Becoming a Market Master

animal is the polar bear. JW also, at one point in time recently was the strongest man in Kansas, which always brings me a lot of comfort knowing that if we are ever in a situation, and I have over indulged and need to be carried out that as long as I am with JW that can happen in a safe way. So JW, welcome to The Talent Trade.

paid for an education in executive search that year. By no means do I know everything. There's so much to still learn and master and finesse in this business. And I think that's truly what keeps me so engaged and enjoying what we do on a day to day basis, because there's still so much to get good at.

Let's do that. And I go, what's equipment, finance and leasing? You know, even to this day, I still don't know that I truly know what it is. But But joking aside, that is the industry that I focus in is equipment, finance, and leasing. And recently that's expanded into more of the specialty finance and specialty lending in the financial services world. So you're talking project finance, sponsor, finance, structure, finance, a lot of things that have finance after him is what

we do with it. And there's all nuances to it. In a nutshell, it's specialty lending.

credibility to what you're doing. Because when you're having conversations with presidents, with Chief Learning officers with managing directors that run multibillion dollar platforms, and you don't have a clue what they're doing, your credibility is nil. So the likelihood of them engaging you to work and help them fill positions is going to be very limited. Now look, we all have to start somewhere and we all have to learn our markets and and learn our niches and through

that we become experts. That is where as a market master you become very skillful and very good with what you do. So when you have a client that calls you and says, Hey, we need a credit, underwriter in equipment, finance, we have really exhausted all of our efforts, we think we've interviewed 85 people, and we don't have anything. When you're a market Master, you can make three phone calls. And those three phone

calls turn into two finalist candidates. And one of them gets hired in a matter of two weeks, where they've spent a few months trying to find the right person. But that doesn't happen overnight. You got to build into that. So how do you build into it? Well, the easiest way get on the phone and talk to people.

That is the simplest and easiest way to become a market master is the type of people that you want to place in your industry, just start talking to everyone build those relationships with those people. Part of what we do is somewhat transactional. Because we're matchmakers, we're we're trying to make plug and play people with clients. And so we're trying to find that perfect candidate, that's a perfect fit for that clients that fills their need. Well, sometimes it's super simple,

sometimes it's a little bit tougher. And the only way to figure out really what your client's needs are in which candidates fit that is to truly know your market. So you got to know the different positions that are in your space. And the easiest way to do that is start talking and profiling and having conversations with all of those candidates in those different positions.

where they are currently at. But everyone, even if they're super happy, there is just so much change in our world, not just financial services and equipment, finance, I'm talking about the job market as a whole. There's so many variables that go into it, elections, politics, the job market, the economy, there's so many fluctuations that it would be ignorant of someone to not at least be wise of what's going on in the marketplace, they can be completely contented and happy.

That's perfectly fine. But they also need to know what's going on in the marketplace, because the music does stop at times whether they want it to or not. And so just find out, are they open to making a move, then from there, dive into that? Hey, what would make sense for you? What are you doing now is that opportunity available with where you're at. And you just start to understand what type of positions and what type of roles

they're looking for. And then through that conversation, you can have a follow up conversation where you dive deeper into a lot of those details with it. Hey, tell me more about what it is exactly that you do in your position? What does success look like in your role, you know, as you compare yourself to the other people that you compete with, it's in the same title, same position, what makes you stand out, you know, what makes you rise to the top of your field?

And what you do? And through those conversations, and through asking good questions, you start to understand the nuances and all the tangibles of those positions, by having a lot of conversations, not just talking to one or two people, but I'm talking, having multiple, multiple, multiple conversations, you start to figure out who's a really good producer, who's really great at their job, versus people who are

very average at their job. And you start to understand why certain people do make the jumps that they make, and why their resumes may show that they've hopped around quite a bit. That just comes from multiple conversations, you can't read it on the internet, you can't really learn it just from listening to other people, you have to go experience and understand that for yourself. You got to do the work.

average at what they do? Are they open to making a move and where we kind of left the conversations is hey, when something comes across our desk, that's a great fit. We'll give you a Call, well, we get a phone call from a client of ours that says, hey, we need this position. And we got the call on a Thursday. And we said, okay, give us a minute, we'll see who's available in the marketplace, see who we can find that fits all of the qualifications and criteria that

you're looking for. In an ideal candidate, by the following Tuesday, three days later, we had six candidates that are qualified and vetted, to put in front of that client, that speed that's coverage on a search assignment. And the reason it was so fast, and we had such good coverage is timing, met opportunity. With that one, we had already been doing the groundwork of just the daily blocking and tackling of what we're supposed to do, and happen to be calling and talking to a

lot of those individuals in that specific position. Boom, we get a phone call, they need those people, we go back, and we find the best ones that we recently talked to, they already told us, Hey, we're open for this opportunity. We matched it up, plug and play fit, boom, we go. We had six submittals right there for the search. And not only that, but you can, you can always figure out how good your candidates are on whether or not

your clients can interview him. So they interview one out of the six, you're like, Okay, I'm off the target here, I don't think I'm disconnected. Or I'm not on the same page as my client in terms of what they're looking for, versus what I'm showing. So I need to ask more questions, to clarify and make sure I understand what they're telling me. In this scenario, we went six for six, we presented six candidates, they interviewed all

six of them. So that is why you want to be a market Master is it allows you to be fast and quick when you have your clients call you or when you're trying to chase down new business because you have the database, the network of people to call into. And you know what they're looking for.

Yeah, who cares what your fee is we're hemorrhaging. And you're showing up with with the surgeon and the sutures and all the things that we need. Let me go in a different direction. So that certainly helps understand the success you've had you mentioned early in the call that you've definitely had some off years, walk me through what you attribute that to how your market mastery helped pull you out of those down years. Speak to that if you would, please.

very much a mental game. I mean, what we do sounds very simple. We just talk to people on the phone all day, we are calling people, we usually have great opportunities. And we're just asking people, hey, does this sound great to you, who doesn't want to hear about a job that could improve their career situation, 95% of people are going to be very open to having that conversation. So we just talked to people. However, you know, if it wasn't for the candidates and clients, this job

would be absolutely amazing. Joking aside, we deal with people. And when you're dealing with something that is making a change that is so emotionally involved for individuals like a career change, it is challenging. And so that's where one being a market master helps you be better at your job, because you can help your clients and your candidates do

due diligence through the interview process. Now, let me clarify that by saying we're not trying to convince our candidates or clients to accept a position or to hire a certain person. That is not what I do. That is not what we do. Our job is to present opportunities and facilitate the conversations to get their questions answered, and to find the best opportunity for the candidate, but also to find the best candidate for our clients that the market can bear at that time. At the end of the

day. It's not our choice. We don't care if they choose our position or if they choose our candidate. Our job is to help them get Get to that yes or no, in a very quick, efficient manner. And so doing that having that market knowledge, you can help both sides do that. You can say, hey, here's what's going on in the market, candidates are being recruited very heavily right now, here's your competitors that are also

actively looking for the same type of person. So if you like this individual, and it seems to be a good fit, let's move a little bit quicker, doesn't mean we skip steps. It means hey, let's just try and get more of these steps done fairly quickly. Same thing on the candidate side is if they're looking at other opportunities, talk to him hey, what makes sense? What do you like about that opportunity? Of the ones you're looking at? How would you rank it? Hey, here's what I'm hearing in the market,

about this company. So your next conversation, you might want to ask him questions around this. So you know, the full scope. And so it allows you to provide your market knowledge to both sides. So they can ask really good questions to know if it truly is a fit or not. Because how many times have we heard as recruiters from candidates where Hey, why are you looking to move? Oh, well, when I was in the interview process, they said it was this but when I actually started the job, it's completely

different from what they told me what the job was. That is why we exist. That is our contribution to this process, is to make sure that both sides clearly understand what each of them are bringing into the situation. So there's no confusion. And so it is a good fit. And when we do that very effectively, that's

when we have our candidates that stay for multiple years. In addition, get promoted with the companies, we play some app for someone who in six months, they're already looking for another job, because we're really making sure it's a good fit. Because we listen to what's important to our clients. And we listen to what's important to our candidates. And we put the two together, we're not throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks that gets everyone frustrated.

the market. Here's the the movers and shakers, here's the companies that are adding and growing, here's the ones that are pulling back all the successes, because everyone loves the publicity. So as a new recruiter, pay attention to that stuff. And here's how it helps you, you find a press release, and such and such company puts out a press release. And they said, hey, great news. We just expanded our our team. And we added these three people to our organization. And they list the

names. They list where they hired those individuals from and kind of their background and history with it. And they're excited to have this basically, they just have the press release. So how does that help us as recruiters? Well, helps us a couple of ways. There's a lot of information that's in there if you're looking at it the right way. And so here's how you need to look at those press releases. What that does is that gives you automatically three phone calls to those candidates

that just moved. If you haven't talked to him before, call them congratulate them on the new role that went to. Because what do we just talk about? Sometimes, candidates are told one thing in the interview process, and something's drastically different when they get over there. And if that's the case, who are they going to call first? Probably the person that just most recently called him and said congratulations on

your move, because they're top of mind. So there's three phone calls right there that you can build a relationship with, with people in your industry. The fourth phone call is to that client or to that company that maybe isn't a client because you didn't place them there. But maybe you want to make him a client because it's obviously they hire. So congratulate them on hiring those three people. And that opens up the door to ask them questions. Hey, great job on the on getting those

those people for those positions. How did you guys do it? Was that people you knew in the network? Was that? Did you guys work with a recruiter on that? You know, how long did it take you? You know you can ask a few questions on that. But again, you start building that relationship with them. But it doesn't stop there. Those three people that just made a move They came from somewhere. So there's potentially three open positions out there in the marketplace with wherever those

individuals came from. So those are three more business development calls, you can make that maybe you can stumble into a search assignment where they need help filling that position. And so in one, press release, you end up getting six to seven to eight phone calls out of it, just by reading three names in a company. And that's awesome. That's an overlooked, but Easy Way on how you become a market master. And you build your network. And eventually you get to the place where you have the

information before the press release ever comes out. And then the press release is like, oh, yeah, I knew that like two months ago. And that's when you know, you're like, Okay, I know what's going on in my world. And then it's really fun to have conversations with your prospects in your clients, because you're seen as that expert, and they're calling you going, Hey, what are you hearing? This just happened? Or, Hey, someone just announced their retirement? Are you

working on that? What's going on? Who's being considered as candidates? And those are fun conversations to have, because you're not just the recruiter that slings resumes. You're the recruiter that's connected with the right individuals in your space. And you know, what's going on in the industry.

with it. But then, like me, you get some years where you really pay your dues, and you're like, Okay, I'm getting the full spectrum of this, when you've paid your dues and get good at recruiting, you're really never ever going to be without a job, you have developed a skill set and a talent that you could take and do anywhere. Just because I recruited an equipment finance doesn't mean I couldn't be successful in a completely different niche. Now, it may take some time to build up to

it, but you have the foundation to do it. And if you have the intestinal fortitude and the work ethic, you can be successful in it. It's just going to take a little bit of time and heavy lifting. So I love that because it's job security in a sense. And then there's a lot of flexibility to

it. I mean, we are all we do. We're in front of a computer and on a phone that's it, you know, we don't have to travel we don't have to spend And, you know, 5000 miles a month in a car, seeing customers, shaking hands kissing babies, we don't have to fly to a different client every other week. We get to go visit our clients when we want to. We can go to conferences, we can go

visit them and do client visits. But that's a bonus. That's not something that we have to do to win business and be successful. So those are just some of the things I like about being a recruiter.