bruises?

Belinda Kerr [00:05:31]:
I lost my entire data. But I'd been. So I launched my first business in May, and in September I lost my whole database because I didn't have my system backed up properly. So all the relationships that I'd built up over the years and just had, you know, floating around different places that I'd compiled, all gone. There was no. This is how old I am. There was no CRM. Then I kind of clung together something.

Belinda Kerr [00:05:51]:
I think it was actually on outlook that I had, and my computer just died and I lost the whole thing. And so that was a big lesson in computer security and backing things up. So that was the biggest one or the second big. The. The other big lesson I learned. And this I almost am embarrassed to tell you, but I went from, you know, started in my bedroom, which everyone does, you know, started at home, has a little home office, and then I got a shared space with some other mates of mine that were all in business, like different businesses, and we were Just sharing in a warehouse space, and that was fun. And then we grew to about three people. I was like, right now we're going to go and rule the world.

Belinda Kerr [00:06:24]:
So I'll go out and I'll rent an office space. So the office space that I rented, you could actually put 15 people in this space. In fact, it's the same place we ended up when we did have 15 people. So there we are rattling around with three people, and I'm all of a sudden, you know, with the second biggest, you know, the second or third biggest cost on our p. Now I'm now paying all that, and I. Very quickly. So my idea was that, you know, so this is the. The raw hustle.

Belinda Kerr [00:06:48]:
Oh, we'll go out and I'll get, you know, I'll hire another, you know, 10, 15 recruiters, and off we'll go. Well, that didn't happen. And when I realized that wasn't going to happen, then I had to go and spend time subletting all that space so I could actually keep the doors open and pay the bills. So that's what I did. I sublet the space to some other people until I grew the business. And then, you know, we grew big enough to. To have it ourselves. But that was.

Belinda Kerr [00:07:10]:
That's probably the biggest mistake I made.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:12]:
And, like, freaking, like, rent is expensive.

Belinda Kerr [00:07:15]:
It is, yeah. It's very expensive. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:18]:
I don't know, like, over on your side of the world, but at least I know, like, here in the US Like, I'm blown away by the cost of, like, rental spaces. When it comes to corporate offices. I'm like, what the heck?

Belinda Kerr [00:07:27]:
Yeah. And I guess it's so much, you know, that's a cost now that so many smaller businesses don't have to do. You know, there was no zoom when I set up. You couldn't do this. You had to, like, to meet someone. Every time I had to meet somebody, I had to go out to a coffee shop to meet them. I couldn't just have a zoom conversation, so we had to have an office, but. Oh, God.

Belinda Kerr [00:07:46]:
Yeah. I think about it now and I just cringe.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:49]:
Okay, so, like, when you went on. On your own, you started, like, you know, doing the recruiting, finding your customers. How did you find your first few clients?

Belinda Kerr [00:07:56]:
I had. So before I got into recruitment, I was in the media sales world. So I mentioned to you that I was working on Sydney Morning Herald. And then I also. I didn't do recruitment, so I moved recruitment to sort of mainstream advertising. And I got to know a lot of people in the industry. So when I got into recruitment, I built up relationships with a lot more of those guys. And so when I left and went out on my own, a lot of those became.

Belinda Kerr [00:08:18]:
And there was a few big clients in there that the business I was with weren't so interested in. So there was no NDAs or anything. So I just went at that business, which I think a lot of people do when they set up. They've got some relationships that might be sitting outside an NDA or not an NDA. A. That's the word I'm looking for. Non compete. That's the word.

Belinda Kerr [00:08:38]:
So there was a lot that went on and I think that's the way that a lot of people start is they've got certain clients that aren't on a non compete, they might be outside the industry or different to what they're, you know, their previous employees. So I went at those and that's when I just hustled and got those first placements in for the first, you know, three to six. Oh yeah, three to six months.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:55]:
Okay, so when do you look at or even start thinking about hiring another person for your team and then why didn't you just stay solo?

Belinda Kerr [00:09:02]:
My vision was always to grow. But, but having said that, I had no business plan. I had no like written down goals. My plan was just open it up, see how I go. If I don't have to go and get another job, I've made it. So that was how basic it was. And then what happened was a guy, Graham, who I used to work with in the prior company, you know, we used to catch up, we were still mates. He goes, oh, bk, would you think about hiring me? I'm like, yes.

Belinda Kerr [00:09:28]:
And so it was a no brainer because we'd worked together. I knew him so well and I was kind of the rainmaker. He was more the recruiter, although he did some of that and we just worked really, really, really well together. So he joined me and he was with me for ages and really helped me, was just amazing. Like really helped me bed in the business, you know, get some more foundational clients and start to grow.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:51]:
Oh, wow. So like you had the perfect person to start.

Belinda Kerr [00:09:54]:
I was very lucky. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:55]:
Because I don't see that happen all the time.

Belinda Kerr [00:09:57]:
No. And it's funny because when I speak to people, in fact I spoke to somebody yesterday and they were growing, there's two of them and they've just found somebody else that they used to work with and they're so excited because they know that they've already worked together. It's not like they have to kind of work like bring them in and then work out who they are. They already know the good, the bad, the elderly, what each other's strengths are. And it's such a lovely place to start if you can do it. But yet not everybody's that lucky.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:21]:
Do you work with a lot of, like founding teams or just like a lot of founders?

Belinda Kerr [00:10:26]:
Just founders. So the people I work with are they're either solopreneurs or they're up to about 10 people. Most of them are sort of one to five people, but they might have offshore resources as well that, you know, we don't really count those. Like, they might have a couple of VAs or whatever working for them as well. Because I think once you get to 10 people, like, I'm super passionate about small business and I love what I do and I think teach what you know. Right. My business only ever got to 15 people. So if you've got a business of 50 people, I'm not your girl.

Belinda Kerr [00:10:53]:
But if you like, there's a couple of steps, like getting from 1 to 5, there's a certain kind of process for that. And then like it's a stage. And then getting from 5 to 10 is another stage. And then going from 10 to, you know, 20 enough, it's different again the way that you manage a business. So long story short, anywhere between one to 10 people is where my sweet spot is.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:13]:
Okay, so let's talk about that. Like you went from one to two pretty quick. Like you found the perfect person.

Belinda Kerr [00:11:17]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:17]:
Was 3, 4 and 5 as easy of hires?

Belinda Kerr [00:11:20]:
I found that getting so they were, but getting beyond 5 was so hard because I. Yeah, great question. Because I didn't have my people training and systems dialed in well enough. I'm not the person to build the infrastructure in a business to actually create the SOPs. And that was a real lacking in my business. And looking back now, I can see it. And I was trying to do it and I was useless at it. So I was really good at saying to somebody, hey, come out with me.

Belinda Kerr [00:11:47]:
Let's go and see this client. Let's go and get this business. But when it came to doing KPIs and managing people, I was useless at it. And I say that, you know, with respect to my former self because I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know I was a. I don't think I was a bad manager. I just wasn't one of those people who could Sit down and go, right, let's go through your KPIs.

Belinda Kerr [00:12:05]:
So I didn't have the foundational stuff set really well for training and development for the people that came in. And so what happened was we would get people in, and I was on a bit of a treadmill. So people, they'd come in, we'd have lots of fun, and then they'd get a better offer somewhere else. And off they go and getting to five people. So if you're always managing people issues under five people, you've got a real problem in your business. But so then when I finally worked that out and got that in place and got the support I needed and learned what I need to do, then, then I could step up. But of course, every time you step up, you're stepping more up in the CEO role. As a recruiter in a small business, you're also giving up some of your revenue.

Belinda Kerr [00:12:45]:
So then sometimes you can get that revenue hit as well. That then you're expecting the team to pick up under you. And then you're starting to set up like little team. So at a team of 10, you've got team leaders under you who are managing people as well. And then that adds in another layer of complexity. I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, it does.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:07]:
And that kind of goes into, like, the things that you don't know that you need to look at when you're growing a team. And then it kind of just opened up the door. Like you talked about, the complexity of the people, the hiring, the process of the not having the SOPs. But, you know, that opens up the door. What other blind spots do you typically see with founders and people that are actually trying to grow that they just don't know? That they don't know?

Belinda Kerr [00:13:26]:
Yeah. Oh, such a good question. And there's so many, a couple of the big ones I find that really stall them in the beginning is I'm going to do everything to save myself money. Now, we know research has said this, that like, time and money, they're equal. There is a price on your time. So when you go from being a recruiter and you're running a business, you've got all these other things that you suddenly need to have happen that you're not an expert at. And every time you're pulled away and you're still billing over here, so every time you're pulled into this other activity, you're being paid, let's call it $100 an hour versus there's probably a $10 an hour person that can do that for you. But what happens is recruiters go, I need to do everything because it's going to save me time or I'm so much about quality, no one else can do it as well as me and so I'm not going to let it go.

Belinda Kerr [00:14:13]:
And they can't grow and then they just get busy, they get on the hamster wheel, they get overwhelmed and they start to hate their business. So delegating is number one. And what I would recommend people do if they really fight against it, is just start small, Just take one thing, just one thing that you can delegate, outsource it or give it to a team member. If you've got a team member. Things like running your own email, which isn't easy, like that's really not a first step delegation because people will fight on that one. But people spend like founders spend so much time in their emails that they don't need to be. And there's a strategy and a process that you can go around. I don't ever look at my own emails.

Belinda Kerr [00:14:50]:
You know, somebody else does it and they tell me if something's urgent and like that just shaves that fracturing of your day because I'll just check my email, check my email. So that's the first one is delegating. And I think the other thing is not hanging on to like if you've got a team is trusting your team to do the stuff and not making yourself overly available. So things like I remember I used to walk out the door and go, if you need me, just call me. But what I should have been saying was, you guys have got this, if it's an emergency, okay, call me and put like ring fence your time. So when you're working on the business or on important things, no one can get to you. Put yourself in that cone of silence and focus and just do that thing. Because as you move from being a recruiter to a founder, you suddenly have all these extra things to do and it can just be really, really overwhelming.

Belinda Kerr [00:15:35]:
And if you don't box your time and really focus on what you're doing and you're trying to do this, that and everything else at the same time, you'll just be working seven days a week. So really boxing your time. And when you are working on the business, give yourself time to work on the business and go and hide yourself away and actually, actually do that. And the third thing I would say is, you know, you've got to remember when you're a recruiter, you've got all this operations department behind you as a machine, helping you do your job. When you're a founder, you don't have that anymore. You've still got to do the billing, but now you've got to be that machine, too. And there's lots of parts of that machine that you just don't know how. How to do it.

Belinda Kerr [00:16:14]:
I remember, like, looking at P. Ls and financials and things like that that I'd never even seen seen in my life before. Like, what the hell does this all mean? You have to have a certain understanding of all that, and that takes time to learn. So you've got to find out very quickly what you don't know you don't know and go and learn that from other people so that you can have that functioning in your business as well and set it up properly again. Lesson learned. I didn't really know I had a book. I got a bookkeeper when I first started, and I just thought, you know, she's doing what she needs to do. And I found out a couple of years later my books were just like the accountant.

Belinda Kerr [00:16:49]:
I swapped accountants, and the accountant said, belinda, these books are a mess. I had no idea. I didn't know what a bookkeeper was supposed to be doing. And so these sorts of things you need to understand, like find out what you don't know. And the way you do that is you go to people who've done it before, mentors, other people that are a few steps before you, and ask them, where did you fall over? What did you miss? What do I need to know that I don't know? And there'll be a laundry list as long as your arm.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:13]:
We're going to jump around a few of these things, but for first one is delegation. Like, how do. How do you. Here's the thing about recruiters.

Belinda Kerr [00:17:19]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:19]:
Many times they're control freaks.

Belinda Kerr [00:17:21]:
Every time. Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:23]:
Every. Every time we control the process, We. We try to control as much as we can control, but we can't control people because people are people.

Belinda Kerr [00:17:30]:
That's right.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:31]:
But in saying that, how do you actually, like, I hate to say this, smack a recruiter and be like, benjamin, you need to let the hell go with this. Like, you need to learn how to delegate that. How do you actually, like, get a recruiter to flip that switch?

Belinda Kerr [00:17:45]:
Yeah. So usually it's starting small, and usually you can't do it until they're in a real pain point. So normally they'll get to the point where they go, ah, I'm just so busy, I can't do everything. So we start small and we just look at two things. Normally we're only good at three things in business. Like, it's crazy when you think about how many we do, but normally there's three things that we're good at. With founders, it's usually going out and doing business. So, one, you show them what they can do with that time that they're going to be delegating.

Belinda Kerr [00:18:08]:
So if we could actually get rid of this off your plate, you can go and do more of what you love. You can go out and hang out with your clients and do all those things that you should be doing because you've started a business and you're wanting to grow. That's one thing. And then asking them the question, just having a look at what's outside their pay grade, so. Or, sorry, below their pay grade. So what are the things that you're currently doing that are under your pay grade? And let's have a look and show them in their business what that's costing them, because we all want it. We've started business to make money. Well, this is actually costing.

Belinda Kerr [00:18:34]:
Imagine what you could do, be doing with that time. What are you leaving on the table by not delegating your stuff and then having a look at the stuff that's outside their skillset. So I mentioned accounting for me, you know, like as soon as I got that off my plate and it was managed properly, the better. So they're probably the key things and showing other businesses what other people are doing well, that's working for them to show that they can have that too.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:57]:
So, Benjamin, go outsource something soon.

Belinda Kerr [00:19:01]:
Exactly. Exactly. There's an exercise you can do and I know no one will do it because it's a real pain in the neck, but we did it recently. You can actually go through your week and every 15 minutes just like quickly jot down what you're doing. And then if you look at it at the end of the week, you'll see how much of your time was spent on stuff that wasn't you and your genius. And it wasn't CEO stuff that's going to help you scale and grow a business. It was just you getting, excuse, the proverbial shit done.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:26]:
Oh, man, I need to go do that. I know about a year ago I did that there's a. I'm drawing a blank on the app because it's. I think it's almost like 9pm here on the east coast, but I actually did a. I actually did a. Like a. You can Actually, like, hop into this app and sit there and give an update on what you're doing. And I did that for a week, and it was just like, insane.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:43]:
I was like, okay, I thought I did this much work, but I really didn't. And then also, like, really focused me on the difference between multitasking, where you really aren't multitasking, to monotasking. So I guess, yeah, homework to go. Do that again.

Belinda Kerr [00:19:55]:
Multi. Multitasking is so bad. There's studies that show if you switch job, like, if you're switching things, it takes you 15 minutes at the minimum to reset. So every time you switch from one thing to another, it's costing you time in the day. And I think it's one of the biggest enemies for recruiters, especially founders, because not only are you recruiting, which is already kind of a complex scenario, you're adding in a whole lot more layers to that. And it just, you know, people are at you all the time. You know, in those days when your data goes and you think, what did I do today? You did a whole lot, but you did nothing. That's because of trying to multitask and too much stuff coming at you at once, not delegating and all those things that we just spoke about.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:34]:
Well, okay, so we're going to kind of, like, take a few steps. We've got delegation, we got some homework if you have it, like, if you're by yourself. But, you know, one of the most important things when it comes to, like, you launching a business and you scaling a business is getting clients. Like, what is actually working right now with the people that you're working with to pick up new clients and win more work in 2025.

Belinda Kerr [00:20:55]:
Yeah, great question. I'll tell you what's not working is, you know, you hear so much about automation, Run this program, and I'm a big fan of automation. One of the pillars we teach is automation. But I think what's happening these days is people have got their radar out for what's not genuine, what's not real. Is this a bot? Am I in another automation sequence? I don't know about you, but I get so many emails every day. Hi, I'm just going to bump myself to the top of your email. No, you're going straight to my spam. So the.

Belinda Kerr [00:21:20]:
That's out. But I think what we need to be doing, because we've got so many great tools with AI and the tech that's just out there, we need to be harnessing that for the higher level, getting people in the Business where there's a volume play and absolutely using that and building people through. So to kind of make that more practical. First up, identifying play in a niche space. Don't play general. Like I don't have any people that I coach that are a generalist because as a small business you just cannot get the reputation. You can't immerse yourself in an industry as much as you can. So I think what's absolutely working is going niche, identifying who those people are and really embracing content.

Belinda Kerr [00:22:02]:
And it's such a dangerous word to throw around content because I'm not talking about getting on LinkedIn and throwing loads of posts up and hoping like hell you get likes and comments. You know, we all know the algorithms are against us and they want to be building a pay for play model, but we need to be creating content and value that will start to get the attention of your market before you start selling to them. We know this from research that people want to buy now, not be sold to. So we want to set the frame for, for example, you know, if you're a founder and you've got somebody who in your community is a thought leader on something specific that's interesting to your market, you know, interview them and start sharing that or create salary guides or something of value, not just a salary guide for the sake of it, but something that's worthwhile and speaks to your market and start sharing and engaging. Yes, use automation to do that. Do some personally whatever you need to do. But what I do know is just hitting over the people and trying to sell to them doesn't work anymore. So we just need to have put a few steps in before.

Belinda Kerr [00:23:02]:
LinkedIn is amazing. You know, I look at LinkedIn as a branding tool and a database. So we use it for branding. We have our profile where people come, but in that there's certain assets in there that are, you know, look at my website or join me for a call or whatever. So that's actually called to action. So it's branding working with that action as well. And then we run a strategy and I'm happy to send it to you if you want. It's kind of a cut down version of what we have in our program called Warm Leads.

Belinda Kerr [00:23:26]:
Every day, which is basically those warmer connections that you've got that are easier to get. Now with so much content is starting to use those leads, like reaching out to those leads who have sort of liked something or shared something of yours and starting to engage people that are already showing an interest. So that's working. That's working. We're finding that's working really, really well. I think there's a bit of a patience game these days. I find the people, at least that I work with that are happy to sort of build the structure and the process and let the funnel. I know it's kind of an overused word, but let the funnel work for them, not expect everything.

Belinda Kerr [00:24:01]:
You know, you start today and you want it by next Tuesday. People who are a little bit more patient in that longer game, those strategies are working really well because you get this exponential growth with things. So I've got people who. One of the guys with me, he's out of the program now, but he started, he joined me and I said, I'm a smile and dial kind of guy, but I want to build my business right in the first place. And he just went step by step by step by step. And I spoke to him the other day, so he launched a podcast and I spoke to him the other day and he said, it's amazing the exponential growth that's brought. He goes, I get business coming in. I don't even know where it's come from, but I had one of the biggest construction companies in Australia contact me the other day who wanted to go on my podcast.

Belinda Kerr [00:24:41]:
It's like opened up a massive opportunity for him. Now, that's probably three years after he's. He's done that podcast. And I'm not saying that it hasn't done anything until then, but just to demonstrate the point that we need to be a little bit more patient. So we need to, like, build the podcast or build the newsletter or build the process for reaching out on LinkedIn and consistently stick to it and focus on it. Because I see so many people, Ben, that they'll try this strategy and they'll try that strategy, and then there's someone else is trying to sell them some other course or some other strategy, and then they've got 25 things going on and they don't know what's working and what's not working. So you ask the question, what's working? What's not working? I think a big thing that stops anything working is just not focusing on it and giving it the consistency and time to have it work properly. So probably not quite the answer you're looking for, but there's lots of things that can work.

Belinda Kerr [00:25:33]:
I don't think that the, you know, I get a lot of conversations around these whole, you know, reply IO and then just do the reach outs and the three emails. If you've got a very Very big market. Those sort of things can work just the, you know what I'm talking about there with the cold reach outs. But if your market's a bit smaller and you're a bit niche, it's the quickest way to burn through leads and annoy your market. So I think more personal, more genuine. But what we want is, we want leads coming in so that when you're having conversations with people who are warm leads and ready to use your business, not just tire kickers wasting your time, and that's what a good branding and content strategy will do for you, it'll bring you the right people that you want to be having conversations with. Would you agree with that? Is that what you're finding?

Benjamin Mena [00:26:19]:
I mean, I absolutely agree with you. If you want to get laugh, there's LinkedIn articles that I wrote four years ago that still bring in business.

Belinda Kerr [00:26:27]:
Yeah, there you go.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:28]:
And that was, that was before ChatGPT wrote every article.

Belinda Kerr [00:26:32]:
Yeah, well, I think that's a problem too. And you know, ChatGPT is interesting, it can be a really great tool. But, you know, I hear people saying, oh, I'm just going to throw something in ChatGPT and put it up. But there is so much noise in the market. If you're not sharing the value with your market that they want to hear and that resonates with them, you're just going to annoy them. But if you're offering, you know, when you get those LinkedIn messages and it says you've just connected and then they shoot you over something like some like this, it's this long and how about you watch this? I don't even know who you are. But if you send them really nice message saying, hey, we just, we just did this thing and I see that you're, you know, in this IT space or whatever it is. Would you like to see our report? Most people come back and say, yes, one more little step and you can do that remotely, you can use a VA to do that.

Belinda Kerr [00:27:15]:
You don't have to do it yourself. That's using, you know, I call people automation as well. I know it's not politically correct, but as long as you're not doing it yourself. To me it's automation, whether it's a VA or a piece of tech. So I think sometimes it can be the same strategy, just delivered in a little bit of a different way or with one more step and it just completely changes how it lands with people.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:33]:
I think that's definitely smart. And one of the things, like, I know, like you've chatted about before is there's always money to be found out there by refining stuff that you've already done. What do you actually mean by that?

Belinda Kerr [00:27:47]:
Let me give you a really good example. And this will resonate with everybody, I reckon. So we've all got a database, you know, and most people, when you mention the word database, they just want to go to sleep and like, oh my God, it's my graveyard. It's when my candidates go to die. If you think about candidates for a minute and if you've been in, you know, business for a couple of years or you've got some networks out there, you've probably got, I don't know, like most people I speak to somewhere around the vicinity of three to five thousand candidates on their database. Let's just call it three. Which isn't a lot. I think most people have more if you've got.

Belinda Kerr [00:28:15]:
And I say to them, okay, so how long since you've reached out to your database without trying to sell them something, without something that you just like looking for a candidate for a job or trying to trying to get jobs on how you've given them some value or reached out in some other way and that most people will go, oh, never. And if you think about it, if you've got 3,000 people on your database and your people move, let's just call it every two years, that's 125 people on your database changing jobs every month. How many of those are you getting? So if you just take like forgetting about adding anything new in, let's just look at your database now. Is it clean? Have you got your emails updated? Is it coded properly? And there's ways you can cross check now, stuff with LinkedIn and all, it's not hard to update a database these days. You can do that. You should have somebody. I hate saying should because it's a bit rude, but you know, the ideal is to have somebody doing that all the time or some system running that to keep your database updated. Don't expect your candidates to do it.

Belinda Kerr [00:29:13]:
They're not going to care. Like they're not going to do it for you. You're going to get some. So want to keep the emails, the data, how you're coding them all up to date and then when you start connecting with them and reaching out to them every week with value and using, you know, lead scoring or whatever you want to use to find who's the valuable people and then you start communicating with them. Like if 125 people a month are Moving and you can just get a couple of those. You could double the size of your business overnight. Forgetting about diving into some big other AI strategy or whatever it is that you're looking do this stuff first. So that's one example of an asset that you've got.

Belinda Kerr [00:29:48]:
Another one is LinkedIn. How many LinkedIn connections have you got? I recently went through an exercise. I think I've only got about 13,000 connections or something like that, but half of them were from my old life that I can't help anymore. They were like in media and from when I was recruiting for media agency staff, those sorts of people. Well, now I can only help recruitment founders. That's what I do. So we actually went through and my LinkedIn was a mix of both. So we went through and we just disconnected with all the people that aren't in my market now.

Belinda Kerr [00:30:16]:
So LinkedIn will work harder for me. That was just a project I gave to a VA and oh my God, it's made so much difference, to be honest. We've still got a few to go, but we're nearly there. But the difference that's made in engagement and the content. LinkedIn is a massive asset. People are so obsessed with connecting with people and how many people like their content. But let's think about who's actually on there that you want to be communicating with. Let's clean it up a little bit and then work out the strategy of how we're going to really use LinkedIn to help us grow our business, find candidates, whatever.

Belinda Kerr [00:30:46]:
And then the other strategies that I mentioned, like warm leads, every day they become more valuable because you've got the right people commenting on your stuff. So there's two examples of assets. Oh, I could go on all day, Ben, unless you want more, I'll stop there, but I'm happy to give you more.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:00]:
Give us one more or I'm going to have to like, steal your VA to get rid of my old connections.

Belinda Kerr [00:31:04]:
Aha. Well, that's cool too. So another one would be the networks that you've built up over time. I know this kind of overlaps with LinkedIn a little bit, but often people will forget who they've worked with in the past or where they might be. So if you've had, you know, Sally Smith's worked at Virgin Airlines and you were doing work with her six years ago, but you lost touch. Where's she now? And if you've got that relationship, like the hardest thing to do in business is build relationships with people so they trust you and work with you. What relationships have you got from the past? Can be candidates or clients that are somewhere in your phone or a spreadsheet or somewhere that you just haven't connected with because you're busy. It's not a criticism.

Belinda Kerr [00:31:42]:
You've just been busy focusing on moving forward. And you've got this legacy of all these amazing people who are in your corner. And they also might know other people too. So, you know, they're people that we know that can refer us other business. That's another huge asset that you've got. Hey, Sally, disconnect your nose. We haven't. It's caught up for six years.

Belinda Kerr [00:31:59]:
Can't believe it. This is what I'm doing now. Love to talk to you about what we're doing and how I can potentially help you. Or, you know, that is a case when you can sell straight away. She already knows you. Or, you know, maybe there's other people in your network I can reach out to. You'd be happy to introduce me to another huge asset.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:12]:
Perfect. That's awesome. We've covered a lot. Like, so, you know, is there any other pieces of advice that you want to give to somebody that's looking at, you know, growing the team, scaling the team, or going from there that we might not have covered so far?

Belinda Kerr [00:32:24]:
I think every business gets to a point. It gets to an inflection point, and it's a real indicator of where you need help. And I think some people think once I've fixed this problem, everything's okay. But business is a journey. So when you get to an inflection point and you just stuck, you really want to go through a process of looking at what are those bottlenecks in your business and fixing those. But then what happens is every problem you fix creates a new one. So I guess the thing is it's an onward journey, so focus on fixing one thing. So if it's building your brand, like, start on, you know, start there.

Belinda Kerr [00:33:00]:
If it getting people to know you get that strategy bedded in, do that. And then what that's going to do is that's going to create more business for you. Okay, so now I've got another bottleneck. It might be being able to deliver on the business that we've got now. We need to look over there. So the advice would be it's always moving and changing. Just keep on top of what you don't know and keep on refining and tweaking and reviewing as you build and grow along the way. That's probably a good piece of advice, I think awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:25]:
Well, jumping over to the quick fire questions and then they don't need to be quick answers. I think this is a good question. Cause you actually see a lot of recruiters that are looking at making moves. But if you had somebody that came up across, you want a cup of coffee? They just got started in the recruiting industry this year.

Belinda Kerr [00:33:40]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:40]:
With everything that you know now, what piece of advice would you give them on how to be successful for their career?

Belinda Kerr [00:33:46]:
Such a good question. I think the first thing is to build good habits. That's kind of nothing specific, but that's just a kind of a feel of it all. Focus, consistency. If you're not focused, it will kill you. You've got to be focused. So focus one thing at one time. Consistency again, people try this, try that.

Belinda Kerr [00:34:07]:
I've seen it in founders, I've seen it in recruiters. The people who just will keep beavering away. They're not looking over here and looking over there. They're just being consistent and being focused. That's the success. And don't be afraid to ask for advice. There's plenty of people out there that have been in your shoes that are more than happy to pay it forward and, you know, go back and help you out. And that's quite flattering for them too, you know, if they can.

Belinda Kerr [00:34:27]:
So, yeah, I think that's helpful.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:28]:
What about if you are sitting down with somebody that's been a recruiter for a while, but they just decided to actually quit and go start their own thing, what would you tell them over a cup of coffee?

Belinda Kerr [00:34:40]:
So I would let them know that there's stages to business and the first stage is really just getting in there, getting the cash flow and proving that you've actually got a viable market product. So until you make your first placement, you don't really want to do anything apart from focusing on this. You know, it's easy in the beginning. It's exciting. Everyone's like, there's this nervous energy. Feed on that and do your hustle and get those first clients in. Really, all you need to think about when you're setting up is you want to have obviously some cash flow to, to set up. So you need to have a couple things like your website and some basics.

Belinda Kerr [00:35:12]:
But there's not a lot of operational stuff that you got to get in your terms of business, but it's all pretty templated and you can just do that and get up and running. So that's good. Then you hustle, hustle, hustle for a bit, and that's great. But then I think what's important for people to know is that after that initial period, somewhere between six to nine to 12 months, there's a train coming. And what that train has is a whole lot of complexity around the business that you haven't just got your head around yet. If you're not trying to grow, doesn't matter. But if you're trying to grow, there's all these things that come at you that you need to figure out. So you need to find out what you don't know, you don't know, Start up, get going, get your cash in the door, then start looking around for what you don't know, you don't know.

Belinda Kerr [00:35:52]:
And you'll know when to find this, because you'll start to get frustrated, overwhelmed, and start thinking bad thoughts about your business as opposed to going, I love it. I'm so excited about getting started. That will ramp down over a while and you'll go, oh, man, what did I start this business for? At that point, don't give up. That's when you got to start going, what is it that I need to learn? What am I doing that I shouldn't be doing? And start to get help to understand how to do that. Because all of a sudden, your whole operation and setting that foundation is going to be dependent on the decisions that you make now to decide whether your future is successful or not. So you get to that point where it's the inflection point, then one of three things happen. You either figure it out and you go up and you become an amazing CEO and a success story, or you just keep battling out and you go sideways until you really hate it or you go down because you make the wrong decisions. You spend too much cash, you invest too much where you shouldn't be.

Belinda Kerr [00:36:41]:
You think, oh, I'm going to buy this great tool. It's going to do a great thing. You just make bad business decisions. You hire a recruiter when you probably shouldn't be yet, and then your cash flow dries up and off you go. Off you go at the bottom. But the decisions you make at this inflection point are absolutely critical. So don't try and wing it. Get advice, get help, and make the right decisions to become a business CEO, not a recruiter running a business.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:06]:
Love that.

Belinda Kerr [00:37:07]:
I'm quite passionate about that.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:09]:
Well, I know we've talked about, like, some people, like, automate too many things and there's stuff that shouldn't be automated. In all saying all that, is there a tech tool that you absolutely love.

Belinda Kerr [00:37:19]:
Well, there's one I discovered recently that I really love. And the reason I love it is because you know your LinkedIn inbox, how it just gets away from you and it's really hard to manage your mess. It's not your inbox. Your message, like your message thing. I missed so many messages on there over time. And I've had people come back to me and say, I came back to your blender and I didn't do your course, I did someone else's because you didn't get back to me. I'm like, oh, my God. So embarrassed.

Belinda Kerr [00:37:40]:
Like, I just missed it. Anyway, so there's a tool now called Kondo K O N D o you actually, to find it online, go try t l y.kondo.com and the founder is a really lovely guy. It's really small. It's relatively new, I think. I don't know how long it's been. We've had it for about three or four months now. So what it does is it turns your messages, like into a email interface. So you've got folders down the left.

Belinda Kerr [00:38:06]:
All your emails come. Not emails. I keep calling them emails. Your messages come through. You can put a timer on when to remind people you can archive stuff. It just gives you so much control over your LinkedIn inbox. And it was a game changer for me. Game changer.

Belinda Kerr [00:38:21]:
And you can, if you want to, you can actually have your VA and other people plug into it as well. You don't have to. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:27]:
Without even having to like log into LinkedIn. Yeah, I've played with it. It's a cool tool.

Belinda Kerr [00:38:32]:
Yeah. So that would be. And I think it's about, in US dollars, I think it's about $17 a month or something, but I would pay $170 a month. Like it's. To me, it's, it's cool. And I love to support the new techies guys as well. They're doing a great, great job.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:45]:
I've played with it like it's my LinkedIn. Unfortunately, if you're listening to this and you've sent me a message about the podcast, I am so sorry.

Belinda Kerr [00:38:55]:
Well, after today, Ben will have no excuse. So if you, you know, if you're listening from today on, you can hammer him.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:01]:
Exactly. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your career?

Belinda Kerr [00:39:04]:
There is, and it's a kind of a boring. Well, I think it's a bit boring one to say, like, it's nothing flash or cool, but really it was the E Myth I don't know, you probably know the E. Myth. E. Myth rather by Michael Gerber. I read it early on in my journey and. And read it for years, but the one thing I took out of it was, you know, going from being the person who does the job to running a business and not just ending up buying yourself a job. Like that was the message I got out of it.

Belinda Kerr [00:39:28]:
There's things that have to change. So if you're a baker and you go and own your own bakery, I think that's even might have been the example that he gave. All of a sudden there's all these other things that come into it. And you might love your job and love being a baker, but you might not like running a business. It might not be your thing. So that was really. That was insightful for me early on.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:49]:
Oh, man. Talking about a baker, if you want a good laugh. And this is one of the reasons why I absolutely love the recruiting business. There's a baker that just loved. Absolutely. Baking and decided to start her own shop in San Francisco, a small little bakery. Her monthly operating expenses were about $75,000 a month.

Belinda Kerr [00:40:05]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:06]:
To run a little bake shop. And I'm just like, thank God for recruiting. If you're a recruiting founder, like, you're. At least for a while. Yeah. It's like a penny compared to what they're spending.

Belinda Kerr [00:40:18]:
That's right. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:19]:
And you're probably walking away with so much more money.

Belinda Kerr [00:40:21]:
Oh, so much. Like in brick and mortar businesses, you've got so much risk, you know, you've got so much capital expenditure. Yeah. It's, it's, it starts. It's scary. I mean, recruitment. And I think that's part of the problem with recruitment is almost that anyone can start. And then people who probably find out the hard way, they don't actually want to be a business owner, they end up sort of six months in and go, I love recruiting, but I just don't want to do all this other stuff.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:42]:
I do the Pinnacle Society's podcast, the Pinnacle Take podcast, and there's a lot of them there that are million dollar bills. Like, you know what? I'm just going to go work at an agency so I don't have to handle anything else and I can just go back to billing.

Belinda Kerr [00:40:53]:
Yeah, that's right. And, you know, each to their own. And, you know, a lot of people come to me, they want to talk about what sort of business they should create. And I said, well, it starts with what you want, what's right for you and your Family and then work backwards from there. There's no what should you do? There's. Every iteration of a business is out there. You might just want to be a lifestyle business, work 4 days a week, do 500k a year, and have some offshore support and never change a thing. That's it.

Belinda Kerr [00:41:17]:
And if that lights you off, that's what you want to do. Great. Do you want to go and be the next Hayes or Randstad or, you know, whoever is the shiny new best thing? That's awesome, too. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:26]:
Well, so the next question I have. As a recruiter, there's a lot of hard days. It's a hard business, it's a hard job. How do you get through those hard days?

Belinda Kerr [00:41:35]:
I know that every hard day is just one step closer to a good day because they don't last. And nothing's ever as bad as you think it is. Like, our brain runs away with us. Like, one little thing happens, and then we just all of a sudden it's. It's doomsday. And I think the way that I. Because I can do that. So the way that I stop myself is I just jump on the phone to somebody who I love and adore and who's positive, and they'll just set me straight.

Belinda Kerr [00:41:57]:
Like, Belinda. Really? You think you might just be overdoing it a little bit? So community, getting communication with people. And the thing I love about that is, you know, sometimes you have a comma, you like your day's feeling like rubbish, and you might just remain say, hey, Belinda, blah, blah, blah, I haven't said a word. And you go, thanks very much. Feel so much better now. Because once you have a problem in your brain and it moves to the front and you articulate it, your executive functioning center there starts to solve it and you feel better. Because when we solve problems, we get a dopamine hit and we feel better. So getting communication and talking to other people, not trying to just be in my own head.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:30]:
Love that. Well, and this is actually one of my favorite questions. You get asked a lot of questions with recruiters. Do you wish there was a question they would actually ask you? You know, you get asked the technical stuff, you get asked the tactical stuff, you get asked the strategy stuff. But, like, as you're getting all these questions, do you wish they're like, hey, I just wish the recruiter would just ask me or the founder would just ask me this, Yes, I do. What would be that answer all the time?

Belinda Kerr [00:42:54]:
Because recruiters, sometimes they. When you're doing activities in a business, you Want to be doing the right thing at the right time. Often people, what they want to do is they've got the right activity, but they want to do it at the wrong time. They're jumping too far ahead. So I wish they would just say to me, these are my goals. What is the next one thing that I need to do to move me towards that goal?

Benjamin Mena [00:43:14]:
It's those important questions that can move the needle.

Belinda Kerr [00:43:17]:   

Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:17]:
Awesome. Well, before I let you go, two things. First of all, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Belinda Kerr [00:43:24]:
Oh, check me out on LinkedIn. Belinda Kerr, I'm there if you've got anything that you want to ask me, I'm all ears. Happy to help.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:31]:
Awesome. And before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Belinda Kerr [00:43:35]:
Well, no, just enjoy the ride. You know, recruitment is an interesting world. It has its ups and down days, but I think what I really love about recruitment now is I think the industry has become much more of a community as opposed to let's go and eat the other person's lunch. So leverage that connecting with other people. If you are a founder, get a community around you and it's much more fun that way.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:58]:
Awesome. Well, I'm so excited because the journey from recruiter to founder is a crazy journey in itself. And then the journey that, you know, I personally haven't gone through, but I know many, many others that have. Going from founder to running, being a CEO and running a team, there's every level you have to up level yourself. Every level is different changes, every level is different challenges. And you know, the cool thing is in the recruiting space, there are so many people that have done it before you that can share the stories of how they did it. Belinda, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for sharing and, you know what, absolute pleasure.

Belinda Kerr [00:44:32]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:33]:
You're welcome. And for the recruiters out there listening, I want you to Crush it in 2025. I want you to make this the year of abundance. So let's make it happen.

Belinda Kerr [00:44:41]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think we're off to a good start. Yep.