Pinnacle Recruitment Journey: Becoming an Elite Recruiter with Gail Audibert

Benjamin Mena [00:00:01]:
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 am so excited about this episode of the podcast because the Pinnacle Society is a community of some of the top billers across the globe. The top recruiting billers think of like 700, 801 million, even up to $2 million. It is the society that every recruiter should think about and work towards. So I am so excited to help Pinnacle society with their podcast. And I have our special guest, Gail Audubon, who is actually the president of the Pinnacle Society, has been a top biller year after year after year, but has been with the society since 2015. So welcome to the podcast, Gail.

Gail Audibert [00:01:01]:
Thank you, Ben. It's so exciting to have you a part of us. I've heard so many good things.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:06]:
So before we jump in, first of all, let's talk about the Pinnacle Society. What is the Pinnacle Society? For those that don't know about it.

Gail Audibert [00:01:16]:
The Pinnacle Society was a group that was started back in 1989, and if anyone ever has any old Tony Byrne tapes, he was one of the founders of how do you train to be a good recruiter? And they decided, a group of 20 people, that they wanted to create an elite group that they can exchange ideas and elevate the profession. So they started it back then, and after a few short years, they started to become a little famous. So they got asked to speak on panels, and a lot of them became trainers, and the group grew. The idea was to meet somewhere twice a year and exchange ideas. And this was like pre Internet, but it's pre cell phone and, you know, getting together. They kind of stayed on top of best practices in the recruiting industry, but they became the, like, end all and be all. If you wanted to, you know, cap off your career or you wanted to bring it to a different level, you would attempt to join. And there are, you know, there were thresholds of production activity that a person would have to do for a certain number of years to even be accepted into the group.

Gail Audibert [00:02:26]:
So I was a person who watched them, you know, at conferences and watched those panelists and thought, someday I want to be that good. So I can't believe right now I'm the president. Like, to me, that's kind of surreal. Like almost imposter syndrome. Right. But, you know, surrounding myself twice a year with such talent and really good people, you know, it's a wonderful experience.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:49]:
So the pinnacle Society, as some of the elite recruiters in the industry. First of all, like, you saw them up on stage, you saw them talking. What really just triggered you to, like, this is an organization or a group of people I want to be around?

Gail Audibert [00:03:03]:
Well, you know, I had been a part of a lot of different associations. I was, you know, I would go to all the NAPS conferences. I was on the board of the Connecticut association when they met pretty frequently. I joined the National Insurance Recruiting association. So it was always a really big advocate of, you have to continually train yourself if you want to be good at your craft, you can't just sit behind a desk and hope you get lucky, right? So going to those meetings and getting the continual training was super important to me. It wasn't until my son was a senior in high school that I thought maybe I should try now. Mostly because of the time commitment, right. When you're getting involved in reeducating yourself, you have to recognize that you're going to have to go to these meetings and you're going to have to stay good.

Gail Audibert [00:03:49]:
Right? Can't get lazy. So I thought, you know, growing a family, growing my own business, it would be a wonderful time for me to enter. And then I kicked myself wishing I did it ten years earlier.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:01]:
So you've been a top biller all these years. Has being part of the pinnacle society helped keep you at that level?

Gail Audibert [00:04:09]:
It actually kind of makes you wonder why you can't do more, right? We find out limiting beliefs and you're like, you know, I remember my first year in business, and this was 1984 or 85 full year. And, you know, I billed 200,000, and at the time, the average was like 60 to 80. And if you hit 100, it was great. So, like, I broke a barrier, and I remember staying at that 200, the 300 level for years because that was huge at that time. And then five or ten years later, you're still billing that much. It's not right. But then something changes and you hear about someone else and you just say, why can't I do that? At the pinnacle Society, you see people putting down numbers that are just unbelievable, and it makes you think, what do I have to do to get there? Because they have the same hours in a day that I do. Right.

Gail Audibert [00:05:03]:
I don't know if you know Danny Cahill, but Danny Cahill is one of the premier trainers in the country and has been forever, and on top of it is a really funny person. And he for many years just observed what made pinnacle members click and, you know, kind of shared that information, but many of them work less hours, not more. Right. It's just kind of a different mindset.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:26]:
I mean, I recently interviewed a pinnacle member who once I had him break down his calendar, I thought he was an absolute workaholic. And he's like, no, I actually take months off at a time.

Gail Audibert [00:05:35]:
Yeah. And then I'm like, what the heck am I doing?

Benjamin Mena [00:05:38]:
Yeah, exactly. So that was definitely like an eye opening for me, like when it comes to, like the Pinnacle members. And I think one of the also, I want you to talk about this. The Pinnacle members, like, all come from different industries too.

Gail Audibert [00:05:49]:
Very different. You know, before we even started broadcasting, I said there was one, you know, person who just does toys, the toy industry. Who would have ever thought that you have a recruiter in the toy industry? I'm sure he's the best of one. And he's another person. His name is Tom Keogh. That takes about a month to six weeks off and spends his summers in Europe and works 2 hours a day. So it really is kind of interesting how many different specialties that there are. Certainly you'll see clusters of technology, pharma and biosciences, accounting, but lots of little niches that, you know, are really pretty interesting.

Gail Audibert [00:06:27]:
And it makes you realize how many different ways you can recruit one person. Brooke, she's on the board. She does just the lighting industry.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:35]:
I met Brooke and when she told me that, she's like, does lights and I'm like, wait, just likes, yeah, 2000 companies, right?

Gail Audibert [00:06:44]:
And big business. She has like seven or nine employees that do everything in the lighting industry in different verticals within it. It's just amazing how many different jobs there are out there.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:55]:
And I mean, that's one of the beautiful things about a organization or a community that you're working on building and up leveling is you get to see how many other ways recruiters are doing things. And it just, it makes you think.

Gail Audibert [00:07:08]:
Yep, but it's still all the same, right? They do it differently, but it's still all the same is you find a job, you fill it with a person, you know, your relationships with the clients are the same. So fundamentally, we all do it, but we do it a little bit differently. I think the other thing is there are lots of companies that are huge recruiting firms. In general, unless you're part of a, you know, kind of a large franchise, are small, just like we recruit the same, we face the same problems and we're owners, so we have no one to go to. And when you're with a tight association and you're meeting with these folks two times a year, perhaps on Zoom meetings, even more frequently than that, and you create friendships. Then you just call someone up and say, I need a contract for XYZ. I'm having this issue with LinkedIn. Is anybody else having it? So we're a community that we can kind of rely on each other for those problems that normally would drive us crazy if we just Satan behind our desk and had no one to ask.

Gail Audibert [00:08:12]:
So that's. That's the added bonus, right? Getting all these really close friends that you're not really competing with, but you're in the same business and you can help each other.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:23]:
I, once again, I'm going to highlight this again, is I've talked to so many pinnacle members, and, you know, like, in a lot of businesses, like, you don't want to share your secrets. You don't want to share what you're doing, right? They're actively passing information along, and like you just said, like, passing contracts along or like, hey, did you try doing this? This is actually working for me. You don't see that in that many other industries because it's industry knowledge and you don't want to share your secrets, but.

Gail Audibert [00:08:49]:
Right. And that's one of the things that they look at, at new members is what can this person share with us? Right. Like, it's okay to be a big biller, but we want to know what are your secrets and what can you share with us that's going to help the group. And, you know, that's not something that some people are comfortable with. Right. But it's how we are. I mean, people will give you free advice, send you gifts. It's just wonderful.

Gail Audibert [00:09:14]:
It's wonderful.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:15]:
So, well, let me just see, like, you walking down this road, like, what does it take to become a pinnacle society member?

Gail Audibert [00:09:23]:
One of the baseline parameters is that you have to have built at least $500,000 a year of three of the past five years. I mean, some people go up and down. Most of our members, you know, they do much more than that, but that's a benchmark, and that has to be individual billings. So, you know, there's formulas to figure out if you're in a pod, you know, 180 or 360 or 90 degree recruiter, how you would calculate that. So that's kind of the baseline. And then they're looking for people who have kind of a concept to recruiting that might be different or something that they do. That's the. Their secret or their special sauce.

Gail Audibert [00:10:03]:
Right. So they're looking for people with new ideas, contemporary wanna grow, want to share. More often than not, people are owners versus working for someone because, of course, you'd have a different perspective that way, but it's not required.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:18]:
And how many members do you guys typically have on a yearly basis? Because I know you guys keep the membership pretty tight.

Gail Audibert [00:10:23]:
The membership is capped at 80 and most years we probably have anywhere in the mid to high seventies. We do have a lot of members that have been a part of the association forever. So we're just starting to see, like the whole world is. We're starting to see in the past five or six years, a number of people retiring or opting out because of their number of years in the business. And we're starting to bring a lot of new people in. So we have a new committee called the future of Pinnacle because what it looked like and how it started back in 1989 isn't necessarily how it's going to look in 2030. So we have to pay attention to what are some of the numbers that should change or the requirements that should change? What else do we want to give back to our members? We have a new website. We have LinkedIn posts.

Gail Audibert [00:11:18]:
A number of our recruiters are trainers as well, and they get pinged on a lot to speak at association meetings for states or being on pinnacle panels. So, you know, we're creating opportunities for them to do that. And some have, you know, graduated to just being trainers because they've done a good job for so long.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:38]:
So if somebody wants to become a pinnacle society member, if you're hitting those billings, what do you need to do?

Gail Audibert [00:11:44]:
You would go online onto our site and find out the name of the membership chair. Right now, it's a wonderful person by the name of Alan Fisher, and he is the vice president as well. He's been a part of our group for a while, and he could walk you through that process. We have about seven people on the membership committee, and he could tell you all the benefits as to why you'd want to be a member and all the things that you'd want to pay attention to if you want to become a member.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:11]:
What would you say is advice to a recruiter that's, you know, they're looking at their desks, they're successful, but they're like, I wanna take it up a notch and I want to join an elite community like this. Like, how do you get there?

Gail Audibert [00:12:25]:
Well, here's another thing that we're trying to do is, you know, we're in the midst of establishing a mentorship program. Cause we recognize that there are people that wanna take that next step. So we're trying to figure out a solution as to how can we mentor young, talented recruiters to get to this level. Because, you know, when you think about it, you can have your boss teach you, right? But they may be limited. You can, you know, go for some online training, but, you know, what can we do to give back to this community to build future leaders in the recruiting industry? And how do we give back some of the training that we've gotten all this time? So we're putting together a mentorship program for those folks.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:09]:
That is awesome. So, Gilheze, want to flip gears a little bit? I want to talk about you. How did you end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Gail Audibert [00:13:17]:
Well, like everybody, by accident, no one wants to be a recruiter when they grow up. But I started out of college. I wanted to go in sales, and mostly because I felt like I was poor growing up and I wanted to make a lot of money, and I thought that's how you could do it. So I got a job selling telephones. I was really bad at it. I got fired within the first three months and I applied for a number of jobs and I got an offer for a job as a recruiter. And that first failure of getting fired because I wasn't good enough, I was never going to fail again. So I got to work an hour or two early, I worked 2 hours late, I worked on Saturdays, and I was determined to succeed.

Gail Audibert [00:14:00]:
But that wasn't the catalyst for me. It was a contest. And maybe seven or eight months into the business and I made my placements. I was so excited. I was on the road and they said, if you build this much, you're going to get to go to California, to a national association conference. And I was like, I'd never been on a plane. California was on the other side of the world and they had palm trees. I was so excited.

Gail Audibert [00:14:27]:
So I build as much in two months as I did the prior nine months just so I can get to California. Now, I probably could have bought a ticket, but, you know, it's the winning of the contest. So I got to this conference, and I'm sure Tony Byrne was speaking at the time, but there was a gentleman by the name of Brian Tracy, who is a motivational speaker. And he got up and I was in the third row and he talked about self limiting beliefs and self actualization, and that's all you had to do, was think about what you wanted in life and you'd get there. And I was like, oh, my God, this is a phenomenal secret. So I bought his cassette tapes and I listened to them to the point where I could actually say them out loud, probably. But that's what clicked for me, was, you know, everybody in my office was going for 80,000 a year, and I'm like, I'm gonna do 200, you know, back in the eighties because I could, I wanted to get to a certain level, and it had me never look back. So you can see why I like associations, right? Like, that could be the trigger where it just changes the trajectory of your career.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:37]:
So you really think going to that one meeting completely changed your, your life?

Gail Audibert [00:15:42]:
That and Brian Tracy. So ten years later, I met him and I got my picture taken with him. I was so excited. He thought I was a nut bar. But I had sent him, you know, a couple of fan letters. I also sent one to Danny Cahill at one point in time when he did his first training session ever. And I'm like, oh, my God, Danny, you're the best speaker. You're going to be so good someday.

Gail Audibert [00:16:01]:
I was 23 at the time. I was right, you know, I just want to point that out. I was right. But yes, I write lots of fan letters to people.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:09]:
So you're succeeding in your career. When did you finally make the jump to your own firm? And, like, how did that come about?

Gail Audibert [00:16:17]:
I was 25.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:19]:
Okay.

Gail Audibert [00:16:20]:
And so I was young. Someone in my firm had approached me, it was eleven years older than me. And she said, I think I'm going to strike out on my own. You want to come? And I said, no. And then I thought about it. I'm like, now or never. And I had a very supportive husband who's like, why not? We don't have really any expenses. If you're going to do it, now would be the time before we started a family.

Gail Audibert [00:16:43]:
So at that time, there was no such thing as hybrid work life balance or work from home. There was none of that. So I thought if I was going to start a family someday, which I wanted desperately, I was going to have to create a culture for myself that would allow me to raise children and be a mom, because that's always been my most important role, because my family, I just didn't want to sacrifice working in family. And most of my friends weren't working. They stayed home with their children when they raised them. And I really wanted to do both. So that's why I started my own company.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:21]:
That is awesome. And you consistently have been a big biller when you were at that company, you were one of the top at your own company, you know, because of jumping in a pinnacle. Like, you definitely know that you're one of the top. Like, would you do different than everybody else?

Gail Audibert [00:17:36]:
Well, I set my expectations high. I put my clients first. I don't want to say it was never really about the money. Of course, you know, that you need to make goals. But I'd never sacrifice my reputation for a person or a client to make money. So if I thought a job wasn't good for someone, I would let them know. If I thought a candidate wasn't good for a client, I would let them know. And I think what happened there for me, that everybody's different, but for me is it built a lot of trust with the clients that I did have compared to all of the other recruiters that recruited in my space.

Gail Audibert [00:18:13]:
I do the insurance industry, hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of recruiter in that space, but I had a lot of loyalty because they knew that about me. So I think that that was, you know, kind of my secret. Is it. It prevented me from having to constantly go out and recruit new clients. Constantly go out and recruit new candidates because I never had a bad reputation, you know, in terms of having to find new business because it kept coming. And I think there's other firms that do that, too. I'm not saying that I'm the only one, but that's been my success so far.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:49]:
And what I've learned from the interviews with all these top owners such as yourself, it's, you know, once you've built that reputation, you've built that brand, and the brand is what sells. And it's amazing how fast you could damage your brand.

Gail Audibert [00:19:03]:
You can. Well, there's no sense in fighting, right? Like, you just have to make sure that you're always doing the right thing and you're above board. For me, that was always important, and it made me sleep better at night.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:18]:
Did you choose the insurance industry or did it choose you?

Gail Audibert [00:19:22]:
The firm that I went with, everybody was an engineering recruiter and someone, I think, that literally died. And they gave me his desk. So it was, you know, a stack of this many resumes. I forget his name. It was norm or something like that. So I got his, you know, I got his desk, and they didn't know anything about insurance, so I had to learn it. They had to learn it. But I worked in Hartford, Connecticut, which was at the time the insurance capital of the world.

Gail Audibert [00:19:48]:
So, you know, it made sense that there should be a lot of business there, and certainly there has been.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:55]:
That is odd. It's funny how the industry sometimes chooses you.

Gail Audibert [00:19:59]:
Yeah, it's a fascinating industry. I mean, insurance positions, the insurance industry, it really runs the world. Like there is no headline in the newspaper that doesn't have an insurance mechanism. Political risk, hurricane, disaster, everything, everything is insured. And if you're not insured, it's a problem. Right? Your health, your auto, your home, everything. It's fascinating to me.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:25]:
So want to kind of like, you know, you've been a top biller. We're going to talk about some of the traits of being a top biller, but you've now taken like, your extra time and you just, you're now community building for the Pinnacle society. Like, where's that coming about? Why are you doing that? There's so many things that you could do, but you're really just trying to uplift an entire community. Why and how?

Gail Audibert [00:20:45]:
Probably because it did so much for me. You know, I also was the president of another association called the National Insurance Recruiting association. And, you know, let's talk about the difference between the two, which is pretty cool. The National Insurance Recruiting association was a group of recruiters where we also share best practices, but we mostly did split business. Right. So you have to trust each other because you're literally each other's competitors. And we would contact each other when I had a job and you had a person, blah blah, blah, blah, and we would, you know, trade business, and they literally bill about a million to $2 million in splits each year by learning to trust and educate each other. And I got a lot out of finding out about, I learned about LinkedIn, right.

Gail Audibert [00:21:33]:
You know, from another recruiter who is a little more astute than me. So, you know, I had those educational experiences with Naps and then caps the Connecticut association. And I got involved in the insurance recruiting association and I recognized, you know, belonging to Pinnacle that, you know, most of my career has been shaped by my peers. Now I have a daughter, actually two daughters in the business, not with me, but elsewhere. And, you know, I really feel like an association like this is what's going to help them survive. Right. I would love them to be a part of the national association, which they are. I love them to be a part of the Pinnacle society someday, you know, so I'd like to see it get established so that it will have a future.

Gail Audibert [00:22:16]:
So all of those people that we're bringing into this industry, you know, will have a place that they can go to as a resource or industry.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:24]:
So you're helping build a legacy because somebody else's legacy helped you.

Gail Audibert [00:22:29]:
Mm hmm. Yeah, I guess that's true.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:32]:
And it's so cool that you have, like, family in the business, too.

Gail Audibert [00:22:34]:
Mm hmm.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:35]:
My five month old year old was out hunting purple squirrels yesterday.

Gail Audibert [00:22:38]:
So, listen, that's the part that's really amazing is when my oldest daughter started as an accountant, and she was a terrible accountant, just like I was a terrible salesperson. She did it for a couple of years, and she interviewed and, you know, a couple of people approached her about doing recruiting, and she's like, mom, should I do it? And I'm like, no, no, no, don't, don't. It's too, because, you know, the ups and downs are recruiting. We have highs and we have a lot of lows. Right. We have a lot of lows because the highs make up for it. But I was afraid for her, and then she went into it, and it was a struggle at first, and then her career took off, and, you know, she brought her other sister on, you know, to support her with it. And it really is amazing, you know, to see, I'm like, they're going to be way better than me.

Gail Audibert [00:23:27]:
Way better than me. But, you know, they're both, you know, starting their families. And my son's in insurance, I have to mention him, too. I got him into the insurance industry. But, you know, I want to see them be a part of something like this someday. You know, right now, I just whisper in their ear, but eventually they're going to stop listening.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:45]:
Well, there's a lot of great recruiters out there that can definitely listen to.

Gail Audibert [00:23:48]:
Yeah, and there's a lot of recruiters that bring their family into it for the same reasons. You know, it's, you know, they don't think they're going to do it, and then all of a sudden they have, you know, their kids working with them. There's a group actually within pinnacle that's being started. One of our members is going to, you know, kind of foster it, and it's for so many people that have their children working with them. And how do you manage that? How do you train it? How do you migrate the business over to them when you choose to exit it?

Benjamin Mena [00:24:17]:
So, well, before we jump over to the pinnacle pointers, is there anything else that you would love to share about either the pinnacle society or your own background?

Gail Audibert [00:24:27]:
The only thing that's on my mind at the moment is that my daughter is at the doctors because one of them just had a baby and the other one's having identical twins, and they both hit the five pound seven ounce mark and their heads are down. So that's all I could think about. So I would like to share that with everybody. I'm going to be a grandmother of four pretty soon.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:46]:
So when this does come out, Gail might be a little busy when you reach out to her.

Gail Audibert [00:24:50]:
I know that's because that's the most important thing, right? It's the most important thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:54]:
This is why we do it. It's because of family. Well, we want to jump over to the pinnacle pointers and what this is is just a little bit of like, actionable advice for somebody listening to this podcast that can learn, grow from what's working. What can I try out? So one of the first questions that I have, if a brand new recruiter that's just getting started in this industry runs across the pinnacle of society and yourself, Gail, what advice would you give them to succeed in our space?

Gail Audibert [00:25:25]:
I don't know if this is going to answer your question, but I'm going to tell you what I did the past year and a half is listening to what everything that was going on at the Pinnacle society, at other association meetings, I felt that there was a huge change that was coming in the recruiting industry. And I remember when we went to monster, right, and they said, monster is going to change us and it's going to kill us. I think monster is almost out of business now. And when I got my first computer, which was like astounding and faxes and then emails, like, some of those changes were huge in our industry. But the past three years, it's mind blowing how many different tools that we can use to elevate our productivity. And if you're not learning and embracing some of the tech stack that's coming out and taking the time to learn it and put it together, you're going to be in the dust. They talk about artificial intelligence right now and those that are using AI are going to be the ones that make it. Well, we've had artificial intelligence and a lot of things already that we didn't even realize.

Gail Audibert [00:26:30]:
You know, I kind of took a time out last year to really reinvent myself and do everything that made me uncomfortable. So it's doing videos, it's podcasts, it's, you know, getting a new software system or an applicant tracking system using drip campaigns, trying out all this different technology. Listen, I'm that mother that can't figure out how to use the television, right? So I blew up my head trying to figure all these things out and surrounded myself with some really good people. I have someone that's now working with me to help me do all of that. You need to pay attention if you want to get better, you need to pay attention to what's new coming up so that you can adapt. Staying stuck in a system isn't going to work. Obviously, making phone calls is critical. Reaching out to clients and candidates, filling jobs.

Gail Audibert [00:27:22]:
Right. It's still basic, but how you do it and how quickly you can do it is going to make all the difference in the world.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:29]:
Why did you decide to kind of blow everything up and reinvent? What was the trigger for that?

Gail Audibert [00:27:35]:
Really kind of watching the signs of what was happening in the marketplace. Think about this for a second. If you get a phone call and you don't recognize the number, do you pick it up?

Benjamin Mena [00:27:48]:
Not anymore.

Gail Audibert [00:27:49]:
Not anymore. Right. It's going to be, you know, water warranty company or something. Right. So. And many of us have made our livings on calling people up on the phone. So how do we enhance that? We still need to use the phone, but we need to send out texts, send out emails, send out videos, do LinkedIn posts. They have to see us 20 or 30 times and hear our name for them to even recognize.

Gail Audibert [00:28:19]:
Maybe I'll pick this call up, right? Maybe I'll contact that person. I know that we used to just knock on the door. There's a great Sebastian maniscalco show where he's like, someone knocks on your door now and everybody ducks. Right. Just calling someone up on the phone. Sometimes you might say, hey, text them and say, can I give you a call? Right. It's like knocking on the phone to be able to call someone. You know, we have to pay attention to these things that are happening and how quickly can we do it?

Benjamin Mena [00:28:47]:
What is right now working on the business development side to get new clients.

Gail Audibert [00:28:53]:
For me, it has been reaching out to clients on video.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:57]:
Do you do video within your first message, or is it kind of part of a sequence?

Gail Audibert [00:29:01]:
No, it's usually a personal video in the first message to clients, assuming they're not going to pick up the phone. Right. Or I may leave a message and I don't know that they're going to listen to it. I will either through LinkedIn or through an email, leave a message, a voicemail message, but it's a video message. It may have their back. You know, if I'm recruiting them, it might have their LinkedIn on the background, but in many cases it's me just talking to them, putting a name and a face together so they know I'm a real person and not a synced message that they're going to get with 100 other people. Right. It's a personal message to them.

Gail Audibert [00:29:40]:
They could see me, they could hear me, and they could decide whether they contact me back. I get a lot of response to that.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:47]:
Oh. And that's one thing that I feel like a lot of recruiters aren't doing, at least at the moment, is that slowing down to speed up. It's, you know, so often it's, hey, can I put, like, 500 people into a drip campaign and hit go and go do something else? But you're saying right now that what's working for you is the slowing down, making a personalized video, and it's helping win more work and your response rates are going way up.

Gail Audibert [00:30:13]:
Yeah. And at the last conference we had two weeks ago, we had a panelist of talent acquisition, and every single person said they liked video.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:23]:
Okay, so listeners do more video.

Gail Audibert [00:30:26]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Call me. I'll tell you which ones are good.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:30]:
Just out of curiosity, what are you saying in those intro videos for those new clients? Prospective clients.

Gail Audibert [00:30:35]:
The same thing I would say on a phone call. Hi, my name is Gil Auduber. I wanted to contact you. I have a person that we're trying to, you know, work with who's a blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Thought you might make sense. I know you're connected to so and so. Give me a buzz if you'd like to talk about it further. So it's the same thing, but it's a video of me talking.

Gail Audibert [00:30:55]:
I might make a connection of someone we know. They might know me from the past. Haven't talked to you in a while, but it's just reaching out. You know, I present candidates that way, too, so. Because I might not get them on the phone, but now they can listen to the presentation and see the resume.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:11]:
Okay, so you're actually doing, like, some NPC videos, too?

Gail Audibert [00:31:14]:
Yeah, and recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:16]:
And recruiting. Secret weapon. So what has been a book that has had a huge impact on your own personal career?

Gail Audibert [00:31:23]:
A book? The secret why. It's all about self actualization and having a positive mindset and a positive attitude, you know, and kind of calling the right things into your universe. I mean, it's not just work, but it's everything in life. But, you know, especially if you're in any sales role, you know, you get pounded with a lot of negativity, whether it's, you know, things that someone did that wasn't very nice or things that happen to your candidates that aren't very fair or sad. Stories that you hear day after day, and it could bring your energy down. And I need to make sure that I put that in its place and say, let's focus on what's good. Let's focus on what's not hard. Let's focus on the fact that I can do it versus it hasn't happened, and it makes those dips not last as long.

Gail Audibert [00:32:18]:
We all go into it, but you got to bounce out of, right. As I said to my kids when they were little, buck up. Buck up and realize that the world is a good place and there are good clients out there and you could fill any job that's given to you.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:31]:
So that is awesome. And I know we've kind of covered this, but I'm going to ask this in the pinnacle pointers anyways. What does the pinnacle society mean to you?

Gail Audibert [00:32:40]:
When I first got in, it was a feeling of accomplishment, and I, you know, I felt like I made it. And then afterwards, I didn't feel that way. I felt like I just began, you know, I just began a new path in my career. And now, and I remember people saying this before and I didn't get it at first, is even though you see these people twice a year, it's a really close network of friends for people that you can rely on, and that's hard to get now. You know, I remember when my kids were little and I'd beat people at the soccer fields and at baseball games, and you'd have these kind of seasonal friendships while they were at certain ages. But I see the friendships that people have developed at the pinnacle because they're going through these kind of work situations and they're really quite close. And I've met people that took me through a lot of different points in my life, and it was wonderful to have one more opportunity to build relationships and friendships.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:42]:
That's phenomenal. Like, looking at yourself, what do you think has been a huge driver for your own personal success?

Gail Audibert [00:33:49]:
You mean in terms of why I.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:50]:
Wanted to, why you're successful? Like, what's been, like an internal thing that's been pushing you?

Gail Audibert [00:33:56]:
No idea. That's a good question. You know, the first thing that pops into my mind is my father. You know, my father was the eternal optimist. And I remember way back when I said, gail, you could make it to the Olympics, and all I could do was a cartwheel at the time. But he just had that kind of, like, energy. Everyone loved being around him, but he was really positive, and he was always complimentary, so he kind of gave me that feeling like I could do anything I wanted. And the other person who was always really important to me was my nani, which was my italian grandmother who lived with us.

Gail Audibert [00:34:30]:
And, you know, said that family was everything. So my combination, right, is I thought, I thought I could do everything, but family was really important. So I wanted to create a career where I could really support my family and give them whatever they wanted and believed that I could do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:48]:
And recruiting is that perfect avenue for that.

Gail Audibert [00:34:52]:
It really is, because I don't report to anyone but myself, so I could make those decisions, what's right or wrong for my family versus having someone dictate to me. Not that there's not a lot more freedom now, but at the time, there wasn't.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:06]:
Im going to ask this question twice. Ones going to be for the beginning of your career, the other ones going to be after youve launched your firm. But if you could sit down and have a cup of coffee with yourself, when you first got into recruiting, like those first few weeks or the first few months, what advice would you give yourself?

Gail Audibert [00:35:23]:
I worked really hard. I probably would have not worked Sundays. I probably would have taken a day off. I'm not sure that sometimes all the busyness I did made 100% sense, but I was trying really, really hard. I would have given myself a little grace.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:40]:
And same question, but shortly after you launched your firm, if you like everything that you know now, like the ups, the downs, the industry knowledge you have, if you got a chance to sit down with yourself at the beginning of your firm launch, what would you tell yourself?

Gail Audibert [00:35:53]:
I think that one of the things that I never did and I would have done differently is that in recruiting, we have a tendency to look for people who can just sell. Right. Because I had staff of maybe 14 at one point, so everybody was recruiters and you had some admin support. But I think I would have done extraordinarily better if I partnered up with someone who had a strong operational and organizational bent. Because one of the things that's most difficult in our industry is getting that information, having a process, and we focus so much on the sales that we forget that all of that business piece and that operational piece is critical. And that wasn't something that was, I don't want to say de rigueur, but it wasn't as important. But I see some firms that have excelled because they gave equal weight to someone with that kind importance, to someone with that kind of experience, and that's what made them go from good to great. So encouraging anybody that has a firm to find someone, find that other half, because most really good salespeople are not necessarily the operational expert.

Gail Audibert [00:37:08]:
And you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be spending all your time figuring out your applicant tracking system. Have someone just make it work for you. So I think that's the advice I would have given myself after I started my firm.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:19]:
Oh, that's great advice. Well, before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Gail Audibert [00:37:24]:
I would love to share that you should be listening to Ben Mina's podcast. I think we're going to have a lot of. We're going to try to get every pinnacle member on there. They're all different. They're all unique. But I would, you know, I'm looking forward to a long relationship with you, Ben, so that you can kind of spotlight, you know, what we're good at, but also spotlight, you know, the different members that we have. And I hope that, you know, some of the information that everyone shares is going to spark, you know, like Tony Byrne or Brian Tracy did for me or Danny Cahill back when, and launch your career in the right direction.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:59]:
That is awesome. Well, Gail, I just want to say thank you so much for, you know, jumping on sharing. It's one of the biggest things that for the listeners that the Pinnacle members, if you were able to get in touch with one of them. I have been blown away by the years of time that Pinnacle members have helped me with my recruiting business and my recruiting career. Like, it is an organization that really, just, at the end of the day, you know, it's an elite organization of elite recruiters. But at the end of the day, they're not just helping themselves get better, they're helping the rest of the community get better.

Gail Audibert [00:38:30]:
The generosity, the outreach program that we have helps thousands of people. The members that we have, the number of groups that they're involved with. One of our members raised almost three quarters of a million for underserved communities. Another person canoe down the Mississippi river and raise a million dollars for vets. They don't just do one thing. Another one did it for cancer. They raise millions. They're just a generous group of people.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:58]:
So, yes, one more thing. And for the listeners, if they want to follow you, how do they follow you?

Gail Audibert [00:39:03]:
You mean on my LinkedIn profile?

Benjamin Mena [00:39:05]:
Yeah, you can say LinkedIn Twitter threads.

Gail Audibert [00:39:08]:
I'm only on LinkedIn. Gail Audubert and I just started posting a year ago. I'm the Jerry Seinfeld of posting. I just post whatever I think about when I wake up in the morning, but, you know, would love to communicate with anyone that way. I speak to a lot of different recruiters when they ask me questions, so feel free to reach out.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:26]:
Awesome. Well, Gail, thank you so much. And for the listeners, I hope you guys crush it and make 2024 your best year yet.

Gail Audibert [00:39:32]:
Thank you.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:34]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.