Thinking Outside of The Box for New Business with James Aiken

Intro [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the elite recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:18]:

This is going to be an exciting episode of the elite recruiter podcast. I have my special guest and good friend, James Aiken with me, James is a partner of Frederick Fox, and we are going to talk about creative outside of the box ideas and things that you could do for both your candidate side and the client side to help win more work. So welcome to the podcast, James.

James Aiken [00:00:44]:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. You know, obviously, known known about you a long time from the hurt. We've kinda crossed paths here and there. So I'm excited for the the opportunity to have a a spot on your podcast here.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:56]:

Awesome. So before we get started, number one question. How did you end up in the wonderful world of recruiting?

James Aiken [00:01:05]:

Yeah. I mean, it was I think you probably hear from a lot of folks you know, it, you don't necessarily go to college to be a recruiter. I didn't even know it was an industry, to be quite honest. I didn't know it was a thing at all. The quick side of the story is when I graduated, was looking for looking for a job, Ended up. I was moving boxes or I was a I worked for 2 minutes in a truck during the summer after I graduated because I had a buddy that managed the place. and, one day without getting into too much details, we had a very tough job. and some of my teammates did not perform to my expectations, I would say, on the, on the customer side, the The big piece there is the driver backed the truck into the customer's car. And I said, this isn't for me. I said, you know, it was nice for a little while. It was fun, but, it's time to start, looking at maybe a little bit more professional jobs. And so I went actually, the way that I got into it was I was applying for jobs, had a management degree, and this this will show my, how naive I was. I was I had a management degree, so, therefore, I should be able to manage. And so I applied for a branch manager role with a company locally here called, HTI Or Human Technologies. And the recruiter called me, and he was like, hey, you know, You don't really have any experience in managing a staffing branch. You don't have any experience in recruiting. You have, like, You're not a fit. I hate to tell you this, but you're not a fit for this branch manager role. But he's like, I do have a 90 day contract for recruiting assistant. And, I think he told I think it was like it was $11 an hour, and I and I I paid $10 an hour plus tips to move boxes So I was like, absolutely. I was like, AC, 11 bucks an hour. I'm like, this sounds awesome. I'm like, whatever recruiting is, I'm in. I'm gonna be the best recruiter you've ever seen. It was basically doing, like, machinists, assembly, you know, production level work. and I got pretty obsessed with the business. I really like just the the human aspect of it. know, being able to connect with people that bring my local market, learning about, businesses in my Mark. I mean, I didn't even realize how much of an impact manufacturing had on my, local area until I started doing that. And I just got obsessed with the business. and I started I got on NLE. I think it's next level exchange. Can't remember. But, you know, doing training videos and everything and Then it was it was all over from then. You know, I figured out that, you know, it was a side note part of my degrees and entrepreneurship and So I know we've been looking for a way to start my own business. And I was looking at franchises, and I was looking at all this stuff, and they're like, oh, you could start a business with one person. So I was like, you know, basically no startup costs. And then I'm like, alright. I'm I'm gonna crack the code on this business, and I'm I'm gonna start my own business one day. And, And so that that's really how I originally got into it. It was just happened chance never even applied for it. I just got lucky guy, Rob I can't remember his last name, but he's a great guy. works HR out in California now, but he took a chance on me, and I'll say, you know, I'm I'm very blessed for it because who knows where I would be and probably still be moving boxes, I would imagine. But, yeah, that's how it's all started.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:43]:

And for the listeners, he is in South Carolina and -- Yeah.

Intro [00:04:46]:

--

Benjamin Mena [00:04:46]:

during the summer, it is it's hot. mid.

James Aiken [00:04:50]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really bad. I like, And I was in Columbia for college, so it was real hot there. It was almost like a relief to get into Greenville, even though it was basically the same. But I remember one thing that we would always pull, which got pulled on me, which is the only reason I pulled it on new people, was and say, oh, you're you're tired of moving furniture, you're tired of going back and forth. Watch you stand in the back of the truck and fold up all of the or if you call them They're basically blankets that keep stuff from banging into each other. Just fold these, these blankets, I guess I would call them. Someone's gonna make fun of me for calling it that, but there is heavy really heavy blankets. And, yeah, you'd stand at the back of that, like, 10 can in a hundred degree heat, and you're folding these really heavy blankets. You know, like, I I think I wanna go back to moving the furniture. Like, I I not really feeling it.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:41]:

That's funny. Man, I grew up in Charleston, so I know the side of throwing a heat. I didn't know that. Nice. That's awesome.

James Aiken [00:05:49]:

A little

Benjamin Mena [00:05:49]:

bit of everywhere. So you went from working as a agency recruiter, and then you, like, started your own search firm. And so talk about that and then talk about where you're at now.

James Aiken [00:06:00]:

Yeah. So like I said, you know, when I joined HDI, I was only on the recruiting side. They actually had it where it was 2 different departments. So there were no 360 desks. And I I I was telling leadership, hey. I wanna get into sales. and they're like, well, you have to go in the sales department. You do sales and recruiting, and I was kinda like, well, that's a little weird because then I can't, you know, my ultimate goal was to start my own firm. So I'm like, you know, I I kinda wanna be able to do both. and so I ended up leaving to go to, kind of, a small agency around here called Pennpoint, and, -- worked there for about a a year, year and a half, and I was developing my own business, was filling my own roles. I gotta and I don't wanna drag them too much, so I'll keep it light, but I wasn't getting the amount of support and the amount of, you know, split deals and the amount of, like, back end support that I thought I should get for basically paying half of my fee to them. and so, you know, I'm adding up what certain tools cost and whatever. I'm like, man, I'm pay I think I only billed, like,

Intro [00:07:15]:

150

James Aiken [00:07:16]:

or 175 or something, but I'm looking at, like, dang. I I basically paid these guys, like, 90 k to not give me anything because I was having to pay for my own LinkedIn. They basically gave me a laptop, a office, and, that's pretty much it. And, and nobody was splitting deals. Everyone was kind of it was like this classic old school place where the the top billers were all just 360 in their deals. They would maybe give you the scraps. Nobody would work on your deals because they're all trying to fill their own roles. And I'm like, I'm not really getting anything. So I was like, ask for it. I'm gonna go fully independent. And at the time, I had done some work with Pella, and the election was coming up. It was

Intro [00:08:00]:

2018, 2019,

James Aiken [00:08:01]:

and or excuse me. it was

Intro [00:08:05]:

2015, 2016.

James Aiken [00:08:07]:

And, you know, Trump was going crazy, right? Like, it was looking like pretty much he's gonna, he's gonna win. And so my guess was We got this construction tycoon. Construction's gonna do well. You know, maybe it's very layman, hypothesis, but I was like, construction's gotta do well if construction guy wins. And so I just pushed all the chips in, in, building materials. So I originally started, but because of Pella, I started with just window and door manufacturers. All I worked with was window and door manufacturers. doing mostly sales, operations, nothing, you know, supply chain, nothing too crazy complex, but built out from there, you know, spent

Intro [00:08:53]:

5, 6, 7

James Aiken [00:08:54]:

years doing that. And I kept running into the issue of, well, a couple different issues. Right? of scaling my own desk because I then in that spot, I am through 16, everything. You know, I am the end all be all, all the orders that we come in. And in the beginning, I I had some, friends that I had brought in, but then it it's kinda like the the blind leading the blind. You know, I had 2 years of experience, 2, maybe 3 years of experience. everything that I knew was from reading books and from, you know, having a coach, I didn't really have, like, a formal And, again, because pinpoint was very small, I didn't have, like, a formal environment. It wasn't like I'd spent 4 years at Robert Half or Adecco or or anything like that. so I didn't really have the sophistication to be able to lead properly. Like, we got deals done, but we didn't operate it. how effective we could have been if I knew what I was doing, essentially. and so, you know, years later into the business, Like I said, I had issues with scaling. You know, I'm I'm

Intro [00:10:05]:

25, 26, 27,

James Aiken [00:10:07]:

and I'm trying to hire somebody internally You know, I'm trying to convince tenured recruiters to join me on a w 2. They're they're wanting to charge me off the nose to join. I don't have, you know, a a a boatload of money. I I didn't really see a equitable bet, I didn't see it as it was too risky for me to to hire somebody, on a on a w 2. And so I started looking at more entry level people. And then it was almost the same situation. It was like, man, I've got to train somebody up. You know, my own desk is gonna go down in this process. They don't know what they're doing. I I at this point, I I sort of know what I'm doing. you know, I'm successful, but I'm I'm not a a $1,000,000 biller by any means. And so That's when I got to the stage of doing

Intro [00:11:04]:

1090

James Aiken [00:11:04]:

or, basically, external splits. And as you have spent a lot of time on the hurt, I got introduced to, Will Spangler. We happened to geek out over some tools and, ended up. He's like, hey. You know, if you got anything to work on or if you wanna work on my stuff, I'd be down to to do a split deal. So I'm like, that that sounds pretty good. And I think what really caught my attention was He didn't want, and I had I had tried to do split deals, like, internal split deals before. And, you know, they wanna you have to be so private about the client, You know, the the other person wants to be so private about the candidate, because neither side really wants to get screwed in the process. and say and, you know, want to sign contracts and then you go through all that and then they don't deliver, well, Will was basically just like, hey, just just give it to me, and, you know, I'll knock it out. and we didn't have a contract. It was a it was a virtual handshake agreement. we had never met in person. and we started doing deals together. And I just remember I think the first deal we did It was he filled one of my roles and never mentioned anything to me about, you know, getting hardcore about payment, And I'm like, man, he's really trusting me to send him. I mean, it was probably 15, $20 or something. I'm like, man, he's He's really trusting me to to to send this over to him. I'm like, I could yank it right now. I could just block him on everything and just disappear in a thin air. but that's essentially what got me to trust him. I'm like, wow, he trusts me so much that, I have no choice but to trust him. I'm like, this is an honest guy. This is an ethical guy. And, and so we started doing multiple deals. Well, you know, I'm complaining about the industry to him over time. I'm like, man, I'm having such a hard time, you know, building my own team, and He's like, well, at that point, I think we hid he had just started Frederick Fox. And so he kinda gave me the rundown on it, and he's like, you know, you can just plug in. We got recruiters. You know, we need we need more salespeople. We need more, activity on that side. I'm like, alright. Well, let's let's do it. so we teamed up, I joined in, started cranking, and, you know, I think it's it's been 15 months. So, it's it's been a really good ride.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:39]:

That's awesome. That is fun. And when it comes to split deals, it really is. It it's a trust trust environment.

James Aiken [00:13:45]:

Like -- Oh, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:46]:

Yeah. You've there's nightmare story reach out there about people just cutting and running and blocking and this and that and lawyers and back and forth. And if you didn't have the agreement in place, like, I've seen I've seen some split deals go south, but I've also, like, personally gone through some really good things where you have that trust and that and that relationship with the person and it works out perfectly.

James Aiken [00:14:06]:

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, of course, in the recruiting, like, the recruiting world's all about people. Right? And so whenever you when you find a good person, you wanna hold on tight. You wanna make sure that, you treat him right.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:18]:

It's what is there something like?

Intro [00:14:20]:

8,900,000

Benjamin Mena [00:14:21]:

recruiters in the or when it comes down to it, it's still a small community.

James Aiken [00:14:24]:

Oh, yeah. Well, it's like, it's like realtors in a way. Like, there's a lot of realtors that are part time. There's a lot of realtors that are you know, doing it on the side, but it does become a pretty tight, especially when you're looking at independence. Like, you'll run into each other over time.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:42]:

So wanna jump over to talking about some creative things that you've done to get new clients, to get new candidates, So what are, like, the I'd say the top 3 funniest slash creative things that you've done?

James Aiken [00:14:54]:

So I would say on the recruiting sign, I had this offer where essentially, we called it or I called it a job lander. So it was a way to minimize risk from the client's side. Minimize risk from my side, and also be a little bit cheaper for the client. Essentially, what we were doing was I was going through a lot of, like, Russell Brunson, you know, click funnel. I've, you know, gotten books back there of, like, traffic secrets and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I got really interested in digital marketing. I mean, I I really was obsessed with it. And so I was thinking, well, most companies just advertise a job as a job description. And that was pretty much my my the bulk of my pet is you're just sending candidates your requirements. You're just sending candidates what you want. why don't companies display why somebody should join them? You know, why aren't their job descriptions more like job advertisements, essentially. and so what I did was I used the the click funnels platform To basically build out long term, like, recurring traffic onto a single page, on that page would be, you know, at the top, we'd have an intro video that would be from me. lower, we get into explaining the company. in a sophisticated manner, we would have videos of the office of leadership, of the managers, you know, talking about the role, talking about the environment, the culture, what they're looking for, what makes somebody successful, gets into the value proposition from, you know, why somebody should join. And then just barely at the bottom, you know, a little bit on, hey, here's what we're looking for. And most job descriptions can be boiled down to, like,

Intro [00:17:05]:

3, 4

James Aiken [00:17:07]:

require, like, true requirements, you know, And so in the case of, like, let's say it was a salesperson, it would be, you know, we want somebody that has a B2B sales background, you know, someone with a bachelor's degree, and somebody that's the local or whatever, for example. and then they would just be able to either book a time with the recruiter, I. e. me or the internal recruiter, immediately from that page. And or you could even set up an extra step where they would fill out, like, a survey, and then you would approve them to get on to the, to get on to the, your schedule. and I thought that that was it it had great reception from clients, especially from the rates that I was charging on it. It was very cheap, in my opinion. because I was so bought in, and I was so like, this is where it's gonna go. I think every, like, forget your careers page you know, as you thought of it before, like, we're gonna have pages for every single job that you are consistently recruiting on. Like, Yeah. You won't do it for a it wouldn't be recurring for, like, a director of finance or a VP of finance, but let's imagine your machinist or your salespeople or maybe even accountants or whatever department happens to be growing or you're making, you know, more than 1 hire a year in a specific role. So that was that was kind of my pride and joy on the recruiting side, especially because I really liked playing with the cold targeting and advertising, you know, using, Facebook, using LinkedIn, as a traffic source on that, and then especially retargeting that traffic. Because I'm like, well, if you have this page and it's up all year, over time, like, who's gonna hit A CNC machinist page, probably 80% of those folks are gonna be CNC machinist or what to be CNC machinist. So why not essentially tag that audience and just long term be able to stay in front of those folks. You know, maybe now is not the right time, but Maybe it will be the right time 2, 3 months from then, and so you wanna stay in front of them from an advertising perspective. So that would that would be one of the, on the recruiting side on the on the sales side. I would say most Most of the time we're using pretty standard strategies, but something that a lot of agencies don't necessarily do, or I don't see it. quite as aggressively is paid traffic and direct marketing. And so I had success with Again, long term, you can't turn it on, and in 2 weeks think that, you know, you're gonna get a job order spit out, but If you do it a quarter over quarter and track your results, you know, I was, again, advertising, mainly probably 80% of the traffic was coming through Facebook, targeting. And then the rest, you know, a little bit Google, a little bit LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a little expensive on, It it it's good for cold targeting because you have a really specific audience, but as far as, like, retargeting, it it it just gets pretty expensive. so we were using that to basically either have a direct call to action or if they got to a specific page, for example, my schedule page, I would say, okay, you know, this is maybe not a hot lead, but it's a pretty hot traffic or warm traffic. You know, you're not gonna go to my, you know, book an appointment page just for fun. So I would take to get same concept, take that traffic, stay in front of him long term, you know, show him testimonials, month over month, show them what our process looks like. I did a lot of, which I've gotten away from, but did a lot of prop strategy based selling where you're saying, hey, He kinda came from Frank Kern where he was saying, show him how to do it. Just show him how to do it and If you're adding that much value in the process, they're probably going to look at it like, wow, that's a lot of work. And they're gonna say, I don't wanna do all that. don't have the time to do all that, but I think it's a great idea. And that was kind of the, the, the value prop there is where You show on the entire process. You show everything that you're doing. And then they're like, jeez. I I can see that that would work, but I don't want to do all that. And you say, well, It's a good thing you're talking to me then, because that's what I do. That's what I do all the time. so I would say those 2 are probably the more creative spends on either candidate generation or client generation.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:57]:

Now when it comes to, like, actual, like, cold traffic advertising, all those different platforms, do you have a few pieces of advice for recruiters or firm owners that have never done it before.

James Aiken [00:22:07]:

If you've never done it before, my first the first thought that came to my mind is, like, if you've never done it before, don't do it. We can

Benjamin Mena [00:22:14]:

just pay somebody.

James Aiken [00:22:16]:

Yeah. Either either pay somebody or do it extremely slowly. Okay. Set your time horizon out very far. Like, if you're on the recruiting side, I would say set it to be generating your candidate bench or your candidate matrix, whatever you wanna call it, pick accountant or, for me, pick accountants in Greenville, target them, and have it just continue going over a year. and look at what you've got, maybe even a quarter, and look at what you've got from that and adjust over time. Don't go in and spend a hundred bucks a day or, like, any kind of crazy spend right off the bat in hopes that you're gonna speed up your, results because really all you're gonna do is burn a ton of money. You're gonna be unimpressed with the results, and then you're gonna say, this doesn't work. When it does work, it's just not a it's not it's not a a slot machine. You don't just put money in, and then it just immediately comes back out. it's like, okay, this is this is a long term strategy. If you're selling, you know, I I've dabbled an ecom. If you're selling up a $40 book bag, yes, you can get immediate sales from just a of single CTA to, cold traffic, but If you're selling something like recruiting where it's a

Intro [00:23:37]:

$10,020,000

James Aiken [00:23:40]:

fee, and is very time based and urgency based, you have to be there at the right time, and they have to actually need it. there's not really impulse buys in the recruiting world. Candidates a little bit different, right? But because that that'll just be consistent, but Yeah. It it would be pretty much take it slow. Keep it very tight on what you're targeting. And if it's on the recruiting side, keep the message extremely tight. If it's on the sales side, don't just do cold traffic. do cold traffic and retargeting and put 80 percent of your efforts in the retargeting and make it very deep on the types of media that you're sharing with them and make it valuable and have some kind of ability to connect with the audience that you're going after. That long answer, but that's what I would suggest.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:40]:

Yeah. And it's and it's for people that are looking at playing with it. You know, you see all these, like, advertisements. Like, I I spent $45,000,000 last year on Facebook. in reality, like, if you're figuring this out and learning it, like, what's a real daily rate that you could do?

James Aiken [00:24:59]:

I think the lowest you could do on LinkedIn is probably like 10 or

Intro [00:25:03]:

15,

James Aiken [00:25:04]:

a day. Yeah. 10 or

Intro [00:25:05]:

15

James Aiken [00:25:06]:

a day per campaign. I think Facebook has it at $5 a day per campaign, so pretty reasonable. I mean, you're not gonna break the bank. spending 300 bucks or a 150 bucks a a month on ads, it's well worth the money to start tinkering and figure out what works and what doesn't. because it is addicting once you start to figure out something works. And you're like watching the traffic come in or you're watching watching your cold turn into a warm audience, You're looking at the, you know, a heightened click through rate on your retarget audience. You're seeing what things they're interested in, what things are not resonating at all, and you know, you're you're sitting there kind of churning and trying to figure out. It's just like a it's an ever evolving puzzle. think that's what got me obsessed with it is it's like, alright. You know, you and right when you you think you crack it, something changes. Just you know, everything changes over time. So it's like, you know, it yeah. Getting getting into a diatribe, but, yeah, long story short, 5, 10 bucks a day. and I think, you know, Google will do, pay per click, pretty expensive on pay per click, but you could probably realistically set something at, like, 20 bucks, but you only get maybe

Intro [00:26:24]:

4,

James Aiken [00:26:25]:

10 clicks, a day based on what search inputs you're looking for. Some are highly competitive. You put in a you put in accounting recruiting agency or something. You're probably gonna pay, like, 10 bucks or 20 bucks a click. But if you look at, like, how to hire a an accountant, that's probably gonna be a little bit cheaper. Maybe you 2 to 4 bucks. So depends on how you target.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:50]:

What are some additional things that, like, an agency recruiter can do to take home more money?

James Aiken [00:26:56]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, you're looking at so there there's 2 big pieces. Right? It's looking at your desk. you know, how can I scale my desk? there's two pieces in that. You know, it's I would say either folk focus on one side or another. focus on what you're best at. leverage your team, you know, try to focus on your highest and best use. but then also it's kind of like what I was talking about with Pennpoint. Look at the deal that you're getting. Are you getting an equitable deal based on because what you're really doing is you are paying your employer. Yeah. almost everybody well, I guess I shouldn't say that, but a lot of folks run full desks, they are a business unit in themselves. So look at, okay, for what I'm paying my agency, what am I getting? Am I really getting as much support as I imagine? if I'd stripped away the brand equity, if I stripped away whatever tools that they're giving me, how effective could I be in that environment? So I that that's kind of what led me to go independent. And, you know, I I thought, you know, maybe I'll take a 20% hit on my business, which I didn't, but I was thinking, okay. I could probably, you know, perform at 80% without all this you know, brand equity I had at this small agency. And so that's kind of the mindset that started Frederick Fox was If you're already successful, if you're already doing well, you know how the business works. You're running a full desk and you just you've kinda had in the back of your mind. I'd like to go independent. were the better offer. Because when you go independent, now you're doing the invoices, you're collecting, you're managing government relationships and licensing. You're having to deal with the ads. You're having to deal with your website, your tool stack, a lot of stuff that is not revenue producing activity. And so, essentially, what Frederick Fox does is get all that non revenue producing activity off of your shoulders so you can focus on your desk.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:09]:

No. That's definitely great advice on that. Just because, I mean, run a solo desk, and there's a lot of stuff that I have to do in the evenings and the weekends outside of a podcast.

James Aiken [00:29:19]:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You're like, and it's not fun stuff. It's like, it's all admin. It's all process. It's like, oh, boy.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:30]:

Awesome. Well, before we go to the quick fire questions, is there anything else you'd love to share?

James Aiken [00:29:34]:

Nothing comes to mind immediately. I think we can -- Alright. Cool.

Intro [00:29:37]:

--

James Aiken [00:29:37]:

get into it.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:38]:

Alright. Let's go on to the quick fire questions, James. What advice would you give a brand new recruiter that's just starting in the industry in

Intro [00:29:47]:

2023?

James Aiken [00:29:48]:

Yeah. I I think the most important thing would be to zoom, and you probably hear this from a lot of folks, but zoom in on a specific roller function, really niche down as much as possible, create, and that means functionally industry wise, and geography. You know, I talked with a guy the other day that this business only does CFOs with auto dealerships. like, wow, that's really specific, but guess what? He knows exactly what they're looking for. He knows how to talk to the owners of these dealerships. He knows you're gonna have such a lot more depth to the conversation whenever you actually are a specialist versus running around in every direction, you know, trying to be the HR generalist guy, and then you're the data engineer guy, and then you're, you know, it it Your sales calls are gonna be a little bit tougher. Like, maybe if you're just recruiting, you could do that. but actually getting the confidence of your prospect, that's where you're probably gonna run into a little bit trouble whenever you say, oh, we we do it all. And but you can't speak about doing it all. And you can't really point back on any wins. You can't you can't demonstrate that you really understand it. You might be able to take the order and ask the right questions, on a surface level, but if you don't know what digging questions to really ask, that show that you've done this before. So, yeah, I would say focus on building a matrix, focus on, filling up your calendar with introductions, regardless of whether it's an act of her passive candidate or for whatever reason they wanna talk to you, Think about your major time versus your minor time. Jim Ron says, you know, don't spend major time on minor things and you know, really our our major time as recruiters is one of 2 things. It's in front of the client or in front of the candidate, having a live conversation. So I would say build out your calendar on introductions, regardless of the potential that you see, And if you're staying within your niche, you're staying within a geography, within an industry, within a function, then you're gonna work up a roster. Once you have a roster, then you actually do have a very compelling, solution to a lot of the prospects that you speak with once you transition into being more on the sales side, seems like, look, I've got, you know, I've got 3 or 4 people I could introduce you to this afternoon. like, I just gotta, I just gotta call them. I just gotta get their approval on it. and that's a much more compelling sale than always having to start from 0. or saying, yeah, well, we can we can look at the local market and we can, you know, see what's there. It's like, I've I've been looking at the local market for the last year. I I know it's there. Here it is. So I would say, yeah, build out, niche down, build out your roster, spend as much time on the phone with, candidates within your matrix that you can.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:57]:

Awesome. And same question before recruiters have been around the block. 5, 10, 25 years, what advice would you give to them to see success and be successful?

James Aiken [00:33:10]:

It's tough because I imagine if you've been at 5, 10, 25 years, you're probably already successful. But, I would say account based, like, I think the one of the biggest things that we saw in scaling a desk recently at Frederick Fox was being way more account focused, making sure that each client, client you have gets the white glove treatment, that you're it's somebody that you're gonna be able to get a testimonial out of. Someone that's just gonna be blown away from the relationship that you've built and that trust you to continue to bring, new business to your desk. because I think a lot of recruiters on the sales side get so focused on new business development that when they complete a job, they kinda forget about that client almost. You know, they're on to the next one. and that's a huge league in a lot of people's games where not spending enough time developing the relationships that they already have. So I I would say focusing on account based selling.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:20]:

Okay. Great advice. Has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your career?

James Aiken [00:34:26]:

Yeah. Yeah. I would say there's been there's been a a couple from different directions. So from a mindset, I would say strangely enough that the toutaching, it helps with resilience of the mind. It helps with handling the emotional turmoil when something doesn't go your way, and it helps with staying focused on the big picture. I would say another one, again, strangely enough, has been I'm a huge poker player. I love playing poker. I am a I am a fiend for poker. you know, and I would say a lot of poker bugs have given me a good spin on business, because sometimes you can do all of the right things and things go wrong. And that's okay. You know, sometimes things go wrong, but as long as you're making the right decisions, over time, you know, so if you if you make the right decision and things go wrong one time, well, if you did that ten times, Probably chances are 7, 8 times out of 10, it would have gone in your direction. So it's removing yourself from the outcome and just focusing on making the right decisions. And then, you know, probably something along the lines of I mean, there's a million books that cover this. But it's kind of a goofy title, but, a millionaire fast lane by TJ DeMarco, you know, focusing on not selling your time and instead selling the result, or getting paid more so getting paid on the result versus your time. because the time's gonna pass anyway. You know, you you wanna see how much you can do in as little time as possible, not you know, just getting paid for time passing, basically. So I I would say those are probably some of the biggest ones I I know another one was Scott Adams wrote a book called I think it's like how to how to fail at everything and still went big. and he talks about the slot machine of life. Like, you go to Vegas. You got a hundred bucks. You sit down on a slot machine, you, you know, putting your quarters in or whatever. Eventually, you're probably gonna run out of money. You're you're not gonna hit the jackpot. You're you're gonna run out of money because you only have so many spends. But in the game of life, we have unlimited spends. You can sit there and keep pulling the arm as much as you want. And your chances of success if you can spin or pull the arm, infinite amount of times or a

Intro [00:37:03]:

100%.

James Aiken [00:37:04]:

It's just a matter of, are you gonna sit there and keep trying and keep trying and keep trying? Because if you try long enough, you're gonna be successful. It's when you stop trying. that things go into into shambles. So that they kinda made me think about, like, just the resilience of Again, you know, the resilience of when things don't go right. just putting it behind you and being like, alright, well, what can I do next time to improve on this?

Benjamin Mena [00:37:30]:

Awesome phenomenal. Do you have a favorite rec tech tool at the moment that you're using?

James Aiken [00:37:37]:

You know, we have such a deep tag stack, but, like, one that I wouldn't say there's one I'm, like, obsessed with right now, but I can give you a short list of some that I really like. Like, from a data perspective or data generation perspective, I like seamless. from a automation perspective, I like Phantom Buster, and there's a lot of other, tools that you can use for, like, LinkedIn automation and all that. I also really like dub. It's kind of like if if the audience hasn't heard of dub, it's kind of like loom which if the audience hasn't earned a loan, it's basically a video capture tool, except on Dove, You know, they can respond with a video. They can respond by message by email. It has a link to your calendar on it. So whenever you're sending out one to one videos introducing yourself to a specific point of contact, it just makes that intro that much easier because they realize you're not spamming them, like, It's it's you, and you're talking directly to them. And, yeah, I I think, obviously, your response rate goes way up whenever you're doing one to one outreach. And so I would say the those are pro and then, you know, honorable mention for Loxo, LOXO. It's, it's a great tool, especially for the recruiting side. What do

Benjamin Mena [00:38:57]:

you think has been a major part of your personal success?

James Aiken [00:39:00]:

I would say so I guess it's two different directions. So I have, like, the environment that has helped make me successful is being around people that are better, you know, always being willing to chop it up with other recruiters you know, figure out what they're doing, what works, what doesn't bringing, bringing problems to people that are they don't even have to be more successful than you. I mean, just bringing problems to other people to see how they would handle it. You know, you don't have to, you know, I have to always act on it, but it's good to get a different perspective, and it's good to figure out how many different solutions there might be to the the same problem. So I would say, you know, from a environment perspective, that would that would be the major one, being around great people, learning from people that are better than you, and yeah, always being willing to learn and and test. You know, if somebody does if you want advice from somebody, take it and, you know, put it into action. don't I think people get in a habit of saying, something won't work without having the data. It's better to say, I tried it and it didn't work than to say, I don't think it'll work. It's like, just give it a shot. What's the worst thing that happened? But then, you know, on the personal side, I would just say consistency, you know, showing up every day, you know, making sure that, you're staying in the market. You're out there. You're open for business. You're open to conversations, and developing relationships. So

Benjamin Mena [00:40:34]:

Phenomenal.

James Aiken [00:40:35]:

Well, I

Benjamin Mena [00:40:37]:

love this question, James. If you could go back, your ups, your downs, your successes, your failures. If you could go sit down, have a cup of coffee with yourself at the very beginning of your recruiting career. Yeah. What advice would you tell yourself?

James Aiken [00:40:53]:

Well, I think it was my it was my, I don't know. It was it was the best thing and also the worst thing because I had a ton of confidence. Still do. Still do. But, I was, you know, as you can tell from, like, the branch manager story, I had, like, a giant, huge, big head. And the leadership at HTI was not shy about sharing sharing that with me. So I would say, like, becoming a student for a little bit longer, not in the sense of, like, being in college, but in the sense of, Knowing my place. You know, I think that if I went back, I probably would have spent a little bit longer in a formal setting. before starting legacy. That that would probably be my number one thing, but at the time, you know, I never would have I may not have ever gone independent if I didn't have that confidence that, look, I'm I'm gonna make this work. Like, one way or another, it's gonna work. And you know, but I I sat there and, you know, treaded water for so long and, you know, was doing, I was getting it done, but it wasn't the most in the most effective way, always, like, because I didn't know what work the workflows were. I didn't know what industry standard on business development or on recruiting was. I was all just kind of making it up as I went and going through books and coaches, So that that's where I would say, like, spend a little bit more time in a formal setting. you know, still, I guess, keep the confidence, but don't, be arrogant.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:26]:

Definitely a great advice right there. Well, James has been a awesome podcast. Is there anything that you would love to share before I let you go?

James Aiken [00:42:34]:

I think let's see. Yeah. I guess I don't I don't I would say if you're if you're a recruiter, In the industry, it's easy to get obsessed with the business. Make sure to have balance in your life. You know, understand what you're working towards. Keep your goals realistic. Treat yourself right. You know, when you when you hit something big, don't go out there and and, you know, buy a luxury car, you know, spend by small luxuries. My thing is, like, by small luxuries, you know, your your clothes, your food, your experiences, you know, and aim for long term security and growth. Aside from that, I think it's just always being open minded you know, taking every opportunity to build relationships, learn from others, and then Again, from like a mindset thing, on the luxury thing, don't it's it'll sound a little bit goofy, but it It's like, don't don't buy store brand. it's one of my thing. Like, don't buy store brand. You know, I I get it. It's, you know, you're you're looking at, a can of green beans, one's a dollar, one's a dollar 20, like, by the dollar 20. Don't don't think about it. You know, tip generous, generously, You know, have a good relationship with money. Money comes money goes. You can always make more. You know, especially in this business, you kinda do kinda figure out, like, if I really needed to make more, I could. so it's, you know, don't be stingy. you know, don't be too relaxed with your spending, but you don't let $10 ruin your mind, you know, don't let a small loss take up time in your brain essentially, don't spend an hour being upset over a $10 mistake. And I guess, not too eloquently put, But I would say, that would be my big stuff, you know, treat yourself right, and just buy the buy the higher quality stuff and become a higher quality person.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:46]:

It it's kinda funny. Like, when you buy, like, those higher quality clothes, they last so much longer too.

James Aiken [00:44:51]:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it's funny. I was actually talking because one of, one of the people on our team is, you know, really into into designer. And I like it. Don't get me wrong. I like it. It's a little bit out of my range on most things, but or at least buying it, like, straight from the store. But we were talking about, like, is it is it Bougie to get like your t shirts tailored. Like, I saw somebody that, went through and just, you know, bought, like, 10 t shirts that were halfway decent. got them all tailored. they looked really good. I'm like, it looks like a, you know, a designer fit for, you know, you, you pay 5, 10 bucks a shirt or something to get it custom basically custom made for you. And so, you know, I think that that helps with just well, not to get on another diatribe, but, like, you have people that are so worried about spending money that even when they have money, there's they're still kinda living in poverty, not like not like they're, you know, in section 8 or anything, but, like, they still operate as if they don't have anything. And it's kinda like, well, you have to, realize that you have to make a reality out of the work that you're doing Like, if you're making money, you're doing well, but you're still wearing, you know, your, you know, a goodwill shirt from 10 years ago, it's probably gonna sink in your mind a little bit. It's kinda I know I said, you know, not good for the luxury car thing, but I can't remember. Brad Leah, I think, is his name. was talking about, well, if you buy a luxury car or if you lease a luxury car, you're gonna feel like a luxury person, you're gonna wanna work that much harder because now, you know, you've set your standard you are now that person. And so I I I think that when it comes to personal finance, you do kinda have to do that because otherwise, you're always playing defense. and you have to push yourself to be able to do more. And sometimes it means putting yourself in a little bit of an uncomfortable position. Like, we all know there's a huge difference between your work ethic when you're at $0 in your bank account. and when you're at a $100,000. I wish I could have the same, you know, work ethic, consistently, but when you're in panic mode, When in your, you know, or I think Grant Cardone talks about, like, always making sure that, you know, the checking council low because you gotta go out and get more. But it's it's that kind of thing where if you can keep that flame under you a little bit, you can really see how much you can achieve, instead of just being like, wow. life's good. I'm comfortable. You know, it doesn't really matter if I get a deal this month or not. That's a scary position to be in in recruiting because If it doesn't matter whether or not you get a deal that month, you're not. You you're just you're just not gonna get a deal. So, yeah. Again, long diatribe, but it's came to mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:50]:

Well, James, that's the perfect way to finish it up. And so, James, thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for talking about some outside of the box things. And, you know, If you're listening, keep that fire lit underneath you.

James Aiken [00:48:00]:

There you go. There you go. Thanks for prayers.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:02]:

Yeah. Man, this is this is awesome. So recruiters, until next time, make sure to keep on crushing the rest of 2023, guys. Alright.

Intro [00:48:10]:

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