Mastering Sales for Recruiters: Insights from Keely Flood

00:00 Atomic Habits is book of the month.
05:08 Rough start, but doing all the right things.
08:26 Creating honest salesperson by combining coaching and sales.
10:28 Focus on valuable partnerships to drive success.
15:03 Adapting to changes and aligning with goals.
17:54 Varied cadence can improve communication success.
20:16 Balancing ADHD benefits in recruiting versus sales.
24:01 Enthusiastic about Calendly, disdains back-and-forth scheduling.
27:21 Quarterly review process to build accountability.
30:36 Success comes from always being open-minded.
33:21 Adapt, learn, stay humble, embrace new tools.
36:25 Solo small, consider HubSpot, Bullhorn, Crelate.
39:45 Opportunity for leadership learning through mentoring program.
43:13 Gratitude for podcast guest; wishes listeners success.




Intro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the elite recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, 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.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
I wanna say thank you to our sponsors, jobleads.io. With jobleads.io, you can transform your recruiting outreach. What it does, it enriches job board leads with hiring manager contact information to save time, energy, and money. So join the game changers in recruitment today. Visit jobleads.io for a revolution in recruiting outreach, and use code Benjamin ten For 10% off for your 1st 3 months. Man, I am excited about you guys listening to this episode to help really level up Sales game. But before we get started, a few quick announcements. First of all, the recruiting growth summit, it got moved to March 4th through March 8th, And I'll have the sign up link in the show notes, so definitely check that out.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:03]:
On top of that, book of the month for the month of January is going to be Atomic Habits. And at the very end of the month, February 2nd, we are going to be doing a, like, Zoom call for whoever wants to join it, wants to read it and talk about, like, what we've learned from the book that's really, gonna impact your recruiting career. So excited about that. And, man, I hope you guys Really just make this year the best year possible, and I believe in you. I'm excited about this Episode of the elite recruiter podcast. I have my special guest, Keely Flood, and we're gonna talk about How you can increase your sales. Because let's let's be honest. Most recruiters suck at sales.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:47]:
They suck at business development. It is a thing that most recruiters hate. It's a thing that most recruiters try to stay away Flood, and it's a reason why most recruiters, I hate to say this, fail. So we have Keely on the podcast to really talk about how to set yourself up on for a successful career On the sales side of the house when it comes to recruiting, so that way you can, you know, live the life that you wanna live, do the things that you wanna do, and be with your family. So, Keely, from The Honest Salesperson, welcome to the podcast.

Keely Flood [00:02:18]:
Hey. Thank you for having me. It was quite the, introduction. I would have to say, Yep. Business development is not the funnest part of any job. No one's getting told no all day every day, but that comes with the territory.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:29]:
Well, it comes with the territories. Think it's also one of the things that I think most recruiters never actually get trained to do. Like, most of the time, we we put on a recruiter hat, we get our 2 weeks of training, and then it's like, okay. Just Call and find this person the job. It's very few people that I have met in the recruiting space have actually gone through any True fundamental fundamental sales recruiting, even though our career lives off sales.

Keely Flood [00:02:54]:
Yeah. I would have to agree. Like, I've always sat between recruiting and, client facing side of things. Both are sales. Right? You when you're recruiting, you are convincing the candidate about opportunities. The difference though is when you pick up the phone and call them, that candidate's probably happy you called. When you're doing the business development side, you pick up the phone, you almost guarantee the person at the other end of that phone is not happy you called.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:17]:
But, you know, to have that that position to work on, you need to, unfortunately, do something to get that position in the door. Right.

Keely Flood [00:03:24]:
Right. We have we have a 100 candidates. If you don't have a single client, like, that's a little bit of a problem, isn't it?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:30]:
Yep. So excited to have you on here. And one of the things that we're definitely gonna cover is actually setting you up processes and setting up systems. Because I think personally for me, I think one of the biggest things that Keeps a recruiter from winning is not having a a system set up. It's kind of like a ad hoc. Hit 10 AM. Oh, crap. I need to go do something.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:48]:
Hit 2 PM. Shit. The day is almost done. Let me go do something a little more, and then you hit 4, and it's like, okay. We're done for the day. So but, yeah, this is this is gonna be a fun podcast. So, like, Keely, how did you even get started in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Keely Flood [00:04:04]:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like a lot of people start out the same way I did. You just stumble across the recruiting industry. And prior to getting into it in 2015, I actually coached college football for 5 years. And at the time I was working at a division two school. I was a graduate assistant. You know, it's a 2 year appointment ship, and I knew it was gonna end. Right? And so I just started interviewing for jobs to get back to Chicago, quite frankly.

Keely Flood [00:04:25]:
I I would have taken whatever, And I got contacted by a recruiter actually. And when I found out that her job was to help people like me find jobs and she got paid for it, I was thought, okay. Our recruited high school athletes come play d 3 and d 2 football. I can sell that skill in the interview, so I'm just gonna double down on going after the recruitment industry And ended up landed a job at Medex, and that's what got me started in the in the space and actually started as a recruiter in the health care division before moving into Our scientific division and being client facing from that point forward.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:56]:
And one of the the fun things that, you know, looking back On your career, especially at Medex, like, you were a top producer.

Keely Flood [00:05:05]:
Yeah. I mean

Benjamin Mena [00:05:05]:
The whole the whole time.

Keely Flood [00:05:08]:
Yeah. I mean, yes, from the outside, I'll say yes. Like, because I the caveat is the 1st 6 months of my recruiting career were abysmal. Like Anything that can go wrong in this space, because we've all held had it happen, failed drug screens, people back out, whatever. I think I had Several years' worth of issues all crammed in within my 1st 6 months of recruiting to the point where my boss sat me down, And he didn't see he didn't mean it maliciously, but he said, hey. I'll be honest. Like, this is the worst 6 months start I've ever seen from a, like, a luck standpoint. Said you're doing all the right things.

Keely Flood [00:05:41]:
There's probably a few things we need to tweak. Your inputs are there. Your efforts there. What do you think? And I'm gonna tell him, hey. I don't I don't think I'm gonna make this. Like, I think I think, like, the higher ups are probably like, yeah. This this guy, you know, we thought he'd be he'd be good. He's 26, I think it was when I started.

Keely Flood [00:05:56]:
Like, he should be experienced to get things going, and I wasn't. And After that 6 month kinda talking, things did start to turn around to the point where the next 3 months, I went from, You know, like, 1 k maybe in spread to above 10 k's on pace for Presence Club as a recruiting. And then they approached me and said, hey. Do you wanna Not only you wanna sell, which I always wanted to do. They said, hey. Do you wanna switch our divisions as well to the scientific division? Yeah. Health care is our best division at the time. It was the best division in the country.

Keely Flood [00:06:24]:
Like, or you can go to the science, which is struggling, and we're thinking about shutting it down. And me being like a bit of a risk taker. I still remember having breakfast The VP on Friday morning, he told me that. And he's like, take the weekend, I think it over. I was I almost accept on the spot. I was like, I'm gonna do it. I showed up Monday morning, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made because It taught me how to start a territory from scratch. I had no clients, no active clients.

Keely Flood [00:06:47]:
Like, yes, a few contracts that were still in place from prior sales reps, But no existing relationship, so it truly was a ground zero. And it was hard, and it took a few years, but we were able to turn it around to the point where we were all going to I think we start off with 6 of us in that division, 3 recruiting 3 sales, and fast forward 2 years and all, 6 of us ended up going to president's club.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:09]:
Talk about a turnaround.

Keely Flood [00:07:10]:
Yeah. I

Benjamin Mena [00:07:10]:
mean and you and I Keely like you like, you're on the medical side. It was safe. Like, you you could have looking at your desk, it would have been I don't wanna say easy money, but, Like, the they're known for that, and you're having to go, like, literally build a brand new territory. That's fantastic.

Keely Flood [00:07:26]:
No. I mean, it was like and they even told me they were very transparent, which I Certainly appreciate. They told me, hey. You don't have to take this opportunity. You can stay in recruiting health care for another month or 2. You will have a spot to sell there. It's just we they just promoted my friend, and they said, hey. He's we're gonna get him up and going, and then you could you'll be next.

Keely Flood [00:07:43]:
Or you could take the weekend and then come in Monday and start in sales that day. And I just said, yeah. Let's do it. I just saw it as an opportunity to build my own Kinda brand and to learn because yeah. It would've been safer. But, yes, it would've been safer still in the health care space. But I just decided, hey. Why not? Like, why not only switch Roles from being recruited to full business development, but also switch industries and have to learn everything while sitting in front of a director of microbiology that's been in the industry for 20 years.

Keely Flood [00:08:10]:
Like, yeah. Whatever. Let's do

Benjamin Mena [00:08:11]:
it. Awesome. And that has led into, you know, working at a few other places, but now let's talk about the Yotta salesperson.

Keely Flood [00:08:20]:
What do you wanna know? Fire away. Like, I, you know, I guess like, the background?

Benjamin Mena [00:08:25]:
No. The company.

Keely Flood [00:08:26]:
Yeah. I mean, the company The company spawned from I've always wanted to go out on my own. It's been years in the making at this point. And I saw as an opportunity to combine my coaching background from my college football days because I still loved coaching. Even in even as I became successful in sales, One of the parts I enjoyed the most was helping others get to where they wanted to go from a sales perspective, answering their questions, what and anything else in between. And so I saw this opportunity as a way to combine my coaching with my sales and specifically recruiting sales experience to create the honest salesperson. And the name itself, I tell people this, when I I'm not, like, super creative. That's probably why I talk about systems and processes because it's still it's not as creative once you get in place.

Keely Flood [00:09:09]:
But I just thought, hey. I'm just gonna tell people the honest truth about sales. It's hard. It's difficult. It's not meant for everybody. It's a grind. It's gonna take time, and there's no such thing as hacks. Like, are all the ideas I'm like, I'm gonna post about this.

Keely Flood [00:09:20]:
This is what I'm gonna talk about, and that's where the honest salesperson name just came from.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:24]:
I was

Keely Flood [00:09:24]:
just sitting there with my wife. I'm like, I'll just tell people the truth. I'll be the honest one Because I felt like there's a lot of people on LinkedIn talking about quick hacks and how it can go from 0 to 10 k and business in 30 days. I'm like, I mean, maybe 1 in, like, a1000000, but for the other, you know, rest of us, it can take some effort and some sweat equity before you get there.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:43]:
Awesome. So Jumping into sales systems. Actually, let's take a step back. Like, you're looking at business development. You're looking at your the sales. Like, What foundational things do you need to make sure that you're in place to succeed?

Keely Flood [00:09:58]:
Great question. Foundational, I mean, one, you have to know who you're Serving. Right? And I use that word on purpose serving because I do believe some of the best salespeople seek to help their prospects and their clients, Not themselves. You do help yourself, of course. Like, don't get me wrong. Making money, the financial freedom that comes with this industry and with this job is Amazing. But if you have the me first mentality, your prospects and clients feel that. So really you're seeking to serve them and help them out in any way you can.

Keely Flood [00:10:28]:
And sometimes it isn't simply filling a role. Like, that's where we get paid, but you can you can be helpful in other ways by being A valued partner to them, helping them with interview process, so on and so forth. So I think a way to start those knowing, hey. Who do I who am I helping? Who's my ICP? And then developing a plan around that In terms of who the accounts I'm going after, because in this world, I mean, we really could serve anybody. Right? There's everyone needs help hiring nowadays. You could go I mean, in Chicago, when I was selling, I think I had 400 accounts on my territory list because it was just a couple of us, 3 sales reps. So I could have spread myself way too thin, but narrowing it down to 50 accounts that I thought were the highest potential in spending a bulk of my business development time on those is what helped me move from a struggling sales rep to performing at a presidents club level.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:20]:
Okay. So, first of all, you're talking about figuring out who. So, like, market mapping, figure like, you know, figuring out who the players are. And then once said you had, like, 400 people that was in your your your market. Did you have to, 1, go find all those people? Was all those people, like, give kind of, like, given to you in a list? And then how did you figure out how to, like, narrow it down to the top 50 to start attacking?

Keely Flood [00:11:42]:
Yeah. So 400, like, 400 accounts. Right? Within each account, there's multiple Call points. So, I mean, you're talking in the thousands of people you could be reaching out to.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:49]:
Okay.

Keely Flood [00:11:50]:
And in terms of, like, given to me, no. I wasn't given any list. Like, I wasn't given much. There was again, I went back and looked at who do we have contracts in place with because if there's a contract in place, There's an opportunity for quicker wins because that is one of the hardest things to do in this industry is to get a contract in place with all the red tape. And so I'd go back and find those people. But, Really, I mean, the process was 400 accounts. From there, start researching. And kind of what I've started calling it is, like, there's certain checkpoints or gates if you wanna call it, where Your research account, you find out that they've never used agencies ever before.

Keely Flood [00:12:23]:
If I'm recruiting my territory like I did, I'm probably not going after them, to be honest, because it's gonna be a longer sell. It's gonna take more time than I want, and I'm gonna move them aside and start dwindling my list down. So it's really you start those 400 accounts and then dwindle it down to, like, The 50 based on your criterion. For me, it was, hey. Are they using is there growth opportunity? How big is our HR team? That was important to me as well because knowing if it's Small HR team with a large number of employees. Chances are they're spread stretched pretty thin. And once I got it down to those 50 accounts, then I would do a deeper dive Into the people that work there. Right? Who are my targets within it? Right? If for scientifically is the example.

Keely Flood [00:13:01]:
It was like quality, Regulatory and then like the lab, right, chemistry and microbiology. So I'm finding all the contact points within each account in that verticals. And from there, I'm then building a cadence and sequences to reach out to each one of those individuals over the course of, you know, the course of the year, quite frankly, because you keep doing it over and over again.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:20]:
Okay. So when you Flood at this market mapping and breaking down your accounts, is there, like, a good system or a good tool out there that Yeah. Helped you do that, or did you just have, like like, what I sometimes do, sticky notes everywhere.

Keely Flood [00:13:32]:
What Sticky notes is kind of my thing. Right? I didn't know I mean, I wish there were some tools out there that said, hey. Go after these accounts based on x, y, and z. To my knowledge, I've not come across any. I think I think when our you know, within our space and Keely in sales in general, there's both a science and an art to it where you can have a framework of, like, Like I said, hey. The number of TA to the number of employees, to the number of job openings, to the how long the job openings are, like, all these things you could create like a formula. And even then, you could get in there and make 2 sales, and you find out they use a VMS and their rates are so low, you never wanna work with them. And just like that, all the science part, thrown out the window.

Keely Flood [00:14:08]:
Boom. Gone. Get rid of it. You don't wanna go after that account anymore. Find someone else to target.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:13]:
Okay. So we we've now done, like, the market mapping. We've now figured out, like, who we're looking at hitting. And you also mentioned about, like, sequences, but let's hold off on that. Sure. What's the what's the next step for a foundational, successful sales system after you Flood everybody?

Keely Flood [00:14:28]:
After you've found everybody is I mean, the research phase. Right? You found the directors. You found the managers, the leads, the supervisors. Right? From there, I'm gonna be researching the individuals and then also the the companies themselves. Because that first checkpoint, you're saying, hey. They're they're good enough to continue doing a deeper dive. And then from there, I'm looking into things like, what is the company's growth plans? What are some of the large changes that have happened? Right? I'll use they're not a client for mine anymore because I haven't worked there a long time. But for example, Medline here in Chicago, they're a Fortune 500 e Fortune 500 DME company, And they just brought in or they're going to be bringing in a new CEO.

Keely Flood [00:15:03]:
With with that change, we you know, that's a big change. There's probably be some changes internally. For me, I'm gonna wanna understand what those changes are and whether that could impact potential business in the future, hurt my current business, things of that nature, and then other things too within the company. Right? Are they looking to span, are they releasing a new product? All that stuff I'm doing deeper and deeper, and I'm building that out within the account, whatever CRM you're using so I know, Hey. Here's this company's goals and objectives. How do I then help them hit that? And I keep working my way down from there because when you're talking to, And when you're talking like VPs, when you're talking to even the CEO, right, you're not gonna be going in there talking just about hiring because for them, hiring is a small piece of the puzzle, And they're thinking more from a business standpoint. But if I'm talking to a manager who oversees 5 people and they're down 1, that's a completely different situation. They're down 20% of the workforce.

Keely Flood [00:15:52]:
I'll be probably talking more around that topic of hiring habits.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:56]:
Awesome. So you got everybody put in your CRM. What's the what's the next step?

Keely Flood [00:16:01]:
From there, it's cadence time. Right? That's where that's where you've gotta have, and You should have something built out before you reach out is what I'm always saying because what you don't wanna do is do a couple weeks of reaching out, Winging it right and then think, oh, wait. What should I be doing with this individual now? We're on touch number 9. I'm not really sure. And then it's inconsistent. Right? Touch 9 with this person's. Maybe on LinkedIn, Touchdown with this person. It's a cold call.

Keely Flood [00:16:25]:
Like, it's all over the place. It can be hard for you personally to track and keep up with. And there's nothing worse than having someone slip through the cracks because What I how I view cadence is is it's a story. Right? You're building on the story with each reach out and each touch. And if you stop or someone slips through the cracks, All that momentum you had built up until that point is gone because you might remember a month, 2 months, 3 months later, like, oh my gosh. This 1st slip dude. Let me reach out to him again. Don't remember you.

Keely Flood [00:16:50]:
I mean, hell, they don't remember you a week later more often than not. So if it's a long time in between, you're gonna run into some issues and you're gonna lose everything that you'd built up until that point. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:00]:
So you're saying that we need to have a cadence structure built out before we even start reaching out.

Keely Flood [00:17:05]:
Yeah. Yes. Like and there's multiple ways to do it right Within cadences, there isn't just 1 cadence that you can do. There's I mean, you can Google cadences and I mean, you can get tired just reading all of the different ones out there, but you gotta find ones that work Your time commitments, because especially if you're running, say, a 3 60 task, there's only so much BD time you can do versus obviously recruiting time. You need to find the case that works for you. And then from there, obviously, implementing and sticking to it.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:30]:
Okay. So you mentioned, like like, you like, when you're building it, It should probably look like a year.

Keely Flood [00:17:37]:
That's a yeah. I mean, it's a great question. No. They were asked me a year. I look at it as, like, small smaller chunks. Right? Almost like Okay. Let's just start with the numbers because right now, the number of touches to get a meeting keeps increasing, over the every year, it seems to get higher and higher. And I think the average now is 8 touches.

Keely Flood [00:17:54]:
So if I'm talking, I wanna say, hey. Your cadence better at least include 9 touches because you gotta go at least 1 past. But within that, go from probably most cadences are between 10 and 15. You're spreading that over the course of a month, and then you're putting on if by a month, you still haven't heard a no, a yes, chances are They're just ignoring. You might as well put it on a break for at least 3 weeks to a month and then come back with, like, a different cadence or at the very least, if you're gonna use the same cadence With a different messaging than you did the 1st time through it. But you'll know when you did the 1st time because you tracked it all too.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:26]:
Okay. And here I think one of the biggest things Recruiters, many of us are ADHD. So, like, we see squirrel. We see, like, a news site pops up. We see a message on LinkedIn that pops up, and we're just like, wait. What are we doing again?

Keely Flood [00:18:37]:
How do you keep

Benjamin Mena [00:18:38]:
how do you keep tracking these cadences and everything that you're supposed to be doing?

Keely Flood [00:18:42]:
Well, I mean, if you've got, like, a CRM that can track it for you, Please for the love of God, use it. My career, I did not have that luxury, and it was within tasks, within the system. I, you know, we use Bullhorn to be the one that we use, and I literally was setting task where I would have my cadence. It'd be printed out. It'd be hanging on my, like, Dash next to me so I can look at it, and it begs step 7 is this. Right? So if I look at my bullhorn, it says step 7. I know step 7's cold call. I call.

Keely Flood [00:19:11]:
He doesn't pick up. Okay. Step 8 is send an email. Right? I'm rolling a task over. I'm make marking as 8 email, and then I know that's what I'm doing from there. So it's it's really just that is a more monotonous way of approaching it. It's kinda like the sticky notes, but it is effective. Right? The key though is having the structure built out because if you don't, then you're just gonna lose it, and you're not gonna you're not gonna remember what step you're supposed to be on, what's next, things like that.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:33]:
Do you have any favorite tech tools that can help with the cadence?

Keely Flood [00:19:36]:
I like Apollo. I'm a fan of it. There's a free version, which for 1 is, like, great just from a leads perspective. There's Ton of great data within there. And then there's the upgraded version that allows you to really expand on the cadences where you can get More, more detailed with it because the free version, you can only do so much. They prohibit you from adding, like, LinkedIn steps, things of that nature, but Apollo definitely is one of my favorite ones.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:01]:
Nice. Okay. That's awesome. Because, yeah, like, I I was saying earlier, like, you said their Keely, but, like, most recruiters are just like, what Step was I on with this person? Who did I reach out to yesterday? What did I do? Crap. And, like It's hard.

Keely Flood [00:20:16]:
Like, it's so hard. Right? Like, I think the other thing too, thinking back to my recruiting times versus sales times is, like, with recruiting, you mentioned the ADHD. If you have ADHD and your recruiting, it kinda like works out well because 1 week on one position, you get it Flood, boom out of the other one, you get it filled. Right? You're all over the place. With sales, it is much more of a boring basics. You're going back to it over and over again And having something in place just to tell you, hey. Here's what you should be doing. It's just less brain power of focus on that stuff and more brand and power of, like, How am I gonna craft a great message? How am I going to have a great cold call? How am I gonna run a great meeting? Right? Use your brain power for the higher RO activities and Let the, processes and stuff you build out just tell you what to do.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:58]:
Awesome. So okay. So we're now talking to Cadence. Is there anything else that you wanna add add to this process?

Keely Flood [00:21:05]:
I mean, it's gotta be multichannel.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:08]:
There's Okay.

Keely Flood [00:21:09]:
It's yeah. I mean, you'll see on LinkedIn probably every other day. Right? Someone's saying some sort of channel's dead. I don't think there's any channel in this world that is dead. I do think what is dead though is relying on 1 because you're going to just run into walls. You might as well diversify because you don't know What your prospects like from a channel perspective until you actually start getting some responses. There's some people that only wanna talk on the phone. There's some people that will only respond via email.

Keely Flood [00:21:36]:
There's some people that live on LinkedIn, and you're able to message with them that way. Right? There's some people that a handwritten card goes a very, very long way. All to say though, if you don't have those things built out throughout your cadence, you're gonna miss the channel for each prospect that has the highest potential of them responding.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:53]:
That's good. Hand handwritten cards. Is that like a secret weapon that you've been holding?

Keely Flood [00:21:57]:
Uh-huh. No. I mean, yeah, my handwriting, I mean, it's not a secret weapon. It's probably actually a deterrent. But I do I do think, like, with all the AI stuff going on, which I think is amazing. Like, first off, I always wanna say that. I just think that That stuff, especially in our space, like, we are a people driven, relationship driven business, and the AI side of things is great behind the scenes. But when I'm getting in front of a client, I want it to be person to person.

Keely Flood [00:22:23]:
And with, like, a handwritten card, right, it's personalized. We all still do it. Right? If you get mail, even the spam mail I get, I'm like, I gotta at least open it. You never know. Versus, like, an email. Right? If you get an email and it's like a subject line you don't Keely like or it's something you don't really know. I would say more often than that, we all hit delete, and we don't even look at it. At least with the handwritten card, they're gonna rip that thing open.

Keely Flood [00:22:43]:
They're gonna read it. They're gonna hold something in their hands. Like, there's something about that that can hit home with people because it shows that you didn't just put their name in and an AI created an email and Sent it out to you. Like, you took the time, sent this in the mail, took several days to get there. Like, there's just a lot to it that I think goes a long way from a prospect's perspective.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:04]:
Okay. So dumb question about handwritten cards. The work address or their personal address?

Keely Flood [00:23:09]:
Work address. Because I think if you got their personal address, they might be like, How does he know that much about me? Like, you know, if if, like, if you've got a client that you've been working with for years, different deal. But if you're reaching out to a prospect, it I mean, I'd be a little bit weird I got a handwritten note from someone sent to my house. Be like, hey. We have the service you wanna buy from. Like, how did you get my home address? Like I

Benjamin Mena [00:23:30]:
mean, I I had asked for the listeners because us recruiters, we can find everything.

Keely Flood [00:23:33]:
Yeah. I mean, it's true. Like, I guess, like, if you're, you know, maybe this is step 47 of the cadence. Right? It's like, Alright. I'm going all in. I'm sending a handwritten card to their home. And if that doesn't work, well, then there's it's never gonna work. Right? At that point, you just give up completely.

Keely Flood [00:23:49]:
Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:50]:
So, okay. Anything else that we need to add to make sure that we have a successful Foundational sales structure in place.

Keely Flood [00:24:01]:
I mean, I'm a big fan of Calendly. You know, you were talking about, You know, tools in general. I love Calendly just because of the ease. I what I don't like and what I've done in the past, right, I hate as a sales, the they're interested and it's back and forth via email. And then you try to get times coordinated, and it doesn't work out. Right? You're like, oh, how about Tuesday, Wednesday, week, all those days in work are about Thursday. All that day doesn't work. It's like these back and forth, I'm always afraid, and maybe this is a little paranoid, but I'm always afraid that they're gonna get so frustrated.

Keely Flood [00:24:28]:
There's, nah. You know, it's Screw it. I don't need to meet with you anymore. Like, I'm like, oh, no. Like so I think I do, like, something like Calendly where it's simple. It's a link. It's how you phrase it to, hey. Find time that works best for you.

Keely Flood [00:24:38]:
I'll make myself available. Self available, something like that, I think sales things a little bit easier for them, and the less friction, the better.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:46]:
Awesome. No. This is definitely, awesome. Just because, like, you know, like I said at the very beginning of the podcast, there are so many recruiters out there, and many of us are just, like, Ad hoc going throughout the day, you know, running around, checking out the flowers, at the same time, both needing to fill these positions. So, like, having some sort of structure set up in place can, you know, definitely help you be successful in 2024. Yeah.

Keely Flood [00:25:09]:
I mean, the one thing I'd even add in to talk about within You have your territory plan. You've got all these cadences too. There's something I have. It's called an account focused document. Like, these are my, like, North star for each account. I'm saying, hey. Here's my top priorities within each account. So if I have, let's say, a list of 25 accounts, Within that, I've set goals where it could be meet with this person, identify people in this department, something like that where if I ever have those moments like you're saying where I think, oh, crap.

Keely Flood [00:25:36]:
What should I be doing right now? Right? Like, you're supposed to have an interview with someone. They don't show up. Or you're supposed to have a meeting also, you have a free hour. You're like, wait. I didn't expect this. What should I be doing? Pull up your account focus doc real quick. Look at it and say, okay. I decided because I would do it quarterly.

Keely Flood [00:25:48]:
I decided these were my main goals to accomplish this quarter In order to move the ball forward, whether that's to get a contract in place, grow revenue within the account, whatever it is. Right? And I would just go back to that and say, okay. What is some open items That I haven't touched on in the last whatever period that I can now go to because I have free time I didn't expect to have.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:07]:
Okay. So Let me take a few steps back because I think this is an important hack because there's a lot of recruiters that are, like, in smaller agencies or solo. But then there's, like, the structure that you typically see in a larger organization that I think that many of us can take advantage of. So you're talking about every single Active account that you have, you have a full on document and goals that you sit down on a quarterly basis and try to work on with that account.

Keely Flood [00:26:32]:
Correct. Yeah. So If you got a list, it was it was within, like, my territory plan. Right? My 50 counts of going after, and then within that one, each one has sub goals. So You're looking at something like a 100 to 200 depending on, right, goals each quarter. You're not gonna accomplish them all. Like, that's just a fact. If you do, you set your goals way too low, But there should be some things that are stretch sales.

Keely Flood [00:26:55]:
Right? You're trying to shoot for, and it is like for me, I always shop, like, 70%. Yeah. I know in, like, high school, like, great, that wouldn't be great grades then, but in the sales world, I'll take 70%. That's pretty good in my view. In that way, I'm continuing to move the ball forward with whatever account is. It's not always prospects too. Right? It is clients that you're already working with where you think there's more opportunity in other Groups that you're saying, okay. I need to talk to Jay to get me introduction to Carol.

Keely Flood [00:27:21]:
Right? Something as simple as goal as that, or I need to get John out for lunch to build the relationship, or I need to do a candidate review, see how someone's doing 90 days into their job. Whatever it is, But it is something to help keep myself accountable, and it takes time. Don't get me wrong. It would take, like, I mean, half a day, maybe a day as you get better, It can be a little bit faster, but I would do it at the beginning of every quarter, and that was something I always went back to.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:46]:
I absolutely love that idea. And for the listeners, I think that's a great, Like, takeaway point is have have it you know, we all have our weekly goals. We all have, like, our you know, the things that we're shooting for, but, you know, if you're really looking at Creating a better relationship with some of your clients. Like, build out a quarterly, like, client goal. Yeah. That that's phenomenal.

Keely Flood [00:28:05]:
It goes a long way. Right? Like, getting yeah. Getting people out the launcher. I mean, hell, I had some things as easy as like, hey, check-in to see how their crews went. Like, that goes a lot. We're the people the relationship driven business. Like, Checking in to see how someone's cruise went in December because I know someone who always went on cruises in December. He loved it.

Keely Flood [00:28:21]:
Right? It was it was another touch point that wasn't business related And showed that I was more than just, you know, a vendor to him and his team.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:30]:
Awesome. Fantastic, boss. So is there anything else that you wanna chat about the sales cycle?

Keely Flood [00:28:35]:
I mean, we can talk for hours on that, but it's and look. I I I've been using this quote a lot, and I I like it. It's, You know, success is really found in the boring basics, and that is very much true in sales where the stuff we've just talked about, It is boring. It can seem basic. It's not the flashy meetings. It's not the wheeling and dealing negotiations. It's Not the high flying big meetings with the CEO and the c suite. Right? Those are the stuff we all live for in sales.

Keely Flood [00:29:01]:
Like, it's the funnest part of the job. This part though is the part that gets you paid. Because by doing this over and over again, you will be successful. That and then obviously having the mindset and dealing with the rejection piece, but that's that you could talk hours about that part because that's not a piece, but that's Mac, you could talk hours about that part because that's not a fun part to say the least.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:18]:
And, Akili, how can people get ahold of you to kind of get more insight and, I get your help digging down and setting up these structures.

Keely Flood [00:29:26]:
LinkedIn, I mean, you know, I'm a big proponent of LinkedIn. I'm on there. I post every day on LinkedIn. I have a website too. It's just the honest salesperson.com. You can schedule time with me that way as well. But either one, I'll get back to you quickly. I I love what I'm doing now.

Keely Flood [00:29:40]:
The opportunity to help people has been a blast over the last 7 months, and it's only continued to be more fun the more I get to work with more people.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:49]:
That's awesome. Well, switching over to the quick fire questions, Keely, and they don't have to be quick answers.

Keely Flood [00:29:55]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:57]:
What's what would be your advice to a recruiter that's just getting started out in our industry as brand new recruiter? What would you tell them to succeed?

Keely Flood [00:30:07]:
I mean, don't be afraid to fail. I think that's one thing. When I when I started out, I thought, oh gosh. I need to I need to show I don't know what I'm doing. I don't need to ask For help, right, that's another piece too. And I wanted to be perfect, and you're not gonna be. And even years later, you still won't be perfect. You'll still make mistakes, But not being afraid to failing and then learning from those mistakes will help you be successful versus the alternative of, like, Playing it safe, not asking for help, not learning from failure.

Keely Flood [00:30:36]:
Right? Like my saying, I feel like I talk about as ABL, always be learning. If you have that mindset, you can be successful in learning from people around you too. Right? If you're in the office setting, try to sit next to the top performers. I mean, there's studies out there that, like, shows. Sitting next to the top performers, the people around them, they see an uptick. And just being around them, it doesn't, like, Maybe that top performer doesn't wanna spend time coaching you up and, like, sit you down. That's okay. Just being around them, hearing how they go about and seeing how they go about their job Will have an effect on you and your performance.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:06]:
So and that goes into the question about you. Like, This brand new territory, this brand new team, this brand new division that was struggling, dying, and then 2 years later, everybody hit president's club. Did that have an effect with you guys kind of bouncing off each other?

Keely Flood [00:31:21]:
Yeah. I mean, for sure, I think we were all United on the goal of growing the division because we were passionate around turning what was, you know, quite frankly, just kind of a laughing stock at the time. It wasn't doing well And almost like proving people wrong. I think that was a big thing for us. And we would we there's people in other offices 2, I think the phrase that was thrown around a lot was like model the master. So we would reach out to those individuals, pick their brains, and get insights. And then from there, come back together as a group And bounce ideas off each other to make each one of us better.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:55]:
Okay. So digging into this a a little more. So picture this. You're dealing with a a division or you're dealing with a company that's kind of, like, been stagnant or going backwards. What are some of the things that they could do? Like, come together goals or whatever to really start turning that boat towards success.

Keely Flood [00:32:17]:
I mean, get back to the basics would be the 1st place to start because What I feel like can happen is you think you're on like a certain course. Right? And you don't review things. You don't get back to the basics. And you could be way way off top of, like, who you think your ICP is and who you think good accounts are. Maybe you did that 2 years ago, and you haven't reevaluated since then. And because of that, it's become harder and you're way off target. Right? Like, there's some metaphor that goes around. It's like, if you leave LA And head to New York and you're 1 degree off, you'll finish 60 miles off your destination.

Keely Flood [00:32:52]:
Right? It's the same thing in sales where you gotta go back to the basics over and over again to, I guess point yourself back on the right course.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:01]:
Okay. Awesome. And going back to the original question, Sales same question, but for experienced recruiters, the ones that have been in the game for a while, 5, 10, 15 sales, like me, almost 20 years. What advice would you give to Them to either be successful or continuing to have success.

Keely Flood [00:33:21]:
I mean, continue to be success is Back to always be learning, right, and be humble. I think this space is constantly changing when I mean, I wasn't around 20 some years ago. I was listening to a podcast. This guy had been in the industry for 30 some years, and he talked about how a career builder is supposed to be The death of the staffing industry. Right? And then LinkedIn was supposed to be the death of it. And then now AI is supposed to be the death. It's like all these things that are supposed to be the death of this industry are not, But what they are is they are tools and they're opportunities for those who wanna take advantage to take advantage to get better at their craft. And so if you don't have the mindset of, hey.

Keely Flood [00:33:57]:
I'm always gonna be learning. I'm always gonna assume that I'm not always right, and I'm always gonna try to strive to not be the smartest person in the room can set yourself up for success because there's these constant changing technologies and trends and everything else. And just saying, hey, it worked this way. I'm gonna stick with it is a Quick way to failure, in my opinion.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:17]:
Okay. Awesome. Has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your own personal career?

Keely Flood [00:34:22]:
The the challenger sale was probably one of the biggest ones for me. It was something that was given to me early on in my sales career. And within there, there's, like, 5 archetypes. 1 of them is, like, relationship builder. And I'm, like, reading through the book, and I remember thinking and I get to that section, And it was kinda like speaking to me like, oh, great. You know? Like, this is me. Like, great. The book's talking about me.

Keely Flood [00:34:44]:
This is gonna be awesome. Then it gets into the end of, like, the teaching. I was like, that's the worst one to be. I'm like, That's not good. Like, I was like, that's kind of eye opening. Like, that's how I went about the 1st 6 months of my, like, sales career and the challengers The challenger salesperson. Right? That's how my boss taught me and how the book kinda opened things up to me about look. Your job is To enlighten your prospects, to teach them something about something they don't know.

Keely Flood [00:35:08]:
Don't go in there, like, chumming it up with them because if you're presenting a problem that they've already thought of? Chances are they've already tried to solve it. And so you're not teaching them anything you knew. You're not adding any value, and that was me. That was me in the beginning. And so when I read that book, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to change things around a little bit because I'm literally the worst version according to this book.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:29]:
That's funny. So this this next question's gonna be a 2fer. At the moment, do you have, like, a favorite rec tech or sales tech tool, that's helping people succeed.

Keely Flood [00:35:42]:
I mean, back to Apollo. I I wish I could mention it was like an Apollo to I like Apollo a lot. Like, I think, again, from the free version, if you're just looking for leads, it's a great way to go. You can get a certain number of contacts too for free as well. And then I also have been using HubSpot myself personally. Up until this point, I've been like a Salesforce guy, bullhorn, But I found HubSpot, and even some of the clients I've worked with, they've started to use it. It just gave them more visibility around deals and more ability to track things versus some of the other CRMs they were using.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:14]:
And that was actually gonna be the next question was, like, what what are your CRM recommendations for A solo recruiter, a small team recruiter, and a big team recruiter.

Keely Flood [00:36:25]:
I would say Solo small. I again, I go back to HubSpot because I'm always conscious of price, right, especially when you're starting out, you're small, you are watching every dollar. And even the HubSpot free version is more robust than a lot of other things I've seen. As you continue to grow, right, these bigger firms, Things like Bullhorn, they make more sense. Crelate's another one I've come across. I've got a couple clients who are using that. I've liked it from my interactions with it, but I've only had limited experience, so I can't, like, put a stamp of approval on it. But there are at least 2 other things I would recommend looking into.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:58]:
Okay. Cool. Awesome. And when it comes to, like, your own personal success, what do you think has been a big driver for that?

Keely Flood [00:37:07]:
You know, I mean, one I would be remiss not to say a process in place. Right? Because it's all I talk about. Having that in place, I think having the support I was very fortunate enough early on in my career to have great people around me, And they were there to lift me up when times were tough. Like I said, the 1st 6 months were rough, both recruiting and sales. And so, like, having that, having those mentors to guide me was Certainly helpful. And then I think the mindset too of, hey. It's okay to fail. It's okay to not know the answer.

Keely Flood [00:37:41]:
That was another learning curve for me too, especially when I was in sales because I was trying to impress the people I was sitting in front of, microbiology managers, chemistry managers. I wanted to seem smart. I don't wanna seem inferior to them. And what I found was that eventually, you're gonna put your foot in your mouth. So just admit you don't know it. Right? It's like a very It lifted a sh like, a weight off of my shoulder. Like, I still remember sitting down with this manager named sales Lisa Storer, and it was the first time I said, like, hey. I don't Lisa, I I'll be honest.

Keely Flood [00:38:07]:
Like, all these turns around, No clue what I mean. And she, like, looked at me. She's like, yeah. No damn. I don't I don't expect you to know what these are supposed to mean. I expect you to fill this role for me. I'm telling you these things because this is what I want in a can you're supposed to ask me questions like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Keely Flood [00:38:18]:
She's right. Like, that is like, I shouldn't try to be the smartest person in the room, and it's okay to admit I don't know something. I think all those things combined has helped me become successful.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:27]:
And looking at your your recruiting career, let's just say everything that you know now, if you could have a Cup of coffee with yourself and your like, literally your 1st week in your your recruiting career. What advice would you give yourself?

Keely Flood [00:38:40]:
I mean, I've talked about all being humble. I could probably say sales a 26 year old starting out in the industry, I thought I'd be like, you know, 5 years working experience. I'll I'm gonna crush it. And I got humbled fast, like Keely fast. And so I think I would tell myself that 1st week, hey. Like, lower the ego a little bit. Just because someone is younger than you doesn't mean that they are, inexperienced or they're not gonna be as good as you. I mean, there's My mentor at the time, her name was, Kristin Danak, KD.

Keely Flood [00:39:09]:
And she was maybe a year into her, career at medics, and she ran circles around me, like, literally laps around me. And she was just so good, so efficient. And I I wish I had a little bit more humble earlier on. But I like I said, I got humbled quick by the job and learned the hard way that you need to be humble in this industry.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:31]:
Well and that brings 1 last question I have for you. That mentor that you just mentioned, did you go create that mentorship opportunity, or does was There's structure in place where this is your mentor.

Keely Flood [00:39:45]:
Yeah. There was a structure, thankfully. Like, that's a great question. They had set it up where The top performers that wanted to get into, like, leadership roles because at the time, she was an individual producer, but she had her own Personal and professional aspirations to move into leadership. They would then the company Medics would then Assign that person to a new hire and said, okay. Look. If you wanna get in the leadership, show us, and here's also an opportunity for you to, like, learn yourself What it means to lead someone else and how to help someone else as well. So I was fortunate enough to get assigned with her.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:19]:
Okay. And for the companies that don't have that structure yet. Like, what what would you recommend to create a a mentorship structure that can set people up for success?

Keely Flood [00:40:27]:
Yeah. I

Benjamin Mena [00:40:28]:
mean, you You had brought in 1,000,000 of dollars of revenue that you probably wouldn't have had if it wasn't for her helping you through those door those initial steps.

Keely Flood [00:40:35]:
Yeah. I mean, Reach out. Right? I I said earlier, like, model the masters. Find whether it's in your organization, the top performers, Whether they're in your office or not, reach out to them. And, yeah, the co you know, Zoom coffee, whatever it is nowadays, like, Get a cup of coffee, ask if you can learn from them. Right? Whether that's it next to them, shadow them on calls, whatever it is. And I think Most people and there's a guy's name is Jack. He ran into this issue when I think about it.

Keely Flood [00:41:05]:
When you reach out to someone asking for, like, mentorship, Be pleasantly persistent. And he I know this individual, he got frustrated because he reached out to someone one time, and they didn't get back to him within the organization. I remember, like, sitting down like, Jack, like, Everyone's super busy. Everyone has their own goals to hit. And it's not a reflection of you. It's not probably because they didn't wanna help you. It's not that they just got busy and they forgot. They didn't get around to you.

Keely Flood [00:41:24]:
Right? If you really want help, seek it out, and don't be afraid to seek it out multiple times. And if you can't get within your organization, go outside of your organization. Right? The power of LinkedIn, You can find people anywhere. I mean, go on LinkedIn. I always point out, like, look at people that have, like, are on the job market. They're saying, hey. I'm putting this up. I'm open to work.

Keely Flood [00:41:43]:
I recently got laid off. There is a flood of people that, like, jump on those comments and say like, hey. Wish you luck. We wanna help you out. Anything I could do. Like, LinkedIn is a very powerful and positive platform in my opinion, versus maybe some other ones out there where people tend to they they choose violence to start. That is not LinkedIn. So if you want that mentorship, go and find those people because I would be shocked if you reached out to 10 people on LinkedIn saying, hey.

Keely Flood [00:42:09]:
I'd like to at least pick your brain for a half hour. I'd be shocked if, like, more than 2 people pat like, turned you down because people genuinely seem to wanna help each other if you find those who they're posting on LinkedIn Because I was gonna reach out to people that are never on there. You'll never hear back from them because they probably never use the platform. But if you see people posting, you like their stuff, reach out and ask for 30 minutes to pick their brain. You never know what can come from

Benjamin Mena [00:42:29]:
Awesome. Well, Killy, before I let you go, is there anything else that you wanna share with the listeners?

Keely Flood [00:42:33]:
I mean, have fun. Right? Like, I have fun with this industry, with this job. I think I talked about the top of the call. Right? There's the rejection, the failure, and everything else that comes with being BD. You gotta celebrate the small little wins. And especially in, like I I guess recruiting sales doesn't really matter. Right? Getting a great can on the phone, that's a win even if you didn't place them. Talking to a hiring manager and finding out they use That's a win in my book.

Keely Flood [00:42:57]:
So had fun with it. Celebrate the little wins because if you don't, you'll you'll go crazy. You you'll pull your hair out, And you'll you'll you'll question why you're doing this day in and day out. But if you could celebrate and stack up the small little wins over time, you will have the big wins that everyone's shooting for in this in this job.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:13]:
That is awesome. Well, Keeley, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Like like like I said at the very beginning of this, this is an important topic. I don't think there's enough of us that have a structure set up for on the success on the sales side, and this really is one of those things where it sounds like we need to slow down a little bit to speed up. So, Keely, thank you so much. And for the listeners, I hope you guys crush it this year. Let's make this year the best year yet.

Keely Flood [00:43:39]:
Thank you for having me.

Intro [00:43:40]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the elite recruiter podcast with Benjamin Menna. If you enjoyed, hit