The Seven-Figure Playbook: Scaling Strategies for Elite Recruiters with Mark Whitby

Mark Whitby [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 [00:00:20]:
A few quick announcements before we get started. First of all, book of the month for the elite recruiter community. Never split the difference by Chris Voss. Secondly, the recruiting growth summit was awesome, but guess what? We're going to do round two. The first one was make this year your best year yet. The second one is going to be finish the year strong. So stay tuned for some of the details. But it's going to be bigger, it's going to be better, and it is going to make sure that you finish off the year so that this was the best year yet.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:56]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. The reason is recruiting can be one of those life changing career opportunities if you take advantage of it. My special guest this week has helped so many recruiters, thousands of recruiters, completely change their lives with the power of recruiting. Mark Whitby is my special guest. He is training some of the top, biggest billers in the industry, some of the top billers across the globe, and I'm excited to have him share to help you level up. So welcome to the podcast, Mark.

Mark Whitby [00:01:30]:
Thanks, Ben. It's an honor to be here. Uh, you're, you're doing a fantastic job with your show.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:35]:
So thanks for the invitation and excited. I've, I've met so many top billers and so many of them, like, they like, oh, yeah. Mark Whitby's like my secret weapon.

Mark Whitby [00:01:47]:
So I'm excited for you to come.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:49]:
On, share a little bit for the listeners and have a chance for the audience to get a chance to meet you.

Mark Whitby [00:01:54]:
That's very kind of you. Thanks.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:56]:
So. But we always get started and we'll kind of lead this into where you're at now. But how did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting, Mark?

Mark Whitby [00:02:05]:
Yeah, it's funny because I have a podcast to the resilient recruiter, and that's the exact question I like to open with as well because it's just so interesting to learn how, you know, everyone wandered into this wonderful but crazy industry. So I am from Canada originally, and my girlfriend, after I left university, was, is scottish, was scottish, and is now my, my wife Lisa. We've been married for 25 years now, and her visa ran out. So I basically followed her back to the UK and I was in a bunch of debt because I had a business during university that failed. That was a huge learning experience. And I was literally living in a tiny apartment above my now father in law's garage. And my wife was working through, well, girlfriend at the time was working three jobs to kind of buy groceries, and I had so much drive was after that failure, I felt this huge need to prove myself and that I wasn't a total failure, that I could be successful. And I started going and talking to recruiters and thinking, hey, I could do that job.

Mark Whitby [00:03:18]:
That looks pretty easy. I knew I wanted to work in sales, and so I just started applying, and my pitch was, let me come work with you for free for a week and prove that I can do this. A company took me up on it, and the rest is history, I guess.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:36]:
How many times did you pitch that? Did everybody just say yes?

Mark Whitby [00:03:38]:
It got me a lot of interviews. And, yeah, ultimately it ultimately worked. And actually they paid me from the beginning anyway. But they just liked the, they liked the approach. They didn't actually take me up on the offer, but it worked. It served the purpose of getting the interview.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:54]:
And you had a career in recruitment. And that's actually one of the things I really like about you, Mark, is when it comes to coaching, you know exactly the seat that we're sitting in as recruiters. You've been there, you've done it, you've seen the up and downs. You felt the up and downs. So how'd you grow your recruitment career towards where you're at now?

Mark Whitby [00:04:14]:
Yeah, great question. So first company I joined, it was very much sink or swim. I met some great people and some of whom I'm still friends with today, but there wasn't really much training. It was like, maybe it was similar when you started in the industry. I think you were started in the early two thousands. I was in the late nineties. It was like, okay, Mark, there's your desk, there's your phone. Go and make sales.

Mark Whitby [00:04:36]:
Right? And I hadn't any clue what I was doing. Just tried to learn from what other people were doing around me, and I actually did okay. And then it was headhunted to a much bigger firm with better training and more support. But I still felt like I wasn't achieve my potential. This was a firm of 200 people. I was about the middle of the leaderboard. So I was hitting my target. Just I was doing enough to keep my job, but I was not.

Mark Whitby [00:05:02]:
I wasn't impressed with my performance. I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to be challenging towards the top of that league table, and I was working really hard. And maybe listeners can relate to this feeling like you're working super hard, you physically can't work any harder. Right. So if you want to increase your results, it's not going to be from working more hours because you're already putting in the hours you need to work smarter, figure out a better strategy. And so I ended up hiring a coach. I didn't tell anyone at work that I was going to do that because I thought, again, this is in the early, well, this is like around 2000.

Mark Whitby [00:05:37]:
And the idea of having a coach back then, it was kind of weird. Like people would still think it was pretty weird, right? It wasn't kind of a mainstream idea. And I didn't want to other people to like, judge, you know, me or, I didn't want the grief basically. So I hired a coach and he was fantastic. He helped me double my billings in 90 days. I became the top biller in my team out of eight. I got, I was never the biggest builder in the business, but I was in the top 15%. I transitioned from contingent to, you know, a significant amount of my business was retained.

Mark Whitby [00:06:14]:
I, I leveled up in terms of the seniority of the placements I was making and therefore the fee value. And just the whole world changed for me. And it went from being a job to being something that was actually fun and fulfilling. And when you feel like you're succeeding at something, it's so much better, right. Than if you feel like you're failing, even if those the same job, just totally different, totally different scenario. So that I'd always been into personal development, Ben, and, you know, reading books, listening to audio programs and that kind of stuff. But that hiring a coach was the catalyst to make me think, hey, maybe someday I could help other people to, you know, level up their results and really enjoy this career in recruiting, you know, as it, as it could be enjoyed.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:06]:
Wow, that is crazy. And it's just you, you know, hiring a coach nowadays, like if you want to win, it's like a no brainer now. But back then I, I, yeah, I'm just thinking about the early days of my, my agency world back in the mid two thousands and it was just like, there was no thing as a coach. Your coach was like your manager.

Mark Whitby [00:07:26]:
Right, exactly. And so you could get lucky or unlucky there, right. You could have a great manager who is mentoring and coaching or not. Right. And so it was kind of luck of the draw and what I would say to recruiters getting into the business now or, I mean, really anyone at any stage of your career, but especially recruiters. Getting started is you need to ultimately take responsibility and ownership for your own learning and development. And ideally you want to join a firm that already believes in that and will invest in you and has a career path and provides excellent training. But regardless of whether or not that's the case, then you do have, you know, you need to take control of that and like listen to excellent podcasts, like the elite Recruiter podcast.

Mark Whitby [00:08:12]:
You know, listen to TEd talks, listen to audiobooks, read books, go to conferences, because you can't leave that to chance. It's so important.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:21]:
Let me just add in there real quick. Also add in there the resilient recruiter podcast.

Mark Whitby [00:08:26]:
Thank you. Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:28]:
It's definitely a go to listen.

Mark Whitby [00:08:29]:
Thank you, sir.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:30]:
Okay, so you like this coach? Absolutely. Changed your life, changed your buildings, brought you to the top of the career. How much longer did you stay in the recruiting desk before you like, you know what the impact that this coach had on me? I believe I can have an impact on other recruiters.

Mark Whitby [00:08:50]:
Yeah, it was about a year and to be completely honest, Ben, I think I, in some ways I quit too soon. Like I was just hitting my stride and had like a really good year and, but still in terms of like the big world of recruiting, I was still a baby. You know, I'd been doing it for five years at that stage and I now know that like it takes really three to five years to get good at something. Like to get really good at something, right. And um, but at the same time I felt like learning development was my true calling. And I, although I liked recruiting and I understood that industry, so I just combined the two things and decided to be a coach for recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:36]:
That is awesome. And some of the things for the listeners that I'm excited about, Mark, talking about one, I truly believe recruiting is a life changing opportunity. But some of the things that we're also going to cover is how to increase your billings two to 400%. What are the pillars of a seven figure recruiting business and also what is keeping recruiters from seeing their success? Thats just a quick preview because im excited and were going to do a deep dive on these. So lets just go ahead and get started on this. Mark, when it comes to all of us, recruiters are doing our day to day thing. Were working hard, sometimes working way too many hours. Many recruiters are on the edge of burnout, but you've taken so many recruiters just in a short window and you've like increased their billings 200% to 400%.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:21]:
What are you, what are you doing like, what are, what's the difference between point a and point b?

Mark Whitby [00:10:26]:
Yeah, it's a great question, and there's a lot of ways to answer that, but I want to keep it super simple. And the easiest way to answer this is in terms of marginal gains. If you can make small improvements across a number of key areas in your desk or your business, they can multiply together to create a compounding effect. Does that make sense, Ben? So, for example, let's take client leads, candidate leads, conversion of client leads into jobs, conversion of candid leads into submissions, conversion of submissions into interviews, conversion of interviews into deals. The average deal value. So that's seven factors right there. Okay? Now if you get a 10% increase in each of those areas, then have a wild guess what that. What kind of a multiplier effect that has.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:18]:
You know, if you guys want to like Gmath, my degree is economics. I suck at math.

Mark Whitby [00:11:25]:
Nobody gets this right though, Ben, because our brains aren't wired to think in terms of exponential. Right. We tend to think in linear. Linear, exactly. So think. Well, 10% plus 10% plus 10% is seven times. That's going to add up to 70%, right? No, it's 94% because they multiply. So that's almost getting you to double right there with just tiny 10% improvements.

Mark Whitby [00:11:49]:
But the reality is there's shortcuts, there's strategies that can get way more than a 10% improvement. For example, when I alluded to earlier, if you can transition from contingent recruitment to a retained model, then suddenly your fill rate increases from, say, 20% to 25% to 80% to 90%. So that's a 400% increase right there with the same amount of work, same amount of hours and so on. So it's making those key improvements. It's not working harder. It's really just analyzing. Okay, what am I currently doing and where are the gaps? Where are the opportunities for improvement? And that's how it's done.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:33]:
So you've like, one of the things it sounds like you do is you sit down with these recruiters and recruiting leaders. You break down every part of the process.

Mark Whitby [00:12:42]:
Definitely. You have to.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:43]:
Like, how many recruiters out there without a coach do you think are actually breaking down what they do as a career?

Mark Whitby [00:12:52]:
Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I don't know the answer to that question, actually. I did a poll on LinkedIn, though, about like, do you set yourself KPI's and measure your ratios? And it was really interesting. It was definitely a minority of people who did. And there was a. And then there was a significant percentage who really pushed back on the idea. They hated that idea and said, I don't need. I've been doing this a long time. I don't need to track that kind of stuff, and so on.

Mark Whitby [00:13:25]:
And that's the real danger of when you're experienced, then the biggest risk is complacency, right, of just, you start coasting or plateauing and not staying on the cutting edge, not pushing outside your comfort zone and not challenging yourself to think, is this as good as it gets, or is there another level? And by the way, guys, there's always another level, right? It's so. And it's.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:52]:
I mean, I know it's one of those things, like, whatever you track, you focus on. And whatever you focus on, you always get better on 100%. So we.

Mark Whitby [00:14:01]:
So we're. I have a number of clients who are members of the pinnacle society, which is an organization in the. In the. In the estates, made up of 80 of the top producing recruiters in the. In the country. And I've spoken at a couple of conferences, and we have the great honor recruitment coach. My. My firm is a pinnacle partner.

Mark Whitby [00:14:22]:
And what's fascinating about these individuals is that you would think, like, they don't need training. They're not interested in coaching because they're already high performers, right opposite. These men and women are never satisfied. They're always pushing to do better. They are constantly looking at improving themselves and personal growth as well as professional development. And I think that's not a coincidence. That's one of the reasons why they are top producers.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:52]:
Like, okay, we've talked to some of them. Like, we. We probably know some of the same people.

Mark Whitby [00:14:56]:
Yeah, it is.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:57]:
One of the things that's always surprised me about that circle of individuals is they are constantly trying to grow themselves.

Mark Whitby [00:15:06]:
Definitely.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:07]:
Like, if you get around, like, different groups of recruiters, like, when it comes to their personal development, I think they like ten x what everybody else is doing. And, yeah, their income is also like, ten x. Yeah. You know what? That is awesome. Well, Mark, I want to flip a little more gear. So we've increased our billings. We've worked on some marginal gains and marginal things. But how do you get to that elusive seven figure per year recruitment business?

Mark Whitby [00:15:38]:
Yeah, great question. So our framework is called the six pillars of a seven figure recruitment business. And so the six pillars, these are basically the areas of your business that you need to really focus on improving and mastering. I mean, you never get to mastery. Right. But it's that ongoing effort. So the six areas are clients, candidates, team operations, strategy and marketing. And actually, if you're open to a Ben, I thought it might be helpful for your listeners to do a little exercise or kind of almost like a self evaluation.

Mark Whitby [00:16:14]:
Are you up for that? If I take people through almost a.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:17]:
Quiz, let's go for it.

Mark Whitby [00:16:19]:
All right, cool. Now, if you're driving, then don't obviously do this. You'll need to go back and relisten and do it then. But if you are anywhere where it's safe to do so, then grab a notepad and a pen or open up a fresh document on your computer. And I want you to grade yourself on a scale of one to ten in each of these six areas. And before you do that, I'll give you a little definition or explanation of what our standard of success is. So ten obviously being the maximum, let's start with clients. Now, in our world, this is a flywheel, so it looks like a pie chart, if you like.

Mark Whitby [00:16:58]:
And then each of these pillars is a wedge of the pie. Okay? So on the client side, what we're really talking about is business development and clients client development, client relationships. So what we want here is a constant flow of high quality leads coming into your business that you are able to convert into true partnerships. And what I mean by a partnership is it's a mutually committed relationship where ideally there's money down, or at least it's exclusive. They're only working with you, partnering with you on a particular searched, and they treat you as a trusted advisor. They listen to your advice. It's like your ideal client scenario. And of course, they're willing to pay you your top fee.

Mark Whitby [00:17:51]:
Okay, so on a scale of one to ten, where would you rate yourself? And I'm not asking you, Ben, I'm just asking the listeners, where would you rate yourself? Scale of one to ten. And the reason it has to be a constant flow is because what I see so many recruiters falling into the trap of is they're relying on referrals and repeat business for, you know, which is lumpy. Right. You don't, it's not consistent. If you, if you've got, like, referrals, for example, you can't control when a referral is going to come in and repeat business. Again, like, typically, we're relying on too few customers, and if one of them worked, even two of them goes away, then suddenly you're in real life. So we need something that is much more predictable and consistent, and especially because if you're running a full desk, then when you get busy working on delivery, then what happens? The business development, if it's relying on your manual effort and every activity is initiated by you, that's going to stop when you switch gears over to recruiting and then your pipeline dries up. So we need systems and processes in place that run continuously and never ever stop, even if you're on vacation or you're busy filling jobs for existing clients.

Mark Whitby [00:19:10]:
So scale of one to ten, choose a number. Let's move on to candidates. So on the delivery side of the business, what we're looking to build is a candidate delivery machine that allows you to fill more jobs faster with less of your personal effort and still delivers an excellent candidate experience. And if you can increase your delivery capability suddenly. Cause some recruiters say to me, Ben, but mark, I can't actually take on any new clients. Cause we're too busy, you know, filling our existing orders. And, and I'm like, okay, well that's good. Let's focus on the candidate side first and tighten that up, because ideally you should be in a scenario where you can constantly be focused on client development and you also have an effective delivery process.

Mark Whitby [00:19:57]:
So scale of one to ten, where are you there? And by the way, you probably, I know that you know this because I've listened to your content and your stuff before, but the client and the candidate outreach is very similar, right? It's just the same process applied to two different audiences. Right. Or in some cases it's the same audience but with a different emphasis. So, you know, it means that you need a multi touch, multi channel campaign in place. It's not like stop starts, you know, fits and spurts sporadic activity where you make a call here, send an email there. It has to be an orchestrated, systemized campaign where you're reaching out on LinkedIn, email, telephone, sending personalized videos, even sending stuff in the mail, you know, or sending text messages, but doing whatever it takes in a very organized and orchestrated fashion in order to get the target recipient to respond. So we're basically setting up mirror processes on both the client and the candidate side, and then with the team that might be virtual assistants or it might be full time employees, or it might be some combination of that, but we very rarely do people get to seven figures completely on their own. I've met a few anomalies, and I'm sure you have too, and you've had some of them on your show, people who can bill a million dollars plus as a one person, a one man or one woman band.

Mark Whitby [00:21:27]:
But to be honest, that's very rare and it's not replicatable. Okay. It's much more likely if you have a support system in place and that might be one or two virtual assistants or, and, or like one person in the states or in the UK or wherever you happen to live that are able to allow you to focus on what you do best and where you have the greatest impact and also what you enjoy the most. Right. Um, otherwise you end up in the scenario where you're spinning ten different plates and that is going to bottleneck your growth and just prevent you from reaching that next level. So scale of one to ten, where would you rank yourself with, with the team then operations. So if you want leverage, you need to have systems, processes, standard operating procedures. So your business runs like a well oiled machine.

Mark Whitby [00:22:16]:
And that might sound overwhelming and intimidating, but it doesnt have to be. And it is necessary if you want to really achieve your full potential, is you have systems and processes for stuff. So scale of one to ten where you rank yourself there, then in terms of strategy, are you designing your dream business that you love or are you just by default going from week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, without a really clear vision of where youre going and a roadmap to help you get there? And so that would encompass everything thats more big picture, not in the weeds, but more strategic. So, for example, how are you differentiating yourself in your market? Do you have, for example, this framework im describing? It has a visual of this, this wheel? Do you have something like that? Do you have ip that you can trademark where you're packaging or almost productizing your service so that when you explain it to a client, they perceive it as being unique to what other recruiters are pitching them and they understand why they should pay your full fee and why they should give you an engagement fee, for example. So that's all the kind of strategy stuff. So scale of one to ten, where do you rank yourself there? And finally, marketing, which is my absolute favorite topic, Ben, which is, you know, how are you generating inbound leads and how are you also positioning yourself as an authority in your market so that you're attracting clients and candidates who want to work with you and they already know, like and trust you because that makes everything else easier. Now anyone who tells you that you can rely just on inbound leads is lying to you. I don't believe that.

Mark Whitby [00:24:03]:
I think you have to be proactive. You have to use outbound. But working in combination with outbound and inbound together, that's when the real magic happens. So, for example, Ben, you've got a fantastic podcast. I've got a podcast. We've helped quite a few of our clients to launch a podcast, and that's a great vehicle for becoming an authority in your marketplace and attracting your ideal customers to you. But it doesn't even have to be that. It could just be simply posting original content on LinkedIn consistently.

Mark Whitby [00:24:36]:
It might be hosting an event for your industry. There's so many different marketing strategies, and you can't do everything right. You have to be very selective, especially a one person business or a recruiter working in a firm. You can't spend all your time on marketing, but it's actually surprisingly straightforward to be better at marketing than 90% of your competitors. Right. And you don't have to beat everybody. You just have to be better than the majority of other people. It's like the story of the bear.

Mark Whitby [00:25:04]:
Where have you heard this one? Yeah, the two. Two guys hiking in the woods, and they come across a bear. And one guy starts taking off his hiking boots and putting on his sneakers, and the other guy's like, what are you doing? You can't outrun a bear. And he said, I don't need to outrun a bear. I just need to outrun you. I'm laughing.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:22]:
One, because I'm a runner. Two, I've actually ran away from a bear.

Mark Whitby [00:25:25]:
No way. That's crazy. Oh, my God.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:28]:
I knew exactly where you're going with the story.

Mark Whitby [00:25:30]:
I was like, oh, God, I remember that bear. Oh, yeah. I was by myself, but, oh, no, I don't. Are you supposed. I don't think you're meant to run, though, Ben. Are you.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:39]:
You're not supposed to.

Mark Whitby [00:25:40]:
But I, like, I did like, oh, my God.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:43]:
I was a college athlete. I was a college runner. So I just hooked it.

Mark Whitby [00:25:48]:
Oh, my God. I mean, they are faster.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:50]:
But I think he got bored and just like, kind of just like, wow. Imagine that stories could have.

Mark Whitby [00:25:57]:
Oh, wow. That could have ended up completely different. We might never have had this conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:02]:
I digress. I digress. So let me.

Mark Whitby [00:26:03]:
Let me take it.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:04]:
Let me take a step back, listeners. So, first of all, I love that you, like, sit there talking about systems and, like, I had a recently conversation with somebody that you actually coach. His name is Mike Williams, and he's talking about one of the things, he finally took a vacation, and his wife was just like, this is the first time you've not been stressed.

Mark Whitby [00:26:23]:
Wow.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:24]:
And I feel like it's because of the systems that he kind of put in place with some of the coaching that you've done. So.

Mark Whitby [00:26:34]:
And Mike Williams is a. Mike is a superstar. And I don't want to take too much credit for Mike's success. Like, he's. He's just one of those people who is, you know, he's a make things happen kind of guy. And I like to think we've definitely added value to his business, but that guy's a rockstar, Jeff.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:55]:
But for the listeners, let's go back to this real quick. Make sure that you're putting down a one through ten for. Was it business development candidates, teams, operations, strategy, strategy and marketing. And why did you separate bd and marketing?

Mark Whitby [00:27:14]:
It's a good point. And so the marketing relates to both client and candidate. The reason we separate them out is because we feel like they're different activities. So on the client side is more about outbound, you know, outreach, pro being proactive, and marketing is more about attraction. Okay, but. So that's why we separate them out. Otherwise, I think it. We always try and keep things as simple as possible and not overwhelm people.

Mark Whitby [00:27:43]:
And that just seemed like a logical way of doing it, to be honest. But, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:47]:
Well, that kind of goes into my next question. Like, it's 2024. What is actually like the world? The recruiting game has changed. It's completely different than it was in 2021, 2022 for most industries. Keyword most like what's working on the business development on like the Beedie side and the marketing side to actually bring in new business.

Mark Whitby [00:28:07]:
Yeah, great question. So I wish there was one magic bullet that I could tell you, Ben, that, like, if you just do this one thing, then that's going to bring in a flood of clients. There's. I don't think that's a podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:19]:
It works, right?

Mark Whitby [00:28:21]:
Well, it's powerful for sure, but that's. So here's the thing with marketing. It's a longer term play, and ultimately it is like. Like you. You can get to the point where you get more inbound leads than outbound, like over a period of years, you can get to that point. But if you need job orders tomorrow, next week, next month, the podcast is not your next right thing. Right. You need to, you know, identify your target customers and start reaching out to them.

Mark Whitby [00:28:54]:
So. So what is working? It's. I sort of touched on it earlier, but it's being very intelligent and organized with your business development approach and using more than one channel. And it's amazing. You would think, like, probably you and I are very familiar with these tools and these platforms and these strategies, right? And you think that everybody's doing this, but that's not the case. A lot of recruiters are either they're just doing one thing and it's whatever they've always done, it's either they're doing MPC marketing, most place will candidate marketing, right? And that's their one thing. But the problem is. And that works, but it's not enough, right? Or they reach out to people on LinkedIn, they send in mails or something like that, or they connect, okay, that's great, but that's not enough.

Mark Whitby [00:29:41]:
Or they might try sending emails, but the problem is. Well, surprisingly, I don't understand why people are still sending manual emails one at a time now. But even then they're not well written. But then it's almost worse to send math, like send a high volume of bad emails, right? I don't know which is worse, sending one at a time bad emails or sending a lot of bad emails. Probably sending a lot of bad emails. So you need to have. The thing is that people are bombarded now, right, with outreach, whether it's through social media, through email, or what have you. And so you have, the game has changed.

Mark Whitby [00:30:22]:
The level has gone up. You have to be better. You have to really work on, you can't just send anything. You have to be very thoughtful and intentional and work on your copy and think about what would I respond to? Or even better, get inside the mind of your client avatar or buyer Persona. What are their problems? What are their pain points? What are they trying to achieve? And how does what we offer align with what's most important to them? And how can I succinctly touch on those pain points and propose the next step as succinctly as possible, while also personalizing the approach? That's the level that you need to get to. And it, I mean, one of the things we do with our clients, Ben, is we critique their copy and it's not easy, really smart, well intentioned, hardworking people, and they send us stuff. And I'm like, oh my goodness, no, don't send this because it is a skill in itself. I think the two big skills in recruiting that you need to master are cold calling and copywriting.

Mark Whitby [00:31:35]:
And they're skills, they can be developed, they can be improved, but you have to want to improve it and you have to train yourself or find training, and then you have to practice and you have to constantly improve on those, on those skill sets because, you know, to really cut through the noise these days, you just have to be excellent. I guess that's the only way I can put it.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:58]:
So I'm going to touch on cold calling for in a second. But when it comes to copywriting, I've seen a consistent thread with how the LinkedIn algorithm has changed the way people have read things change. And I kind of have fun, like watching some of your coaching clients, how they write their messages on LinkedIn. Like, it almost like they turn like semi viral. But then I start seeing the industry, like leaders within their industry. Like, I see recruiters, like clicking on it, like, oh, cool, that's an awesome story. But, but I love when I sit there and I'm reading the comments, I'm like, that's not a recruiter. That's not a recruiter.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:33]:
That's an industry professional. That's a hiring manager commenting. Like, how do you write to get a hiring manager into your ecosystem? By sharing something on LinkedIn.

Mark Whitby [00:32:44]:
Great question. So no matter what, whether you're cold calling, whether you're writing a piece of content like a LinkedIn post, whether you're writing a business development email, no matter what the channel is, it all goes back to really understanding your ideal client profile. Okay, so we call it ideal client avatar. Some people, like in software, they call it an ICP ideal client profile. In marketing agencies, they talk about buyer Personas. Doesn't matter. It's all the same thing. You need to really know your customers inside out.

Mark Whitby [00:33:19]:
And that requires, I don't, I don't want to go off on a tangent here. That requires you to be in a niche. Okay, so prerequisite. Yeah. Okay, so prerequisite is if you can't write a LinkedIn post. Well, I don't say can't. If you want to write a LinkedIn post that gets traction, it has to really resonate for your audience. And that's the same with cold calls, that's the same with emails.

Mark Whitby [00:33:42]:
It has to resonate and it has to feel relevant, like, you understand, you empathize their situation and then they're going to respond, they're going to comment, they're going to engage with it. Right? So in order to get that relevance, you have to be hyper focused on a niche. And then you have to really understand, like, what are this custom, like, you need to understand the dynamics of your market. You need to understand the trends, the challenges, the threats, the opportunities. And then even on an individual level, you need to understand their psychology. Right? Like, what are they? So think of your client, whether that's a CEO or a VP of engineering or whatever the case may be, okay, what are their targets? What are they, what are their KPI's? What are they going to either get rewarded for achieving, or what are they going to get penalized, either losing bonus or even getting fired if they fail to achieve. Okay, what are their day to day frustrations? What are the top five most important strategic things they're trying to achieve? What are their biggest frustrations and concerns? Okay, so. And when we talk about writing a buyer Persona, we all.

Mark Whitby [00:35:00]:
We actually want you to make it a person. Like a fictitious person. And people are like, that sounds kind of hokey. Why would I do that? The reason is because when you're writing, you should be writing for one person. If you try and write as if you're speaking to a whole crowd of people, then the message is going to be diluted. So what you want to do is picture, and you can base this on, say, your best client. If you want to replicate that relationship, you already have one or two good clients and you want more of them, then, you know, base it on. Either make it a composite of those two good clients, or base it on that individual.

Mark Whitby [00:35:35]:
And if you want more like that person, then let's speak to them in your LinkedIn post. Right? Let's. Hey, I was. I was speaking to a client today who's CEO of a, uh, scale up software company, and they shared this, you know, x problem, right? And if you write like that in your LinkedIn, then other people who are, you know, in that same Persona are going to respond to it. Does that make sense then?

Benjamin Mena [00:36:02]:
No, that makes perfect sense. It's, you know, I think, you know, I'm guilty of this myself sometimes. Writing for the masses, rather than writing for that. That single industry focus, which I've seen a lot of your coaching clients, they're writing to that one person, that one niche, and I'm like, hey, I've gone.

Mark Whitby [00:36:23]:
Exactly, exactly. And look, the LinkedIn posting again, I wish there was a formula that was foolproof, that worked every time. But whether it's cold calling, emailing, posting on LinkedIn, whatever it is you're trying to do, nothing works all the time, right? You just need to, um, be consistent and keep striving to get better and use a combination of different approaches, and that's how you get to seven figures.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:51]:
So. And I want to take this a little bit of a different way. I feel like we've been talking to, like, the firm owner or that high performer. So let's just say that you're sitting in an agency, you're. You're listening to this podcast. And I'm just thinking of myself back in my, my first, like, few years at Verotech. I'm like, I want to grow. I want to become a top biller.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:12]:
You know, I'm not really focused on a seven figure business because it's technically not my business, but I want to become a high performing desk. Yeah. Do I focus on all those pillars also, when it's just me working somewhere? Or, like, how do, like, what would I do?

Mark Whitby [00:37:27]:
Okay, great question. Um, in that case, it's much easier because the. The six pillars still apply, but it's like a streamlined version of it, because you don't have to worry about creating your website or doing your bookkeeping or credit control or tax returns or all the stuff that, as an owner, are also on your job description. But you still want to apply the exact same thinking, Ben, and really analyze each of those areas and create a plan for what can I do to level up in this particular area? By the way, the reason we do the questionnaire and get people to score themselves is that you can't improve everything at once. You need to focus. Right. And so the exercise is designed to help you identify where's the opportunity? What do I need to concentrate on next? And so it's just taking one area at a time, whether it's your candidate delivery, if you have lots of jobs and you're finding it challenging to find suitable candidates or get candidates to engage with you, then that's what you should be focused on improving next. Right.

Mark Whitby [00:38:33]:
And let's really focus on leveling that up. And then once that's to a point that you feel like, okay, great, I made huge strides there. Now let's focus on something else. But I do believe. Well, and again, it depends, what type of desk are you running? A full desk. Are you like a candidate delivery? Are you on the sales side? But I think everybody needs to understand marketing. And I would encourage every recruiter, whether you are running your own firm or not, to start building your personal brand on LinkedIn, because that is, you know, you don't need your company's permission to do that. You just need the initiative and the desire to do it.

Mark Whitby [00:39:16]:
And that is going to increase everything else. So if you're reaching out to candidates and they've already seen your content in the newsfeed, they're much more likely to respond. Right. Rather than it's like, who is this guy? I've never heard of him.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:31]:
And I just had to ask that because I know you found a coach while you were at work, in the recruiting desk, my coach was my manager, which, looking back, I had to learn from other places, too. And he was an incredible manager. So I would just say that. But we hear all these great podcasts, and it's typically these firm owners, but if I was sitting in agency, sometimes people don't want all the headaches of being a firm owner.

Mark Whitby [00:39:57]:
They just want crush it on the.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:58]:
Recruiting and be able to actually go home at night.

Mark Whitby [00:40:02]:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. 100%. And then even then, like, a lot of the, like, there's a lot of.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:07]:
People in pinnacle that actually work for another firm.

Mark Whitby [00:40:09]:
That's true. That's true.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:10]:
So, yeah, okay.

Mark Whitby [00:40:11]:
So, like, it's. It's. Again, what, what I said earlier, taking ownership responsibility for your own learning development. You know, you can just. Maybe you're, for example, maybe your firm is. Hasn't provided the technology for you to send automated emails. Well, make a business case and try and get them to invest in a tool that's going to help you increase your billings. But if they say no, I'm paying it for myself.

Mark Whitby [00:40:36]:
I'm not going to wait for my manager to say yes. Right. Because ultimately, I'm still going to get an ROI. Same with, like, let's say you feel overwhelmed and, like, stretched at work and your agency isn't willing to invest in a researcher or an assistant for you. I don't care. I'm hiring my own virtual assistant in the Philippines. Would you invest $1,000 a month to increase your billings by 100,000 a year?

Benjamin Mena [00:41:05]:
That makes sense, right?

Mark Whitby [00:41:06]:
It's roi calculation. And so, again, now, do you need permission from your agency to hire a va. I don't know. I'd probably just do it anyway. And then when my billings increase and they say, holy cow, mark, like, why. Why are you all of a sudden? How did you double your billings? Then I might reveal my secret, but take ownership and just learn from whatever sources. You're probably, like me, a fan of Tony Robbins and the idea of modeling, finding mentors, finding role models, and figuring out how are they doing what they're doing, what's their mindset, what's their strategy, what's their technique, and how can I apply that? And, you know, that's something which, again, you don't need permission to do. You can do that through.

Mark Whitby [00:41:55]:
And maybe it's your manager, maybe it's one of the top producers in your office. You can take them to lunch and ask them, which I did when I was a recruiter. Like, one guy, I was charging like, 20% fees and he was charging like 30% fees. And I said, hey, can I buy you a coffee? I'd like to pick your brains. Why are your clients paying you 30%? I can barely get them to pay me 20%. And what he told me blew my mind and I immediately started increasing my fees. And so those opportunities are available. You just need to be intentional and pursue them.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:27]:
I absolutely love that you did that because thats actually kind of what happened to me. But they sat me down and said that were going to get rid of you. Nobody wants you. You suck at recruiting. And im like, well, theres a top biller in the office, what are you doing? I feel like Im working hard. Im hitting every metric, Im hitting every number.

Mark Whitby [00:42:42]:
But I'm billing at zero and you're.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:44]:
Billing at the top of the thing. So it's amazing what you can learn from, from other people.

Mark Whitby [00:42:48]:
Definitely.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:48]:
I love that you like we're talking about, hey, don't ask for, you know, ask for permission, but sometimes you've got to go take care of yourself and go maybe hire some help. And that goes into my next question. When is it right for a recruiter to hire, whether you're a firm owner or even just a high producing desk?

Mark Whitby [00:43:03]:
Yeah, great question. So there's not one right answer to that question. So if it's from a business owner perspective, the constraints are either cash flow or your capacity to onboard new people, right. Those are the two main constraints that are going to throttle your growth. So having said that, you do need to, if you want to grow and build a business that runs without you and is like a machine, then you do need to take a risk. I use my COVID bounce back loan to hire my colleague Leann, whos now my business partner. And shes been instrumental in helping us to increase our billings by 400% over the last three years. So hiring outstanding people isnt really a risk because they're going to more than pay for themselves.

Mark Whitby [00:43:44]:
Right. And help drive your business forward. But if, you know, for individual recruiters and for solo, you know, whether working in an agency or for solo, you know, practitioners who are like, well, I don't really, I don't want to build a team. I just need help. I need some support either on the sourcing side or the admin side. Then start by hiring a virtual assistant. And there's so many talented people. We like the Philippines as a market, but it could be South America, it could be eastern Europe.

Mark Whitby [00:44:14]:
Theres so many countries where theres talented, hardworking people, but because of the economic. The exchange rate between, say, the US or the UK versus that country and the cost of living, relative cost of living. You can find a really talented person and be able to afford to hire much sooner than you might realize. So I would say do it sooner rather than later because that's going to. I mean, it's a game changer, Ben. When you have that support and you can concentrate on the things that you enjoy most and you're. You're actually talented at, then everything improves.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:49]:
Yeah, that is awesome. Alik, how do you find that?

Mark Whitby [00:44:53]:
Great va. Yeah, great question. We have a whole course on this, uh, on how to. And we've got, like, the blueprint, how do you. How hire onboard, train and retain superstar virtual assistants. But essentially. So, like, the two main websites are, upwork is one we use a lot. We found lots of talented people through upwork.

Mark Whitby [00:45:14]:
And the other one is onlinejobs ph, which is like a job board for the Philippines. And of course, you can use LinkedIn as well. So that would be the third place. But we've had a lot of success with those two, those two places in finding. But actually, I can't really take credit. Leanne is our. She manages the whole team and she recruits all of our team members and like, she, she is. And she used to recruit recruiters.

Mark Whitby [00:45:37]:
She's placed about 800 recruiters in her career into other recruitment agencies. So I'm kind of lucky and spoiled that when we need to hire, then she takes care of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:47]:
That is awesome. So what do you think keeps recruiters from actually being successful?

Mark Whitby [00:45:54]:
It's mindset. When I look back over my career, the challenge is it's hard to see it when you're in it. Right. I think the expression is you can't read the label from inside the bottle. So it's so hard when you're in a situation to really get out of your own thinking and your own limitations. But when I look back at every stage where I've been stuck, it's been mindset. And the only way I can think to break out of that is, of course, you have to have the desire to do so in the first place and a goal of what you want to achieve. But then you need to get around other people who are successful and find people like, network and try and be create a community of other like minded folks who are successful and think, you know, in the right way.

Mark Whitby [00:46:52]:
And that rubs off. And as you, you know, you can't go from 100 to a million in one step. It's always, the growth is incremental. And, in fact, I once asked a friend of mine who is a million dollar, actually, who's a million pound biller, which is like $1.3 million, and I said, how do you get to a million pounds? And he said, well, Mark, you know, it's pretty simple. You know, most people, let's say you're already doing 100k. Can you imagine getting to 150? Can you, like. Cause you can't imagine going from 100 to a million, right? It's like. It seems inconceivable.

Mark Whitby [00:47:26]:
But can you imagine getting to 150? Most people can imagine. Yeah. If I can do 100, I can probably do 150. Right? It's like, good. So, can you imagine if you're doing 150, getting to 200? Yeah, I can see how that would be possible. Okay. Can you imagine getting from 203? Right. You see where this is going? So it's like.

Mark Whitby [00:47:45]:
It's. It's always. Incremental growth is always slower than we'd like it to be. But if you have the desire and you get around the right people, then it's incredible what you can achieve.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:54]:
Changing your power of changing your environment. I love that.

Mark Whitby [00:47:57]:
Yes, exactly. 100%.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:00]:
And it's one of the things. It's. You know, why pinnacle is there. It's why some of you group coaching is there.

Mark Whitby [00:48:05]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:05]:
Like, you get around other people, and it just always raises you up.

Mark Whitby [00:48:09]:
Well, sorry. I was just going to say that the. The thing I'm most proud of over the last few years is the community that we've built. Often people join our coaching program because they want to work with me and Leanne and Julie, our. Our coaching team. But then they pretty quickly realized that the best thing about the program isn't me, it's the community. And learning from other, you know, really successful people who are positive and kind and like minded and willing to help each other.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:36]:
Awesome. Well, before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share, Mark?

Mark Whitby [00:48:41]:
I mean, it's kind of been the theme of this. Of this episode, but listen to Warren Buffett, who said, the best investment you can make is in yourself. You can't. No one can take it away from you. It can't be taxed. And that is something that's 100% in your control.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:54]:
Absolutely love that. So, jumping over to the quick fire questions, they do not need to be quick answers.

Mark Whitby [00:48:58]:
Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:59]:
You get a chance to chat with somebody that's just starting off in the recruiting industry this year, like, no recruiting experience. What advice would you give to them.

Mark Whitby [00:49:07]:
To see success I think it's what we've already covered. It's take responsibility for your own learning and development. Seek out mentors and coaches. And by the way, if you can't afford a coach when you're getting started, then it's audible, it's books. Everyone can afford a book, right? Uh, YouTube. There's a wealth, resources. It's podcasts. Right? It's attending events.

Mark Whitby [00:49:31]:
Try and persuade your. I actually persuaded my boss when I was a recruiter to pay for 50% of my ticket to go see Tony Robbins in London. Unleash the power within. And he was super skeptical. Like, he was really turned off by Tony Robbins. He was like, ugh, this is. I don't. I don't like this guy.

Mark Whitby [00:49:47]:
He's like, in your face. And this, you know, he was totally. He was against it, but I persuaded him it was going to help my business, so he agreed to pay 50%. So do whatever you can to get that learning and development that you. That you need.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:59]:
That is awesome. Same question. But for people that have been around the block 510, 1525 years, what advice would you give them to see success?

Mark Whitby [00:50:08]:
Yeah, it's actually the same answer, but from a different angle. It's like your enemy is complacency. Your enemy is doing the same thing day after day and, you know, getting into a comfort zone, because that's not challenging, that's not fun, that's not going to keep you fresh and keep you engaged and passionate about what you're doing. We want to build a career and a business that you love, and that means you have to push, puts out your. Outside your comfort zone, try and do something that scares the shit out of you on a regular basis. And whether that is launching a podcast or posting for the first time on LinkedIn or making cold calls or whatever it is that's outside your comfort zone, that's a reason to do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:54]:
Do you have a favorite rec tech tool or tech tool at the moment that you absolutely love?

Mark Whitby [00:50:59]:
Yeah, I have shiny object syndrome, and I'm constantly like, I have way too many subscriptions to tools that I probably either overlap. I don't need them all, or they. I'm not using them. But the two that I can't live without. One is you need a calendar tool of some kind, like calendly, or the equivalent. Okay, that's like a. That's a must have. And number two is you need a video, a platform that allows you to send personalized videos.

Mark Whitby [00:51:33]:
And so the one that we like is loom because it's there's a free version and even the premium versions, like $15 a month or something, it's very affordable. We use it for sales, like business development outreach. We use it for internal team training. We use it for even existing customers to communicate back and forth like someone sends us. Hey, can you review my website and critique it and then ill do a loom video to help them. So those are my two absolute essentials, calendly and loom.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:05]:
Let me just, I love video tools, by the way, and theyre getting kind of crazy. I use one called Sensepark that now, like you can use AI to send almost like a personalized mass message. Do you recommend that?

Mark Whitby [00:52:19]:
I learned about that on your podcast actually, because we were looking, there's a bunch of those platforms and we've not done it yet, so I can't recommend it because I've not personally before we recommend anything, we like to personally use it in our business and, you know, validate. Is this effective or is it going to work? But I love the concept of it. And so actually after watching your podcast, I signed up for the trial and I'm playing around with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:50]:
Yeah, it's like I'm afraid to hit go on it just, but it's like, I feel like that stuff is just like on the edge and almost there.

Mark Whitby [00:52:57]:
Yeah, it's exactly, it's, I feel like, okay, here's the thing with AI. We are, we're deep in terms of research and actioning, leveraging AI at the moment. In fact, we're teaching a twelve week course for our clients called recruit Smarter with AI, and we're applying AI to every single element of people's business, those six pillars that we talked about earlier. And there's a lot of stuff that is not quite there yet, but I feel like you still need to jump on it now because the recruiters that embrace AI and take the time and effort to learn it and develop those skills now are going to be so far ahead of, like the early adopters are going to be so far ahead of the late majority that those other folks will never, ever catch up, sadly. So, like the time is now because the world is going to look completely different a year or two from now. And if you're just waking up to AI two years from now, you've already kind of miss the, missed the boat. Whereas if you're experimenting with it and applying it and trialing it now, then it's, as it gets better, you're, you've already got the wraps to know how to get, make the most out of those tools.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:11]:
Absolutely. Have you had a, is there a book that has had a huge impact on your personal career?

Mark Whitby [00:54:17]:
Yeah. So, so many. I think, I think I've. Did I see a post by you on LinkedIn about atomic habits?

Benjamin Mena [00:54:23]:
Yeah, it was a book of the month for the elite recruiter community for the month of January.

Mark Whitby [00:54:28]:
Yeah. So that's, that's probably if I had to pick one then it would be atomic habits by James clear. Fantastic book. Yeah, we, I, I probably buy a book a week. I don't always read them, but my wife's like, what you bought another book on like anyway. But, but atomic habits is one that I've actually read and then reread.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:50]:
That's awesome. And the problem is I ask about all these books and they start showing up because of Amazon. My wife is like, you haven't worn the last five.

Mark Whitby [00:54:59]:
Exactly. Exactly. Well.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:03]:
And it's kind of just, this goes with your story. What do you think has been one of the big things for your own personal success? What has been the driver of your success?

Mark Whitby [00:55:14]:
Let me think about this for a second. What has been the driver of my success? I love learning and I'm just constantly, I always, this is almost a negative. I always feel like I don't know enough, like I'm not good enough, like I'm, there's big gaps in my knowledge. Like I, I'm always feeling like I, I need to know more. And so although that's kind of a negative driver, it, like it's, it's made me really hungry for knowledge and for information and learning. And so I've been on this quest now since I was like 17 years old, getting books out of the library and out of used bookstores on sales and personal development and marketing and copywriting and all that stuff. And it's continued. Now I have the opportunity through the podcast to learn from really top people, CEO's of companies who've scaled or really top producing recruiters.

Mark Whitby [00:56:09]:
So it's just that ongoing, never ending journey of learning and trying to learn from other people.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:17]:
Trey, thats awesome. This next question, Im going to ask it two ways. Im going to ask it on the recruiting side of the house and then just overall business and life with everything that you know now, the amount of conversations, your ups and downs. If you can get a chance to sit down with yourself in your first week or two of your recruiting career, what would you tell yourself?

Mark Whitby [00:56:42]:
So, okay, my first week of recruiting, I wanted to quit. I was like, what the hell? This is not what I was expecting. Right. It was. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And I felt like, I felt this high level of anxiety every. I take the bus into work every day and I felt, like, super stressed out and I felt like I'm no good at this. I really suck at this.

Mark Whitby [00:57:10]:
I could see, and it had quite a high turnover, this agency, and I could see that if I didn't start producing, then I was not going to keep my job. And I think what I would go back and say, mark, breathe, it's going to be okay. You've got this. And just that encouragement and that reassurance that, you know, you're not going to get it overnight, but if you work hard and, you know, it's going to come together. And I think that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, which, which stresses us out. And maybe we all need to reassure ourselves that you've got this, it's going to be okay, you can do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:55]:
And let's kind of ask the same question, but kind of going maybe into a little bit of your coaching career and all the other things that you've done, like maybe fast forward 510 years past that initial conversation with yourself. If you could sit down with yourself again, what advice would you tell yourself?

Mark Whitby [00:58:13]:
I think it's the same advice, Ben, because it's not something that, like, you can't give yourself a pep talk one time, right. And all of a sudden it clears up all of your, you know, mental disorders and kind of limitations. I think it's an ongoing, like, you're focusing on your own mental health and well being and putting yourself in the right mindset to achieve peak performance is an ongoing, never ending journey, and it's taken different forms as we've gone along. Like, you know, it's through meditation. And then I added running and journaling, and you just need to keep working on yourself to make sure that you have the emotion, the resilience. Like, where does resilience come from? Because we're all going to make mistakes, we're going to have failures, we're going to have those highs and lows, and what keeps you going and driving is that resilience? Well, where does the resilience comes from? It comes from having built a reservoir of mental and physical health and thats just something that is ongoing and never stops.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:23]:
Is that resilience theme of you talking to yourself and everything? Is that the foundation of why you made the Resilient Recruiter podcast? That title?

Mark Whitby [00:59:33]:
Yeah, definitely. Its that journey of being knocked down a lot of times and im still here and I feel like resilience is the one of the keys to success at anything, but especially a tough business like recruiting. But that title doesn't just apply to me. I think it applies to my listeners as well. I think feel like they are the resilient recruiters. The true resilient recruiters are the people listening to the podcast because they've all had their own journeys and their own ups and downs. But they're listening to a podcast because they're seeking that knowledge. They're trying to improve.

Mark Whitby [01:00:12]:
They're looking for inspiration and insight that's going to take them to that next level. So that shows that they're still in the fight. And no matter what adversity they've experienced, they if they keep focusing on improving, then they're going to ultimately they'll get there.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:28]:
Absolutely. And real quick for the listeners. He has some of the most amazing guests in the industry. So definitely, like add that to your follow list. Add that to your subscribe list.

Mark Whitby [01:00:37]:
Thanks so much, Ben.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:39]:
Mark, how do people follow you if they want to follow you?

Mark Whitby [01:00:43]:
Yeah. So check out the podcast recruitment coach.com podcast and feel free to reach out on LinkedIn. Mark Whitby. W h I t b y.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:54]:
Awesome. Before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Mark Whitby [01:01:00]:
Nope, I think we've covered it. That was, you told me that your normal podcasts are half an hour and we've been going over an hour here, so I don't know if you're going to edit out a lot of my long winded answers, but it was fun. No, it. I.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:16]:
Sometimes they go a little long, but like, normally that's what I try to go for. But yeah, no, I'm not editing out your answers. I'm not.

Mark Whitby [01:01:21]:
Come on.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:22]:
Listeners are going to shoot me if I do that.

Mark Whitby [01:01:25]:
All right, good. Great. Well, I am. Oh, go ahead. No, I'm just curious, what's been your longest interview?

Benjamin Mena [01:01:33]:
I had one that lasted like an hour 45 and I didn't break. Yeah, I chopped it up into three episodes because.

Mark Whitby [01:01:39]:
Good idea.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:40]:
But yeah, I'm Mark, I'm just so excited that you came to share on the podcast. I, like I said, the very beginning, recruiting is one of those absolutely life changing careers that many of us just happen to just stumble into, like accidentally. But you've come in, you've talked about how you can increase your billings quickly. On top of that, also how you can build a seven figure desk, whether you're working at an agency or with your own solo career. So I'm so excited. And, you know, for the listeners, you know, go listen to Mark's podcast. You will absolutely love it. So for the listeners, I'm so excited for you guys to crush 2024.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:18]:
Make it your best year yet.

Mark Whitby [01:02:19]:
Thanks, Ben. That was fun. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.