Mastering The Art of Relevance as a Modern Day Recruiter with Donnie Gupton

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 [00:00:18]:

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. Just a few quick things before we jump on this exciting episode. First of all, the recruiting growth summit is live. Registration is is in the link below.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:53]:

Check it out. We are finalizing everything over the next week, but it is gonna be January 15th through 19th. We're gonna have 10 awesome speakers Sharing about how to set in 2024 and make it the best year yet. So make sure to sign up. I'm excited about this episode Of the Elite Recruiter podcast, I have my special guest, Donnie Gumbton, from the relevant recruiter To talk about how to actually be relevant in today's market. Like, the game has absolutely changed. Like, it is what what us recruiters are doing 5 years ago, Us what us recruiters was doing 10 years ago and what were us recruiters were doing even 2 to 3 years ago or even 6 months ago, it's it's different now. The game's changed.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:34]:

And we have Donnie on here to talk about how you can level up and be relevant in your niche and relevant in your industry. So welcome to the podcast, Donnie.

Donnie Gupton [00:01:42]:

Thank you, Benjamin. I'm excited to be here, man. Appreciate the invite, and hope I can drive some value to your audience here.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:49]:

Awesome. So this will be fun.

Donnie Gupton [00:01:50]:

Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:50]:

Because, like, I mean, I hate I I hate to say this. I'm gonna get this started off this way. Like, I did not wanna post anything on social media. I didn't wanna put myself out there. I just always wanted to be known for the hard work and the positions that I filled, but I had to learn. And, you know, I saw some of your stuff out there that I had to, I hate to say this to be relevant. So ex excited for you to share on all this stuff, but, mate, let's get started. How did you even get started in the recruiting space?

Donnie Gupton [00:02:19]:

Yeah, man. Thanks. Great question. I I think this is, well, we just interviewed you on my show, and I think your answer is very similar. Like most people stumbled into this space, so, you know, real quick backstory. I was I owned a business with my dad. We were in the floor covering industry. Had a lot of success growing his business.

Donnie Gupton [00:02:37]:

We went from under a1000000 to over 6,000,000 in the 3 year span. So I've always had a passion for growing business, and, you know, as our business grew, it became glaring clear for me. Like, I didn't wanna be working with the consumer that way. I did not wanna be in the floor covering industry, I've always had a passion to coach and help people. And so, I was working with a coach at a at a time, and I'm like, man, I really wanna be a coach, and I just like, boom. Alright. Let's go. Actually, I was going after other home improvement and retail type companies like I was, and the market just wasn't there for me yet.

Donnie Gupton [00:03:08]:

And I was in a a an executive forum if you've ever heard of Renaissance. I was in a Renaissance executive group, and one of the guys in the group owned a staffing Firm focused on engineers in the Bay Area. And so I actually just started helping him with stuff and trying some of my tactics, And then he's like, man, this stuff's good. This works. And then boom, the rest was history. So then I started to kinda dig like, I think there's an opportunity here as I started to look at, You know, this was 6 years ago now. Like, look at how the market was approaching people, and I'm like, yeah. This is where I wanna plant my flag.

Donnie Gupton [00:03:38]:

And so here we are 6 years later.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:40]:

I think it's super funny because, like, if you look at recruiting, if you look at a lot of other, like, you know, very forward markets out there, like, recruiting is, like, Always a decade or 2 behind

Donnie Gupton [00:03:50]:

Oh, yeah. Everybody else.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:52]:

Like, I think while other companies are using drip campaigns and marketing and other industries, that was, like, the norm. Like, recruiters were just like I think it was, like, DSP is like, think about this, a drip campaign. And we're all like, what? Like, you mean I don't have to send it, like, the message and then go back and resend that person a message? But that's I see that even today. Okay. So many recruiters are just still operating like it was 1980.

Donnie Gupton [00:04:16]:

Oh, for sure. And I you know what I I feel like is I feel like the because it's always been a very heavy outbound, you know, industry. Right? Like, that's Where success comes is being on the phone and especially, you know, if you go back for some of the real season vets in the space, like, that's what they what they know, but It's interesting having conversations with people, and I think the what I see is, like, the marketing part becomes optional. And it's like, well, if you go into every other industry in the world, Marketing is a part of, like, the org structure, but for whatever reason, the staffing recruiting industry is like, marketing, we'll just throw that aside. You know? I was like talking to a lady a couple weeks ago, and she was exactly that shit. Oh, I don't wanna mark. And I'm like, well, are you serious about having a business? And she's like, yeah. And I'm like, well, then It's not about her if you want to.

Donnie Gupton [00:05:02]:

You need to. Right? So, yeah, it's it's interesting.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:05]:

And, I mean, as a recruiter, I I I didn't wanna put myself out there. I didn't wanna, like, Do all that stuff. I just wanted to, like, let me fill roles. But then, like, if you start thinking about this outside of you know, I at least I started to see, like, Not everybody was picking up the phone anymore.

Donnie Gupton [00:05:20]:

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:21]:

Now, like, not everybody was answering every email. Like, Donnie, how do you Be relevant, and how do you get past the noise?

Donnie Gupton [00:05:30]:

Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, I mean, to to to start this off, I mean, I think the game is still always 1 on the phone. Right? Like, I think it's just a matter of how do we get there in a more efficient manner. Right? Because, yeah, if you were to look at cold calling, hey. Does it work? Yeah. It works. I mean but I could also Drive a taxi to New York, that would work too. Right? So I can pick a jet plane or I can pick a taxi.

Donnie Gupton [00:05:49]:

Right? I can pick a 100 cold calls or I can campaigns or automation. Right? So I think the the thing is is just looking at it from a standpoint of, you know, where is where is what is the trend? So when you're looking at cold calling, it's like, well, now look at what it takes to get through if you were just to call support for, you know, your most recent purchase, How many buttons you have to push to get through somebody. Right? So now we're gonna go try to get into the organizations and cold calls. It's like just not as efficient out there. So, you know, what my my Where I saw the opportunity in the industry is purely attraction. Right. How do we how do we put ourself out there, as an authority, as a relevant figure in my industry and then attract people into me rather than trying to bust down the door, but the end goal is the same. I need to get on the phone with with somebody who's interested in and so I can help them do business.

Donnie Gupton [00:06:39]:

And and I think the best companies out there are finding ways to infuse All best practices. Right? They're not hard on. Like, we don't cold call. It's like, no. They do some sort of outreach. Right? We don't market. No. They they've got marketing.

Donnie Gupton [00:06:52]:

Right? And I think that's Where, you know, kind of talking again is like having all aspects of a business, you know, be a part of the of the recruiting space.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:00]:

Okay. And you you mentioned about attraction. We're talking earlier. Everything's been outbound. Everything has been, like, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt. Yep. What are some of the things that a recruiter can do to bring in leads that are attracted Did 2 you, like, coming in

Donnie Gupton [00:07:12]:

Yep. Semi inbound. Yep. So I think the very first thing here, and this is you know, May not hit home with everybody, but some is like, you have to have a target client, especially if you're trying to attract. When I'm on the phone, I can tailor my message to whoever's on the other end. When I'm in digital world and I'm online, I can't change my message based off of who's viewing it. Right? And so it's very important to know, hey. If I'm trying to attract an audience, I need to know who I'm attracting.

Donnie Gupton [00:07:41]:

You know, I always use fishing with my analogy, which is like, hey. If I'm gonna go fishing, nobody ever goes and fishes and says, oh, I'm just gonna go fish and hope I catch whatever. Right? No. It's like, usually, you go to a pond and you have an idea of what kind of fish might be in that pond, and then you're gonna go show up with the right bait to catch that fish. A marketing brand is not a whole lot different. It's like, okay. So if I wanna do focus on attraction, I need to know who I'm trying to attract first. So I need to have my target market, then what are their pains, Problems, frustrations, how can I speak to them in a way that the average recruiter is not? And and what I mean by that is I'm not just trying to transact.

Donnie Gupton [00:08:14]:

I'm not just trying to put a most viable candidate in front of you, which It's a great marketing approach. I'm not saying it's not, but I'm trying to show up and be different than the next person out there, and that comes with, hey, I need to know my market inside now. So that's the 1st foundational thing. The next from there is, well, I need to know I need to drive awareness that I exist. Any small business owner, and even recruiter is we all struggle with obscurity. Is there enough people in our market that know That we're there to help them. And so, again, I have that clear market that I know who I wanna help. I wanna package myself with my digital presence to be an obvious solution to them, And then I need to expose myself to as many as people as I possibly can.

Donnie Gupton [00:08:56]:

And then the last part of this that I really believe in, and I don't wanna say the last part, but the next part will go in. It's just creating the content. Right? The content really drives the relevancy, drives the differentiation, and it expands the reach of of your audience. And then through you know, and this is where I pull up the the good news and the bad news, Benjamin, is when you get into creative content, you know, the good news is is it's Gonna be tough, so people are gonna fall off. The bad news is is there's gonna be a tough. And so most people because hey. I can pick up the all day long and have evidence of success, but if I'm creating content, you know this, there's a lot of blind faith in that journey for a while, not that people are, You know, if you get into the dopamine metrics of likes, comments, impressions, well, when you first start, you'd usually don't get validated very much. For me, I don't focus on that as much and more into, like, Tracking, you know, an actual what I would call an inbound lead, but that takes time too because there's not a magical piece of content.

Donnie Gupton [00:09:58]:

What you're doing is you're making yourself relevant. It takes Time for you to become relevant where somebody goes, you know, there's very few pieces of content that generate the con generate the lead as much as The individual behind the content is what's generating the lead.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:11]:

And what I mean, what I've seen, like, 2023, 20 going into 2024, The impact of social selling. Yep. And the the algorithm, I am I hated the change in the algorithm for LinkedIn. I was like, I hated these, like, LinkedIn bros and memes and stuff like that. I'm like, no. That's not what this is for. This is for work. But now Start playing at the algorithm, and I saw those people, like, they're with their businesses growing.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:37]:

I'm like, well, fuck. It's

Donnie Gupton [00:10:39]:

yeah. You have beat of Jordan. Right? You can be rich or you can be right. You bet. Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:10:46]:

Absolutely. But so you're you're now throwing this hat on. Like, I need to start creating this Content that's relevant for for my target market. What are some of the things and, like like, what are you putting out there to be relevant?

Donnie Gupton [00:10:58]:

Yeah. It's a great question. So I actually kind of go high level on this real quick is I kind of focus on 3 pillars. The 1st pillar that I focus on is leadership. And so the question you can actually ask yourself because these are what I asked myself to prompt. I content ideas. Well, how can I lead my market today? And so what that looks like is, like, well, what are the what are the pains, problems, frustrations, mistakes, challenges that you're hiring leaders or candidates in your you know, are going through? How can you start to create content that showcases that you have solutions for that? You know? Some of that could be just, you know, something very granular. Some of that can be more big high level process stuff.

Donnie Gupton [00:11:35]:

But if I'm gonna start to speak to their pains and problems, then they're gonna immediately go, oh, Benjamin knows what the heck's going on with government contracting. He knows what's going on with the cybersecurity k. So he knows he's got a clue because I can see the way he's he's he's talking. Okay? But then the other part of the leadership, and this is, I think, Gosh. If I took one thing away from this, this is where it's at, is you have to solve this challenge. Why should I listen to you? I'm scrolling the feed. There's hundreds of other thousands of other recruiters out there. There is even other recruiters in your niche that are out there that are gonna be creating content.

Donnie Gupton [00:12:08]:

So why am I gonna stop, stroll the feed, listen to you? Proven traffic of a success. I've been there. I've done. Okay. And so, being able to showcase and share how you're winning, sharing client and candid testimonials, Sharing your open positions not from, hey. I'm trying to get the best talent, but from more of a braiding relevancy head. I told you I'm the best in the government contracting space. Let me go ahead, Ensure that I have these open positions.

Donnie Gupton [00:12:33]:

So that's the leadership pillar.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:35]:

So real real quick, stopping

Donnie Gupton [00:12:36]:

on that.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:37]:

So I most of us, like, recruiters that have been on LinkedIn since the good old days of, I think I was on there since, like, 2004. Like, it we always shared, hey. Here's our open positions. Like, I feel like that isn't working anymore. So are you sitting there saying we should share open positions, but also, like, talk about the positions we're closing and talk about all that stuff?

Donnie Gupton [00:12:57]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Well, here's what I say. So yeah. Let and you bring up a great point. No. It's not like checking the box.

Donnie Gupton [00:13:05]:

Exciting new opportunity. Right? So one of the home runs that we found is you share your open position, but you do it from a branding. Yeah. I'm putting my branding and marketing hat on. I'm not putting my recruiting hat on. I'm not I have no care in a world that I'm gonna share this position and I attract a client or candidate from That's not you know, most of the clients I'm working with are hunters, and that's what they pride themselves on. But what I can do is I can turn into a LinkedIn slideshow, And then I can put my branding behind it. I can put my personality behind it.

Donnie Gupton [00:13:35]:

I can put 3 graphics, and I can be more of a marketer and brainer. And I can say, Are you looking for your next cybersecurity opportunity? And then go to the next slide, and here's perks of this company. Here's perks of this opportunity. Here's how you're gonna expand and Talking you know, I think one of the areas that, I see recruiters make a mistake is, like, here's a new sales position. Here's what you're gonna do as a salesperson. It's like, oh, well, no shit. Like, I didn't know I was gonna do in sales since I'm in sales. Like, what's gonna get them excited and attracted? Right? So we just do these slideshows from a branding standpoint.

Donnie Gupton [00:14:06]:

So, yeah, it's Sharing the job, but it's not from, like, any other point other than marketing. Right? And then I'm gonna share with you. I have success. Oh, I love getting messages from, you know, like this, and I'm gonna screenshot my testimonial, or I'm gonna take my LinkedIn recommendation. I'm gonna put it out there, But it I'm gonna highlight my prospect so that that way I don't look like I'm pretentiously bragging or something like that. Right. I'm with everybody else's success and story, so to speak.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:32]:

And when you say slideshows, are you talking about LinkedIn carousels?

Donnie Gupton [00:14:35]:

Carousels. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:36]:

Yeah. Okay. For the listeners, like, the like, don't laugh. I couldn't figure out how to do a carousel for the longest time. I feel like I'm not the most tech savvy person out there, And if people run circles around me but, like, for me, Canva makes us pretty easy. Where what what do you use?

Donnie Gupton [00:14:52]:

Yep. Canva. 100%. Just make it simple. Go to Canva. You know? You can create a template slideshow. I mean, it's literally grab your colors from your website, grab your logo, put some text. You create 1 template one time every time you get a job posting doing just part of your process.

Donnie Gupton [00:15:07]:

You create that same template where it's just like, I'm gonna slap and grab and put a testimonial on there. You're probably going to Canva, put in a testimonial slide, put your colors, your logo behind it, and boom. And now you're it's low hanging fruit content. Right? Like, there's no effort in creating it. It's basically taking whatever's happening to grow in your day and then showcasing that.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:26]:

And real real quick before we move on on that. So most of us recruiters or a lot of us recruiters have worked at these large staffing agencies that have these entire, like, Communications marketing departments that were spending so much time after putting this stuff out, there's now great companies like Canva where you can literally go toe to toe With Oh, yeah. Branding, these big $100,000, $1,000,000, like, marketing budgets.

Donnie Gupton [00:15:50]:

Yep. Yep. Oh, well, I mean, it's there's so much more available to us now as individual you know, small businesses, independent recruiters, boutique recruiting agency owners, like, wherever you put it, like, you can compete with anybody now with the tools and technology that's available. I mean, it's not and and if you're not Thinking that way, then it's just because you're not it's kind of one of those things we don't know we don't know. But, yeah, I mean, you can definitely create a presence for yourself And utilize tools like Canva and all the other AI stuff that's out there to start showing up. And It's one of those things that like, it depends on how how bad you want it. Right. But like, this isn't an option anymore.

Donnie Gupton [00:16:29]:

If you're serious about truly building a solid recruiting aid agency, you know, and you don't have 20 years of of client relationships. If you think you're just gonna kinda do a bunch of outbound now and you're gonna be good kind of flying into the radar, you know, you you could win, but Person who's out there like a sore thumb that's driving their own brand narrative and things like that's gonna win that much more. You know? And we could expose ourselves way more now, you know, Using more modern approaches than we can, you know, with kind of the old old school approaches. So So is there

Benjamin Mena [00:17:00]:

any other, like, recommendations that you would Say to be, like, bringing out that relevant content for them?

Donnie Gupton [00:17:06]:

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. There's actually 2 other pillars I wanna dive into. The other the next pillar is the service pillar. And this is, I think, kinda traditional content marketing, which is more, here's your tips, here's your tricks, here's your how tos, here's busting through myths, and things like that. So getting in the habit of like, hey, here's 3 interviewing tips. But here's the thing is, like, if you were to follow my stuff on LinkedIn, most of my posts We're talking about recruiting recruiting agency owners, recruiting entrepreneurs, and I do that strategically because I don't care about anybody else on LinkedIn.

Donnie Gupton [00:17:33]:

Let's say that in a bad way, like, I have one objective which is to capture their attention. So I'm gonna talk to that audience every single day, and I think this is where a lot of recruiters don't Do that as they create content, but it's vague. And so I don't know who who you're who are you creating it for. Right? And so you know? But Being able to really add value to your industry puts you into a position of goodwill, makes you more of a resource and not just transactional. And so that's the next pillar. And then the last 1 is and you kinda talked about this before is is, you know, what I I call the connection pillar, Which is putting a little bit of your personal self out there. And there's 2 reasons that I really recommend this. 1 is that unfortunate algorithm Is when you print I mean, I can tell you 10 times out of 10 if I post a picture of my wife and I or if I post a picture of my son, The impressions go like crazy.

Donnie Gupton [00:18:26]:

Then I'll go drop a ton of value, and it's like, does anybody want reading this thing? You know? And so it's like kind of just hacking Game in the system a little bit. But the other thing, and this is in my opinion, that's more important now than ever, is there's AI, there's chat gbt, There's all this stuff out there. I wanna connect with real human beings, and authenticity is absolutely key. And so I you know? Hey. I can go in AI all day long, and I can create articles, and I can add value. I can create my leadership content. I can create my service content, but You can't create my connection content. You can't replace the experiences that I'm having in life.

Donnie Gupton [00:19:03]:

And so by sharing and showcasing that, that makes me real, makes me authentic, and makes me more Attractive to people because I can't tell you how many people dumps people come to the call and be like, oh, man. You're not this thing. Oh, you know, just by watching videos and seeing what's in the background or listening to things I'm talking about. Or recently, I've been talking about I just went to a concert a Tool concert, took my son, posted about it. People are on the call like, hey, man. I saw you went to Tool. That's awesome. You know? So and I believe that people do business with people that they know, like, and trust.

Donnie Gupton [00:19:28]:

Right? So, you know, we don't have the same commonalities all the time for you to know, like, and trust me, but you can get an idea of who I am as a person. I think that that's how people are making decisions now. This is 2023. Nobody's buying brands and logos. We are buying people now more than ever. So

Benjamin Mena [00:19:44]:

I I love that because if you think of it, like, when you're shopping, like, you people buy stories. Yeah. It's it's it's it's why even somebody like the car companies can now go into the stories of, like, acute puppy that could save. It's not because it's a car company. It's a story and the emotional, like yep. The LinkedIn algorithm right now is playing on the emotion.

Donnie Gupton [00:20:01]:

Yep. Well, and that's one last thing. So if you aren't creating yet, the lowest hanging fruit Easiest place for you to start is actually telling stories, and I always ask people this. It's like, Benjamin, have you had any calls with clients or candidates this week? Yeah. Okay. So on any of those calls, did you give any advice to them?

Benjamin Mena [00:20:24]:

I mean, I have to try to look at things as as a consultant, so we're always, like, kind of, like, Trying to add value even if it's not a placement?

Donnie Gupton [00:20:31]:

Boom. There's your content. So whatever they found value on the call is gonna be valuable to the next prospect. Just finished up a call with a, you know, cybersecurity professional. They asked me if they should redo their LinkedIn profile based off this new job they're applying for, and I told them X. And so what you're doing is is you can't replace people's experience. You can't place stories. Right? So And this has shifted.

Donnie Gupton [00:20:57]:

Right? So a couple years ago, like, the big how you thing was big. Right? That's kind of what everyone's like, hey. Here's how you should do this, how you should do that. Well, if I said, hey, Benjamin, you know, here's how you can lose weight using the carnivore diet, and I were to lay out 3 bullets for you, You could take a look at all 3 of those bullets and you can go, yeah, that ain't gonna work. Nope. That's not it for me. But if I just simply shifted that title and I said, hey, Ben. Here's how I lost weight on the carnivore diet.

Donnie Gupton [00:21:27]:

Then just by that subtle tweak, you can't challenge it anymore. It's my experience.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:32]:

Interesting. I like that.

Donnie Gupton [00:21:34]:

Yeah. So if I show up to market and I'm like, hey. You know, here's how I just helped 1 cybersecurity company fill 4 roles. Yeah. I'm immediately relevant calling up my target market. I'm sharing experience. I'm sharing something that they can relate with. And, you know, depending on how good I'm in the storytelling, The more emotion I can drive.

Donnie Gupton [00:21:51]:

So But that's loving your content right there for you. Just tell stories. Tell tell what's happening over your day every day.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:57]:

That's definitely a good shift. So and here's the thing. I think a lot of recruiters sometimes, like, go all in on one thing and kind of forget the basics. Yep. You're you've gotten a chance to coach a lot of, like, high level, Entrepreneurs are high all of high level top billing recruiters. What does their work ethic look like

Donnie Gupton [00:22:14]:

Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:14]:

With creating content and also their work ethic with everything else that they're doing.

Donnie Gupton [00:22:19]:

Yeah. Well, I think I think they have a mindset of it's like, 1st and foremost, it's like an auto option. Right? They they they have clarity of commitment. Right? Like, we're committed to this. This is what I'm doing. So I think with anything, doesn't matter if you're marketing content, whatever, it's like Having clarity of action is most important. What am I trying to what am I trying to achieve? So the first thing was like, well, what's your are you committed to posting 3 times a week, 5 times a week? Alright. Cool.

Donnie Gupton [00:22:42]:

How you go about doing that is I think where you need to be playful. Okay? And and one of the things I do as a coach is, like, I don't have a Cookie cutter one size fits all. What works for Benjamin is not gonna work for Donnie necessarily. Right? And so I think for those, it's like, well, Some of my clients when it comes to the content execution really comes into they do a daily they're disciplined. So they schedule it. It's on their calendar. Right? So they're intentional about it so that you write that one down. Be intentional.

Donnie Gupton [00:23:09]:

Put it in your calendar. I usually would recommend if you're gonna do that, do that first thing in the mornings when we're usually most energetic. Right? And then for for recruiters, it kind of I get to check the box and I can go do my job now. Right? So, boom, I've I've used my creative energy. I've created my content. It's out in the day. Now keep in mind, content's working for me. So if I put it in the algorithm, usually the best time to post on its platform like LinkedIn is Tuesday, Wednesdays, Thursdays in the morning.

Donnie Gupton [00:23:32]:

Then I send that thing out there, and now I go to work and I have content working for me throughout the day. Right. So that's one approach, then I have other people that are like, man, there's no way. I just I don't work that way. So the other option is, well, then carve out 2 hours on Friday. Take your time from 8 AM to 10. You don't take any other calls. You don't do anything else.

Donnie Gupton [00:23:54]:

It's blocked off. It's Sacred. Right? You hold this meeting as serious. You would you what perspective client, and you go create content for the next week, and then you've got yourself a batch of content. Now, I mean, with AI and chat gpt and stuff like that, now it's pretty imp pretty hard not to do these things. Just wanna make sure you're personalizing it because those things are very robotic. But yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of that's the approach.

Donnie Gupton [00:24:18]:

I think there's a very clear intention, you know, that they have about doing it. But yeah. I mean, the that's that's it for the content side.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:28]:

Okay. And, like, we're now going shifting a little bit over to AI. So AI is Freaking amazing. I know you've done some great trainings on chat g p t and some other AI products. How do you add your voice 2 AI.

Donnie Gupton [00:24:44]:

Phenomenal question. So I think you have ton of 2 ways to do about it, and and I think that this I could scroll LinkedIn. I could tell you what's what's a chat gbt folk right away, and you probably So cannot. Right? And the first thing is it usually comes with a lot of emojis. So if you're using a bunch of emojis, Like, yeah, they're they're strategic, but if you're ChowTBT for whatever reason spits up so many emojis when you create them. So I think there's 2 work processes here. 1 is and the best one is usually, like, use ChowChBT. And we can go down a rabbit hole, so I'm gonna keep it hot high level here, but, You know, create 1 thread where the thread can then learn kind of how you're gonna prompt it.

Donnie Gupton [00:25:23]:

The thread will get smarter. Okay. But what my process for best practice is like, send the prompt, copy and paste the result, go to Google Doc, and then make it Benjamin's. Right. So take take the outline, take the format of whatever, you know, created for you, and then go put your little personal touch on it because, again, most of the time, these things, just spit out something very robotic. Now there's another play that's a little bit more challenging if you can do it right, which is you can actually get Chat gbt to evaluate your brain, voice, and tone. So what you would do for this is go take 3 to 5 Post that you've already written, 100% yourself. Go ask ChatGbt if it can evaluate your brand voice and tone.

Donnie Gupton [00:26:07]:

If you give it Content, it'll respond back with yes and give you some prompts, and then you go put your content in there, and it'll read it. And it'll read all these things, and then Then it'll say, you know, then then go give it a prompt, then go give it something new to do and then evaluate it, and then you can give it feedback. So when I started doing this, they would like it always comes back with super big words, and I'm not we talked about writing before. Right? So I'm like, ugh. I don't use words like that. So, like, I've literally given a v feedback like, awesome. The brand voice and tone, we're getting close. I never use words like Blank, blank, and blank.

Donnie Gupton [00:26:43]:

Please never use that in my brain voice, and it's like, awesome. We've got that as a note. And then it's like, you know, then you can give it a little Little bit different, you know, course correction, but here's the thing that I found to be golden with ChatGPT, okay, is download the app on your phone and actually give it a chat. Oh my gosh. If you get if you feed that thing, it's Unreal. So I've actually got a brand voice thing now that, I don't even have to go adjust it. It's got me so figured out that, like, it I can basically Almost verbatim copy and post these things now.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:18]:

So when it comes to using chat JBT, every time you start a new chat, you have to reteach it. Are you going back and just in, Like, some of your old chats and continuing that or

Donnie Gupton [00:27:27]:

Yeah. I have a I have a thread that's just called Downey's Brand Voice. And then Okay. I just go in there and just that's where I create my content. And that's you know, when I first started trying try GBT kinda learning the tool, you know, like, that's one of the things if you haven't gone down is, like, have different threads for different themes. Right? So, like, you can have a a like, my brain voice is where I'm gonna create all my contact. Then I have a podcast thread where it's like I will ask The podcast there, like, hey. Create me the description for this.

Donnie Gupton [00:27:54]:

Write me a summary for my guest. Give me questions for this type of a podcast episode. So all kind of learning that, and then I have my YouTube one, which is like you know? So the I have different themes for my chat threads, but, yeah, it gets smarter once you go down and Okay. Cool.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:07]:

So, yeah, for the listeners, make sure you're using, like, 1 thread the entire time and not starting a brand new chat because you would literally have to reteach the AI Yep. Everything over again if For every single time you start off. So Yep. A lesson I had to learn. I'm like, but I thought I just used it yesterday. No. I did, but I had to go back to that conversation.

Donnie Gupton [00:28:26]:

Yep. Well, Bard, if you haven't played around with Bard much, has got its own kind of a use case where, you know, Bard I love Chouchi PD from all of, like, the content creation, where Bard is, you know, where you should be putting that hat on is, like, when do you need, like, Internet research information. So a couple use cases is like you can go into Bard and say, find new companies that are hiring cybersecurity professionals in Washington DC, And then it'll list out all the companies, and then you say, okay. Well, give me more companies that are small to medium sized businesses. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Donnie Gupton [00:29:00]:

It'll actually lay out all the people that are actually hiring. You know? You can then go in and say, well, what publications do cyber security professionals read? And it'll give you all the publications. So now I can start to be a real true resource for my market. Right? Then I can go, take me the most recent or most recent, addition of the CFO magazine, and give me a summarize of what was in that magazine, and you have the summary of what was in that magazine. Then it'll get you could take one of the parts of that summary and say, elaborate on this specific article that they wrote. And then, like so I just did this with a client that's a CFO, you know, Accounting and finance recruiter. And the amount of information they got in, like, a 5 minute set of prompts to be able to go be a resource to the market was, like, mind blowing. Mind blowing because they basically got this whole article in a synopsis for them, and, you know, it's like you're massive value add.

Donnie Gupton [00:29:55]:

So then the last one, And this one's gold right here is I use for outreach kind of a framework that I learned, which is like, hook, relay, bridge, and then ask. And so I go into chat GPT or excuse me, bar, and I will say, give me relevant, stats around hiring, recruiting, and employment In x y z industry, I'm gonna use these for hooks for emails. And then what they'll do is it'll come back and it'll prompt, Give you, like, certain different stats, and then you can go ease out. Like, hey. According to, Ford, 75% of CFOs are saying that, you know, hiring talent is more challenging than ever. There's your hook. A lot of the CFOs I'm working with are telling me blank. Right? And so you can get so many good ideas because Bard pulls from the inter Internet where Chatt GBT has some limitations with that.

Donnie Gupton [00:30:46]:

So

Benjamin Mena [00:30:47]:

Wait. So you're telling working with some of your clients, and they're using Bard, And you're saying, find me these open positions in x y z industry, in this city, and Barb creates a list?

Donnie Gupton [00:31:01]:

Yeah. Yeah. And then you go to the sales navigator. You add those companies as accounts. You go find the hiring decisions based on those the hiring decision makers for those accounts and begin your outreach. Well, shit.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:13]:

There there's there's another, great tip for the listeners, guys. I have not and my next and before you were Going down this rabbit hole that I am now my mind is blown because I didn't realize it did that.

Donnie Gupton [00:31:24]:

Yeah. It's pretty awesome, man. I I, Yeah. I've been geeking out with it a little bit lately, and, it's it's pretty special. What's your Between ChatJPT, Bard, and Claude,

Benjamin Mena [00:31:37]:

what are your favorites? What's your favorite?

Donnie Gupton [00:31:39]:

So I haven't really played with Claude very much. You know? I I really one of the things I try my best not to do is chase shiny objects. Right? So, like, I got into Chat GPT. I'd already been doing Jasper before that, and quickly I realized that, like, Chat GBT kinda replaced Jasper for me, but alright. Cool. Jasper's sunsetted. We're going Chat GBT. I never really got Potted into Claude just because, like, it just didn't you know, just I was already using another one.

Donnie Gupton [00:32:09]:

Right? And I don't wanna I mean, I could we could try AI tools every week if we wanna I do. Right?

Benjamin Mena [00:32:13]:

So There's something new coming every week. Yeah.

Donnie Gupton [00:32:15]:

Exactly. And the and the only reason I kind of gave Bard a a chance because it was free, and I just kinda tried that. That was kinda the next one that showed up. And then I started to really kind of just look at the logic every time I was prompting chat gpt for stuff for information. I was like, oh, we only go back to 2021 of March. Right? And then it's like, oh, okay. Well, Bard doesn't. And then it was then I just kinda started playing around with clients, and I'm doing support.

Donnie Gupton [00:32:36]:

And I'm like, well, hey. Let's see if we can figure it out. And it's like you know? And that's the thing that I will say is, like, have fun with these tools. I don't even use Google search anymore. And in fact in fact, I think if you're using Google search, you're wasting your time. I mean, because Google search, Bard's gonna do all the heavy work. You don't have to do the actual search. Google search is gonna build you the search.

Donnie Gupton [00:32:55]:

You got a 100 pages you can go through. You can go, like, Hey. Find me I'll just give you a use case. Find me, a great computer for live streaming. We were talking about this before. I just bought a computer, it just did all the work for me. You're 3, you know, recommend. Like, oh, okay.

Donnie Gupton [00:33:08]:

Cool. So I don't need to go scour the Internet, do a bunch of reviews, and that was like the tool knows. So, Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:14]:

I I don't have to any I'm still stuck on the part of asking, like, Bard, like, what companies have the open positions right now.

Donnie Gupton [00:33:20]:

Yeah. It's awesome. We're gonna offer. Yeah. It is one of the it's the the thing about Bard, obviously, the prompts are different. It behaves a little bit different, but it's like GPT job GPT where it's like the more you give it, the smarter it becomes. Right? So you you like, when you give that first prompt, it's gonna give you every big company. So it's like, oh, well, shoot.

Donnie Gupton [00:33:40]:

I could've just Google this. Right? But once you start digging a little bit deeper, right, there's some other stuff out there, Oh, that, you know, you can find some of those because a lot of the clients I work with, they try to stay away from the big organizations with all the red tape. Right? They like to go over those medium size with the budgets there, but, know, they can truly be a partner, and this is where you can kinda find some of those those gems. The other thing I just did today too, which is a little of the little bonuses, Use it for e five thousand fastest growing companies. So you can go to the Inc five thousand list, but, like, I was just doing a a training for a Tennessee recruiting association, so I just use that as an apples. Like, Find me all the or create me a list of all the Inc 5 1000, companies in Tennessee, and it gave me the first 10. And I'm like, okay. Well, give me the next 25.

Donnie Gupton [00:34:26]:

And then it gave me all that, and I'm like, great. Put it into a spreadsheet. That's poor into a Google spreadsheet. You already got yourself a workflow of companies you can reach out to. I love the 8 5,000 because that's They're proud to be growing. And typically, when you're growing, you're hiring.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:42]:

Another nugget. So Is there anything else that you wanna say about ways that you could bring inbound leads and use AI for leads, like, before we move on?

Donnie Gupton [00:34:53]:

Yeah. I mean, I think the big the last last thing with the inbound, traditionally, with marketing, inbound leads came from, like, lead magnets and things like that. Right? Which is, hey. I've got this free resource for you. You're gonna give me your information, then I'm gonna put you through a campaign. I think that's good best practice. I think the recruiters, especially with using tools like AI and ChatGPT, can put yourself a guide together in a matter of a day. Right? Go to Canva, get it designed, and boom, you're in business.

Donnie Gupton [00:35:23]:

Right? So, you can literally do all that for free now and go get yourself a nice interview tips Guide for your candidates in your marketplace to start to separate yourself. But those little resources, I will use As a way to generate conversation, so I just never give it away. It's like, hey. I recently, just wrote a guide about x. You know, it includes boom boom boom boom. Drop me a call below if you want a copy of that, and then I do that so that I can I can generate conversation? I'll also use my resources and some of my direct outreach. I usually don't even try to sell. I just try to get people on a dialogue.

Donnie Gupton [00:35:57]:

It's something I do with my clients that we have Lot of success in this. We're very rarely going, hey. We see that you're doing this, and our company, here's our unique selling proposition. Especially on LinkedIn, I don't think people wanna be sold, So we go with more of a a resource approach, very tailored to the audience, and then we ask for permission because people are used to getting spammed on LinkedIn, right, where Where you just all of a sudden getting a lead. So I was like, hey, John. You know, work with a lot of CFOs on here. We just build out, you know, x y z guide. Wanted to reach out, see if it's something you'd be interested in, give me a yes or thumbs up.

Donnie Gupton [00:36:27]:

I'll pop it over. Now the reason I do that is because now I can in order for them to get that, they have to dialogue with me. From that dialogue is where I can set up the phone conversation if there's a need.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:38]:

And, yeah, I think you literally just walked into the question that I was about ready to ask you, which is kinda funny. I was Okay. You're you're now starting to build this content on LinkedIn. You're starting to make it relevant. You're starting to look try to be that leader in the space, that authority. What do you do when somebody likes it, or what do you do when somebody comments on it? Do you, like, like, you don't wanna go straight into spam mode, but It sounds like you also have tools and resources built out that you can give them.

Donnie Gupton [00:37:06]:

Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, you I think you got your traditional content of posting, and then building a media resource is Yep. The easy place to build the resources, you know, either, a, solve a problem, that your client has. Right? So Okay. So let's say the state of writing job descriptions and you've got the best formula in the world for writing job descriptions. It's like, go create a resource and show them exactly how create a job searching. I think one of the challenges that people face with this, especially in the recruiting industries, they don't value themselves enough.

Donnie Gupton [00:37:38]:

They don't value what they're bringing to the table, and they just assume that, you know, these companies have everything figured out because, well, they're a big company, so they should have it all figured out. It's like, no. You actually have a hell of an opportunity to be a massive resource to these companies, and one of the biggest ways to get into a company door is, like, rather than me tell you how good I am, I'm just gonna go ahead and show you. Here's this resource. Somebody should read that resource and go, holy shit. Like, this is really good. I want more of that. Where do I get it? Right? Oh, oh, I can help you with that.

Donnie Gupton [00:38:06]:

You know? But the best resource out there that is gonna attract attention both your clients and your candidates is a salary guide. Every candidate wants to know what they should be getting paid, and every Iron decision maker wants to know what market rate is. Right? So you could literally go to market whatever prospecting approach You're reaching out to clients or candidates and use the same guide, and you'll get guesses all day long.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:29]:

I will say the salary guide. I have never created 1, but it's one of the go to things in the cleared space. Clearance jobs prints 1 out, and all of us recruiters were just, like, eating the data. Yep. But Because we're eating the data, we're back on their platform again.

Donnie Gupton [00:38:43]:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that's what we wanna be the one that creates the, know, how can you extract and get the data? And that's a that's a challenge. I mean, I've helped people build these out before, and, you know, you can have some more success with that. Like, if you're a bigger firm, like, the bigger firms I've coached couple firms at, like, 30, 40 people, well, they're getting so many they're hiring so many people for a year that they didn't get enough Relevant data for their market just from what they're doing from their own hiring.

Donnie Gupton [00:39:09]:

Right? But, you know, is Benjamin And his wife gonna be able to get enough data for your industry based off of how much you're hiring. I don't know. You would know that. Right? So if you can't, then what are the ways we do that? There's other There's other resources. There's companies that actually do, salary survey type of information, or you go create your own Campaign to your network where, again, the cool thing about doing things like this when you're doing discovery, It's such a frictionless way to get in front of an audience. It's like, hey, John. I'm gonna be doing a salary survey, you know, of for cybersecurity professionals. Hoping to wrap it up here in the next couple of months.

Donnie Gupton [00:39:49]:

You know, would that be something you'd be interested in? Start with the ask value add for them per yeah. It would be. Great. You know what? I'm still looking for feedback. Could you take a few you know, if I sent you over a 1 minute survey, would you take your time to fill it out? Yeah. Go get yourself a Google form. Ask all the questions you want for your salary guide. It's gonna con you know, do all the data there for you, and boom, you could build your own salary guide guide that way.

Donnie Gupton [00:40:11]:

So Fantabulous.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:13]:

Now and shifting gears a little bit. You mentioned this one thing a few minutes ago. Most recruiters don't understand the value that they have.

Donnie Gupton [00:40:20]:

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:21]:

How do how does a recruiter go back and realize what they do and the value that they truly add?

Donnie Gupton [00:40:27]:

Oh, man. That's a loaded one. So I dude, I think that that's a big you know, and I've got I think a lot of that has to do with, like, their own self worth To start. Right? I I think that that's if I were to go real deep, that's where I'd go. It's like there's a pocket for a lot of people to kind of find value in themselves, love themselves, so to speak. And so I think that's the underlying, but I think it's I think going back to what I said earlier, if you start to look at the evidence of your calls, right, and you start to look and There's certain recruiters that probably can't do this. Right? Probably not very good recruiters. But, like, if you have a pulse in the market and you've been doing this for a while, The thing is is, like, looking at the challenges.

Donnie Gupton [00:41:12]:

So, like, what frustrates you about a certain company's hiring process, for example? How would you fix that? How how have you seen other companies go about, you know, doing that? Now what is better? What does good look like? And we sometimes it's educating our market on what good looks like, You know, can a can a trap. So, but I think that it's you know, if you again, if we go Deep, it's like, well, finding value in just me as being a as a human being, you know, self love, so to speak. But then yeah. Well, where where are the areas that I'm already in getting impact? Where am I getting A validation for my market. What is the feedback that my clients are saying? What is the feedback that my candidates are saying? But it's more of just this assumption that these bigger companies haven't figured out. Right. And, I think this is a kind of a part of the challenge of the industry is, you know, know, a lot of recruiters I feel like I've interacted with have this mindset that they're like, you're in business for, like well, it's October 2023, and so, like, this is when I'm in business for it. And very few are like Forward thinking, big vision thinking, right, that are really bought into it.

Donnie Gupton [00:42:12]:

And and the point I make with this is like, well, you know this about me, Benjamin, is like, I was never a recruiter. I learned this shit, and so that's because I had a relentless effort figured out. Now I could probably speak to this industry better than anybody because I could Taking the time to do it. So there's that there's that place to go. Yeah. I don't know everything. I'm a figure it out because I'm committed to this. Right? And and so that's the that's the part of, like, hey.

Donnie Gupton [00:42:34]:

When I first started this contingent retained, what the heck's that? Staffing, Recruiting, executive search, like, I couldn't tell you any of it. Right? And there was times when I was first going on my 1st sales calls, the guys were just chewing me up and spitting me out. Right? Like, hey, bro. You've never done this before, have you? Like, nope. I haven't. And, you know, for me, I've always just been honest and transparent about that, but my my big point is is like, hey. Look. I can find a way to come into this industry I knew nothing about and learn things so that I can be a valuable resource, then you can too.

Donnie Gupton [00:43:03]:

And that's the part that's the part about, hey. I'm fully committed To to making an impact on my industry, I'll learn these things, and then I only share value where I'm comfortable. Right? You never hear me talking about recruiting topics because I'm not a recruiter. Couldn't tell you guys how to recruit. Tell you how to market the hell out of your business and brought your brand up for sure. But I'm not a recruiter. I stay in my lane.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:21]:

And, I mean, what I've seen over the years is a lot of recruiters suck at marketing.

Donnie Gupton [00:43:26]:

Yeah. And you better not me.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:30]:

I mean, how many recruiting companies actually hire a marketing person? Typically, it's 0. They just hire another self. Yep.

Donnie Gupton [00:43:36]:

They do it themselves. I always view it as I always explain to boss to Jack. Oh, shoot. Yeah. You know what? I we do need to do marketing. Oh, yes. People keep on telling about content. I need to do that.

Donnie Gupton [00:43:45]:

Well, how do I check this box? Oh, well, I'll just hire, you know, a a and a social media assistant that knows nothing about this industry, and we'll have them create a bunch of articles. And then, oh, guess what? I checked the box, but it's not doing anything. But I got that post out. Right? So, yeah, I I think that that's always the big challenge. It's not Marketing is usually not the priority, you know, for most for most recruiting firms out there.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:08]:

And I'll I'll I've said this a few times to the listeners. Like, I put out some LinkedIn articles, A few years later, they're still bringing inbound stuff, so you never know, like, where this Marketing takes you on you know? Yep. It's like, you have to find ways to stand out in 2024. You have to find ways to be authentic, and you have to find ways to differentiate yourself in.

Donnie Gupton [00:44:33]:

Yep. Well, I think it's the thing is is The way I think it I think it's a simple way of thinking is, like, it's 2023. You have the ability, like, we talked about early on. We have all these abilities now that that we didn't have to compete with. The number 1 thing you have the ability to do is control your own brand narrative. That's fine. You cannot post. You can stay quiet, and I'm gonna tell whatever stories I want about your brand that I can.

Donnie Gupton [00:44:56]:

You know? Or you can post and you can start to share exactly and show people how you want them to view you, what view your process, the results that you deliver, the impact you make on your marketplace. Now isn't it as an individual, it's it's challenging sometimes because our ego is so attached. Right? So there's fear of putting yourself out there. Trust me. Plenty of imposter syndrome over here. Tons of it, Especially early on. Right? Tons of fear buckling myself out there. But the thing is, like, we don't really have a choice.

Donnie Gupton [00:45:23]:

Right? And once we overcome those types of things and then, you know, we can kind of become, you know, There's really a lot of magic that can happen from it. Right? I mean, from what I've experienced for myself, but I've got a couple of clients. You know, we just got done. You were on my podcast, Benjamin, and we were talking about podcasting, which you've had a lot of success with. I know one of my clients that's implemented my system, including podcasting, who's Return 7 figures annually. Just 7 figures and additional business purely from his online presence. So it works. If you got if you're a good recruiter, you gotta be good at the recruiting job first, right, to make the money.

Donnie Gupton [00:45:59]:

Right? But if you have the if you have you have the brand offline And you're not leveraging it online. You're straight up sitting on gold. You're sitting on gold. And and and that's usually the best place for me to come in and help is, like, If you're a seasoned recruiter, right, that that knows what you're doing, like, we can highlight the heck out of you. So Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:20]:

Well, fantabulous. Before we move on to the next part of the podcast, is there anything else you wanna share? You know,

Donnie Gupton [00:46:28]:

I think the last thing I'll just kinda close out on the marketing side of it is marketing, and what I think a lot of people think of initially, That kind of keeps them from doing it is that, they have to promote themselves. And Marketing is really, in my opinion, it's about adding value to your industry. So I went through those 3 pillars. If you look at those 3 pillars, I've talked about the connection pillar, But there's nothing about any of those 3 pillars like, oh, well, you gotta sell yourself. Right? It's like so if you follow me, like, 90% of the content I'm gonna put out Pure value add, purely me leading my market. You know? Very rarely am I actually asking for business. Very rarely you're gonna say, here's 5 things that make Donnie different. And so Very, very directly, I think is is when if you're thinking about marketing, think about adding value to your market.

Donnie Gupton [00:47:17]:

Don't think about promoting your business. There's a difference. Promoting your business kinda goes into the sales category in my opinion. Not saying you shouldn't do it. You need to do it, but go 90:10. 90:10. Marketing, 10%, sell them.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:28]:

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Now moving over to the quick fire questions. Our recruiter is just getting started in our industry. What advice would you give them based on everything that you've seen with your clients on what they need to do to be successful?

Donnie Gupton [00:47:43]:

Oh, great. 1st, have a very clear thought of market. Make sure that this market is, you know, viable, you know, that there's business to be had. Competition's good. That's usually a sign that there's business to be had. You know, the other thing is is, you know, are you passionate about it? Especially starting out, you know, the reality of it is unless you've got finances, you know, you're not gonna Scaling quick. So, you know, you're starting a business, but let's be honest, you're starting a glorified job. So since you're doing a glorified job, which there's nothing wrong with that, I haven't got one of those too, you you wanna make sure you're passionate about it.

Donnie Gupton [00:48:14]:

You're gonna be showing up every day working your ass on something. You're working your ass off on something. You wanna make sure that you're at least enjoying that process. It starts with the niche. Then, you know, what is your outreach strategy? Do you have any warm connections? Okay. I would wanna start with my warm connections first, see if I can get any introductions, let them know that I'm in in in business existence, then I would go into a cold outreach strategy starting to make more prospects know that I exist. Okay? And one of the things that I think is very important here is just having numbers that you're committed to and attracting. So I don't care Whatever you're after, if you're in a cold call, then make sure you're committed to is it 50 dials or a 100 dials? If you're gonna do LinkedIn messaging, how many are you doing? Because the most successful people are consistent with what they're doing, and and they're doing it, you know, over and over and over again with the consistency showing up, But the clarity of action, from what I've seen, especially starting out, will eliminate the analysis paralysis because that's one of the biggest things that people that are starting out Is there questioning, oh, well, I tried this today.

Donnie Gupton [00:49:14]:

It didn't work. Right? So find a system that you're gonna stick to and then make the system work. Right. There's so many different ways out there. There's so many people out there in this in our world that can help you. You know, I've got a coaching program. There's so many other great coaches out there, but, like, Find a way. Find a system that that works or take where you were trained before and implement it.

Donnie Gupton [00:49:33]:

So, yeah, I think it's you know, have that market, Have clarity of what you're gonna do for outreach and metrics. And then, yeah, I would say starting to build a brain right away is gonna help you, you know, catapult your business faster, especially if you're serious about this.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:45]:

And Tabula's. And kinda like the same question, but for us old dogs that have been around the block a few times, 5, 10, 20. Right. Where would the game's changed. Where where are some advice that you would give for us at Be Successful?

Donnie Gupton [00:49:58]:

It's almost the same, but honestly, man, is, like, I think first is is just the mindset of, like, it's not an option anymore. It's not an option to have a presence online if you're serious about it. Right? Yeah. I think, yeah, you mentioned Rich Rosen early on. Yeah. That guy's got so much whatever coming. There's probably a bunch of other people out there like that where you gotta book a business. That's fine.

Donnie Gupton [00:50:19]:

Fantastic. But if you're serious, you know, and you're you're, you know, gonna be around for a while, then having the mindset of, like, I've gotta be online. I've gotta control my narrative. I gotta put myself out there is important. Actually, one of the things that I usually do with, seasoned, you know, recruiters is actually go back and reevaluate that target market Because they usually come in with the old school approach. Right? So they might be generalists or they might be, a little bit more vague on the market, and they've had success, but they're like, oh, I don't have I'm not getting traction with my messaging. It's like, well, what's gonna connect with somebody In a Fortune 100 company in a medium size is not is gonna be an apple and an org in terms of their frustration. Can you deliver the talent? That's not the question.

Donnie Gupton [00:51:02]:

Can I capture their attention? 2 different types of attention I'm trying to capture. Right? So re redoing that, and then, yeah, the 1st low hanging fruit for you for those guys is like, Let's go to our existing network. We should have a big one. Let's go let's go tap into that, and and just start getting people out of dialogue, Though don't try to sell people when you're coming back in. Right? Same thing than go and building out the cold outreach approach. But The big shift here is that when you get to your content, you have so much more you can leverage. We wanna tell those stories. We wanna showcase your success.

Donnie Gupton [00:51:32]:

We wanna we wanna, you know, start to put that's where I'm saying you're sitting on gold is we have so much more that we can showcase for your brand right away than if you were starting out, for example. So very similar approach, But little nuances there.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:45]:

I love how you keep on also, like, yeah, mentioning mapping out your market. I feel like a lot of people don't do that.

Donnie Gupton [00:51:50]:

Oh, most people don't, man. I mean, I'll tell you one of the one of the sets of feedback is people are when I get on a call, like, doing our sales calls, like, oh, do you have target market? They'd say it, and then I'm like, yeah. Okay. Well, We're gonna be able to dig deeper on that. Right? And then they go through that exercise and they're like, I've never been through an exercise like that. That's, like, the best exercise I've ever been through because I've that's In my program, it's like the heaviest lifting is the actual client avatar because we have, like, 60 questions. So my clients, like, they know their market inside and out. And it it's be you know, it's like same thing, Benjamin.

Donnie Gupton [00:52:21]:

It's like, in 6 years, I found a way to become somewhat of an authority in the recruiting space. 6 years ago, like I said, I couldn't speak the language. Right? But because I'm committed to this, committed to making an impact to the industry, and committed to The overall craft, then I continue to show up, and then, man, like, here I am 6 years and I'm on your podcast. You're hosting a training for somebody You know, it's like it's all good stuff happens. You know? Comes to you that way. So

Benjamin Mena [00:52:50]:

And that goes back into the recruiters that have been around for a while. Like, You got 6, 10, 20 years of stuff that you can you can rely on.

Donnie Gupton [00:52:58]:

Yep. Pull right. Pull from all that stuff. You know? But, yeah, the client avatar in having a clear understanding your target market is, I think, the big big game changer for a lot of a lot of folks like that. Even if they have a good understanding is just going in, taking out a dip at at level deeper be where I was going with, like, some of with my story too with that is, like, I can probably blame a recruiter's day in hell better than they can. Right? Because I've heard it so many different times In so many different ways, and so then I can go out to the market. And so, yeah, if I'm a seasoned recruiter, you can explain your hiring manager's day in hell Way better than they can. You've heard the story a 100 times.

Donnie Gupton [00:53:39]:

You know? Hey. Are you a cybersecurity professional? Are you tired of sifting through resumes from external recruiters that just don't even get it? Are you tired of, you know, the next set of resumes coming to your lap and you wanted 3 and you got 5 instead and half of, you know, of the 5 that got dropped on your lap, 4 of them didn't have the technical qualifications you needed. You need to reach out to your recruiter. He didn't respond back to you because he's working contingently with a bunch of other recruiters in town. Right? So it's like being able to Be still, like, pay a story. Give them a visit. They're like, oh, shit. That's me.

Donnie Gupton [00:54:08]:

I don't want that.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:11]:

Awesome. Fantabulous. Has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your personal rare success?

Donnie Gupton [00:54:17]:

Oh, man. Think and Grow Rich was always one of my favorite books. I think Think and Grow Rich is is probably My favorite legendary book Let me look behind to get a little bit Yeah. I think Think and Grow Rich is probably my favorite book around mindset. The Power of Now. Now, I mean, for me, man, I'm all I'm thinking of all the things that I read recently, which is all like mindset, you know, meditation, Ground mindfulness type of stuff. So it's all kinda weird or it's like a really weird marketing book. But I'll say another one that's on the business side is, traction.

Donnie Gupton [00:54:53]:

If you guys haven't read Traction, if you guys are looking to scale, Traction is an excellent book if you're looking to scale. Awesome. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:00]:

So looking at your own personal success And your own personal story, what do you think has been a big driver of your success? Belief.

Donnie Gupton [00:55:11]:

You know, I I just have a big belief in myself, and and I'm committed doing whatever, you know, whatever is necessary for me to get the results that I'm after. I think it this comes from my background. You know, I, played football in college, and I was a walk on. So if you know about that, you're basically Oh, man on totem pole, and and I think that kind of mindset's always helped me in, you know, coming into an industry where, you know, I didn't have Didn't know anybody. Didn't have a ton of experience. There was 1 person in my corner, and that was me. You know? There was you know, when I first came out They're in especially as I started to become more known, that there was a lot more arrows being thrown at me and a lot more arrow arrows in the back, and I just had to stay, you know, true and loyal to myself and And believing what I what I have, you know, and just cutting out the noise of of other people and and just staying focused, man. I knew what I had to offer, and and I believed in that, and and then I could just continue to polish my skills and polish and try to get better every single day.

Donnie Gupton [00:56:07]:

So

Benjamin Mena [00:56:08]:

Cheers to the, college athlete walk ons. Yeah. Love it. So was I. Yeah. Like, cross country.

Donnie Gupton [00:56:15]:

Oh, nice. Nice. Coach was like I couldn't I couldn't run a lap around a, a track, but a I'm a sprinter. I'm a 3 to 5 second guy.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:25]:

I mean, it it's kinda funny. It's almost like my recruiting story. Like, college athletics, I kept on showing up to the coach's office. She kept on getting annoyed with me and finally gave me a workout plan, and it was just like, I'll never see you again. And then she saw me again, and, yeah, he's like, well, you're not gonna make the team, and then Just kept grinding. Yep. Yep.

Donnie Gupton [00:56:43]:

Yep. Now it's I mean, it was cool. I was I played at University of Nevada, and I had a coach that kinda introduced me to, you know, another coach there and had 1 guy that believed in me there and the same story. It's like outside of my my dad. You know? It was me that believed in myself. When you go on to campus, I was number 100 of 3. So they you know, we had a 100 and 15 guys on the team, and my locker room number because of the walkroom was 103, and that's, you know, all, like, year, I still have

Benjamin Mena [00:57:09]:

I saw him out of here.

Donnie Gupton [00:57:10]:

It says 103, and On my shorts, it says 103, and, like, that's a number 103 is is a important number to me because I knew where it took for me to finally put on that 32 on my 1st game day.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:20]:

So Awesome. So looking back at your ups, your downs, everything that you've learned, if you can have a cup of coffee with yourself the very beginning of your career, What would you tell yourself?

Donnie Gupton [00:57:35]:

Yeah. I'll be patient. You know? Play the long game. I think I put So much stress on, you know, where I wanted to be, and, you know, I think being patient and kinda having the mindset of of Playing the long game has been, you know, incredibly incredibly kinda helpful for me more recently. Right? I think early on, especially with this coaching business, like, my ego wanted to prove so many things. Right? And so, like, I was putting so much internal pressure on myself to where I wasn't really enjoying the ride. And now it's kind of shifted to where it's like, yeah. I'm totally content.

Donnie Gupton [00:58:09]:

Things are good, and, like, I'm enjoying the hell out of the ride. So yeah. I mean, I think it's just kind of Playing the law game, being patient, and realizing that, like, very rarely do we hit our ideals, and most of the suffering that we go through as professionals or, you know, people that are into, you know, personal performances because we're not hitting our ideal. And so one of the things for me is just celebrating my journey rather than my outcomes. You know? It's been a massive, massive shift for me over the last, you know, year It's just really looking at it from like, hey. What did I do today to get better from yesterday? And, of course, yeah, I set big goals. I set, you know, massive goals and things like that, but I don't measure as much off the outcome anymore. I just measure off of who I am as I'm chasing those goals, and I'm very intentional about who I'm being.

Donnie Gupton [00:58:53]:

So yeah. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:56]:

And how can people get ahold of you, Donnie?

Donnie Gupton [00:58:58]:

Yeah. Check me out on, LinkedIn, Donnie Gupton. You can check me out on my podcast, The Relevant Recruiter Show. And then if you wanna join the Facebook group, we have the relevant recruiter community. So that's awesome. Find me.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:10]:

Well, Donnie, before you let go, is there anything else you wanna share with the listeners?

Donnie Gupton [00:59:13]:

Get after it. You know? You guys control your own narrative. You guys get to control your own brand, and, you know, branding and marketing should be something that's fun. You know, don't make this a chore. I would in I would encourage any steps no matter if it's branding and marketing, whatever activities that you're doing to uplevel yourself, uplevel your professional self, uplevel your business, You know, what can you be doing, to celebrate your success and journey, you know, along the way, as you go about This brutal journey that you're gonna go on. But step in, you know, enjoy the process, and whatever you do on this type of growth mindset.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:49]:

Antibos and Donnie. Well, Donnie, thank you so much. One, I love the actionable insights. Especially for many of us, I feel like as recruiters, we're not doing the best job, Like selling ourselves, highlighting our stories, talking about how we can add value to the market, and I think that's gonna be one of the biggest shifts coming into 2024 On how you can be a relevant modern recruiter. So definitely thank you for coming on and sharing that. And my mind is blown up using Bard to, like, build out a, like, a Can't I a client bus. Like, I think I'm doing that, like, the second I get done. So thank you for sharing that, Tim.

Donnie Gupton [01:00:19]:

Really helped me. Man. You're good. I really appreciate the opportunity here. You know? I had a had a lot of fun with you. I've we've had a good couple of hours here, man. So this has been a great day. So, thank you again for for allowing me to be on the show.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:32]:

Oh, and for the listeners, I wish you guys to crush it. Remember, you are literally 1 placement away from completely changing your life. So have a great day, guys.

Intro [01:00:41]:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the elite recruiter podcast with Benjamin Menna. If you enjoyed, hit Subscribe and leave a

Donnie Gupton [01:00:52]:

rating.