Mastering Business Development and Client Engagement for Recruiters with Jennifer Meyer

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Jennifer Meyer [00:00:03]:
So Pinnacle Society. I mean, you just feel like you've made it when you're a part of it, right? Just the talent that is in that room is just unbelievable. I feel like a kindergartner, quite frankly, when I'm in the room with these people.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:14]:
Why didn't you quit then?

Jennifer Meyer [00:00:15]:
I was told by my dad that I was not allowed to quit until after I made a placement because he's like, if you quit before then, you're just a quitter. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:42]:
I am so excited about this episode of the podcast. I have my special guest who is a top biller year after year after year and is also teaching people in the office, her office, how to do what she does. She has built millions of dollars and she is leading a team. So I am so excited to have Jen Meyer here as part of the podcast. So, Jen, welcome to the podc.

Jennifer Meyer [00:01:04]:
Thanks, Benjamin. How you doing?

Benjamin Mena [00:01:06]:
Doing good, doing good. So real quick, there's two things I want to get started on. First of all, why did you join the Pinnacle Society? And then after that, how did you end up in the wonderful world of recruiting?

Jennifer Meyer [00:01:18]:
The million dollar question. So Pinnacle Society, I mean, you just feel like you've made it when you're a part of it, right? Just the talent that is in that room is just unbelievable. I feel like a kindergartner, quite frankly, when I'm in the room with these people. I had been made aware of clinical society years and years and years ago. I mean, back in, like, 08, and timing wasn't right for me. I was going through some stuff, but I felt so honored to have been at least approached about it. And then time just kind of went on. And so when I was approached about it this time, I think at the end of the day, you get to a point where you just feel like you're floating, like your learning has been capped.

Jennifer Meyer [00:01:58]:
You're going through the motions of the business. Highs, lows, you're used to it. And you just need that thing to, like, reignite your excitement about it and to be around people that. It's very hard to find people in this business that have had the success that they've had and have still have a tremendous amount of humility around it. So the minute I got in there and had the opportunity to meet Some of these people, I just knew they were my people, you know, and it was. It just. It was great. I love it.

Jennifer Meyer [00:02:26]:
I love these people.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:27]:
That's awesome. And I'm going to ask you some more questions about. As we go through the interview, we always get started at least how I set up the podcast. How did you even end up in this wonderful world?

Jennifer Meyer [00:02:38]:
Yeah, so I grew up in the business, frankly. I mean, my dad was a recruiter growing up. I swear I would never get into it. I mean, I'm an outdoor rec major in college, so I can, you know, hand out basketballs at the ymca, you know, organize a checklist. I never thought to myself that I would be in a corporate world or a recruiting world. It just wasn't a part of it. And then I was approached when I was graduating, I had to do an internship, and there was a woman who had an office, and she said, look, come out here. I'll teach you everything that you need to know about business and sales, and I'll sign all your internship papers, and then you can go on your merry way and live your life.

Jennifer Meyer [00:03:12]:
And I thought, I mean, I was in my pajamas. I was like, great, sounds good to me. And then I got into it and honestly, I just fell in love with it. I have a natural intrigue about people. And so I loved learning about people and cultures and lifestyles and what made people tick and why things worked and didn't work and how I could solve that. And, you know, here we are, what, 28 years later.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:36]:
Time flies, right? Time wise, you got into recruiting. When is the point that you actually decide to start your own business?

Jennifer Meyer [00:03:43]:
So I was in an office that I started as a, like, fulfillment recruiter for the owner, then moved into an AE role right about maybe a year, 18 months later. And then I moved into a billing manager role shortly after that. So I was already in a position where I was basically running the office. It just wasn't mine. And I think, you know, I was 28 years old. I was recently married, no kids, you know, no real responsibilities from that perspective. And I just, I've always had such a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Spirit.

Jennifer Meyer [00:04:15]:
And it just. I don't even know. Actually, I do know, and I don't know if it's appropriate to say there was a situation that happened where my owner was going to hire somebody that I just did not agree with morally and ethically. It had nothing to do with what his potential capabilities could have been. And I just went home and I thought, what am I doing? You know, and so I just felt like if I didn't do it then when was I going to be able to do it? And so I just felt like I had to take the risk and the plunge and, and it was in, in 02 in the recession. People thought I was crazy. I was running a million dollar practice at the time and I just jumped ship and upheld my non compete and started all over again.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:59]:
How long were you sitting on the sidelines with that non compete?

Jennifer Meyer [00:05:01]:
It was a year. Non compete. My intention was to step away for a year and then circle back and get back into it. And then I got away from it and I was doing so well that I just never got back into the original space I was in. I just moved away.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:16]:
So how long did you have your own business? Because I know that you've joined, you know, listening to your story, reading up on your story, you joined Govig, but like for a long time you had your own business like you know, almost 14 years. Talk about the ins and outs of that before we talk about jumping into Go Vic.

Jennifer Meyer [00:05:33]:
Yeah, so my business was probably structured very similarly to a lot of other businesses. You know, I was a billing manager, which is the hardest job out there. Right. Like it's so hard to look at somebody and say I'm going to teach you everything that you know, you need to know about this business and I'm going to be here to support you. And then the minute the phone rings with your client or candidate on the other line, you're like, oh can you hold on, I have to make this deal happen. So it's a really hard balance but it's super profitable. So I was a main rainmaker and then I had 10 people in the office in total between other account executives and then some, you know, Internet researchers and support people. I was always super business development minded.

Jennifer Meyer [00:06:07]:
Not in the beginning, but I've become that. And I'm really good at pivoting and recalibrating when necessary. So even in the highs and lows of the economy I never took a dip in my business because it was super manageable. When I was the major biller, I could pivot easily versus telling somebody else to do it. So that was beneficial to me. And so, you know, I think at the end of the day, you know, when I was approached up by Govig, I was doing well. You know, I've always been highly ranked amongst my peers and I was making great money and I, you know, had created a great lifestyle for myself. But the pressure one of being responsible for all of These families under me that worked for me on top of my own family was a lot.

Jennifer Meyer [00:06:50]:
And I was 42. I was living in Cleveland. I'm from Arizona. You know, I'd grown up in Arizona, and so the opportunity to come back to Arizona certainly was a huge plus. I did tell Todd Govig that if he lived in, like, the Dakotas or something, the conversation would have stopped at hello. But because he was back at. He was back in Arizona, it continued. But I hated the administrative part.

Jennifer Meyer [00:07:12]:
I mean, I just. I would have rather put pins in my eyes than sit there and deal with, you know, the bankers and payroll and, you know, accountants and attorneys and contracts and all of that stuff. Like, I just. I wasn't that person. And so I did it and I did well with it. I ran a profitable business, but I hated it. And so when I was given the opportunity from Todd to say, you know, come in and we'll do all that, and you just be in your lane and do what you do best, I just was like, well, I'm not sure if it'll work because I haven't reported to anybody in 14 years and I'm a nightmare to manage. But I felt like if I, if I didn't try it, I would have regretted that more than trying it and not working out.

Jennifer Meyer [00:07:56]:
And I will tell you, there's no other person on this planet that I would have done it for other than Todd. I mean, just great guy for the.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:03]:
Listeners and the rest of the pinnacle society. Like, what do you do with Go Fig?

Jennifer Meyer [00:08:07]:
So my role has actually evolved this year, so we're still trying to figure that out. But up until the, up until now. So we have three, basically three main business units within our organization. And I had taken over one of those business units for a woman that had been retiring after 32 years and stepping into that role. So I did that for the last eight years and then in January. But I was always really, again, business development minded and recognized that we had a shortcoming in that. That area in our organization. And we had, you know, really six key people, maybe eight that drove a majority of the revenue in this office.

Jennifer Meyer [00:08:42]:
And that's dangerous, right? And so I'd come in and recognize that. So I was focusing a lot on that as, you know, organically and holistically as an organization. But I was also running this business unit and it got to the point where there was just a lot and we weren't really able to get the development of account executives under our belt to where they could really, really learn that side of the business with me doing both. And so I promoted the person that worked underneath me to run that business unit. And then I stepped into a role where I basically run all the people and business development or recruiting efforts of the organization. And then the president, he does all the operations side.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:22]:
Awesome. So there's a few things I definitely want to dig into. You mentioned earlier that you weren't good with BD early on.

Jennifer Meyer [00:09:29]:
Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:30]:
And I think that's, like, one of the biggest struggles that you see with recruiters out there is they can be great on the recruiting side of the house. But as soon as you put on that BD hat, it's just like, everything just, like, disappears. How did you develop that? How did you get stronger? How did you. How did you do that?

Jennifer Meyer [00:09:45]:
So I was always great in having the conversations, right? So I didn't make a placement for the first eight months in the business, embarrassingly enough. And that was in 96, when you, you know, if you had half a brain, you could do well in this business. And so I finally had to just find my own voice in regards to just the authenticity of who I am, which is just super down to earth and just making people laugh. And again, just tapping into that natural curiosity of the why. And so once I did that and started to have those authentic conversations, I was great. And I was never afraid to call any level of person within an organization because I just always felt like we're all human, you know, and you can't really sell anybody a job, right? I mean, that's their livelihood. So I kind of knocked that off my mindset. It was when you came down to the fee negotiation that I was terrible.

Jennifer Meyer [00:10:33]:
I mean, it was like, I would say, because how long have we been saying, like, we're 30% or whatever? For ages. So I'd say, you know, 30%, and I would, like, sink down in my chair and I basically whisper it out, right? Like, you know, what's your fee? I'd be like, you know, and they would say, well, we pay 20. And I'd be like, okay. Like, I just. I wanted it to be off the table. And then I think what the big shift for me really was was that when I started to look at it, okay, you make these recruit calls and you kind of tap it into four pillars. If somebody's open to exploring an opportunity, and you say, okay, we're going to look at it, and we're going to go, what type of company do you want to work for? What type of culture do you want to be A part of what type of role do you want? What does the money look like? And you were very comfortable with having that conversation because it didn't cost anybody anything, right? But that conversation really is so mirrored within the business development side and just understanding like, okay, so what type of company are you trying to build product wise? What type of culture are you trying to build? What type of roles are stopping you or getting in the way of you being able to be your best self or best organization? Then I wasn't so, because I think what the block that people get with business development is, they go, I don't know what to ask next. I don't know where to take the conversation.

Jennifer Meyer [00:11:50]:
And if you've been a recruiter and a fulfillment person and you just take the conversation to the simple place of what would I need to know to be able to entice somebody and disturb their peace of mind of where they're at to make a move? Just ask that, right? Like it doesn't need to be said in a certain way, it doesn't need to be done in a certain way. Just ask the question. When I got into that mindset and saw, okay, it's all mirrored, it's all the same questions, then it was just game on, right? And then with the negotiation side, I stopped talking about it and I've gone back to where I talk about it. But for the purpose of just that bridge. When people would say, first of all, when they would come up and say, what's your fee? Early in the conversation, I would say, well, that's basically recruiting malpractice. If I tell you right now, you don't go to a doctor and expect them to diagnose you without doing some sort of evaluation. Well, it's the same in this one. I have no idea if I can even help you because I don't know what your problem is.

Jennifer Meyer [00:12:53]:
So that's first and foremost because if I can't help you and I'm not a good resource, it doesn't matter what my fee is. And two, I can't determine that because I don't know what my role in this is, you know, in regards to what type of team I would have to put together, what type of energy has to be put out, you know, all of those things. So let's talk about that first. And then what I would do is say, now that I have all the information, I'm going to send you a proposal. So yeah, I probably went the wimpy way out because I was just afraid to have the conversation but it really did make it seem like I put all of these thoughts into what can we put together to make it cost effective and a fair and equitable partnership between the both parties, when really my fee was my fee. Right. But to them, it made it seem like I was doing it. And then I could have the rebuttal conversation with them, negotiation wise.

Jennifer Meyer [00:13:43]:
But it was a starting point that then evolved to where then obviously I could have the conversation, you know, live. But at the time, I couldn't do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:51]:
I mean, it's one of those things, like if you in a conversation, if, like, someone's asking the questions and you're like, well, that's malpractice. Like, first of all, like, I don't think any other recruiter has probably told them that before. And I think that's a kind of a great segue. And one of the things that I know Rich was talking about with you, and, you know, credit to Mark Whitby, I love his podcast. I love him as a coach. Like, he's one of the best out there. But you started talking about things that I don't hear that often in recruiting, I think called pattern interruption. For everybody listening.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:20]:
What does pattern interruption mean before we start walking through some examples of it?

Jennifer Meyer [00:14:24]:
Yeah. So, and this is something I learned really early in my career. It was a gentleman who was in the business, and he used to actually be a military interrogator. So I don't know how it's used, like, fully as that side of the business, but if we were going to just take it from a recruiting piece, it's the idea that people get trained to respond to certain things or say certain things based on what the pattern has been. So the most common or easiest way to describe it is when you say to somebody like, you know, you say, I say, hey, Benjamin, how are you? What's your typical response?

Benjamin Mena [00:14:57]:
Doing great. How about yourself?

Jennifer Meyer [00:14:59]:
Exactly. It's like, I'm good. How are you? Right. Or if you walk into a store and you're there to find something, but a salesperson comes up and is like, you know, hi, can I help you find something? Your immediate reaction is, I'm just looking. Right. But we've been trained to do that, to say those things. If you break that pattern by saying something just a little bit differently, using a different word, using a different style, using a different order in which you're saying things or asking things, then people are thrown off, and then you get their true selves versus what their knee jerk reaction is based on the pattern. So that's what I was taught early.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:37]:
So. And first of all, I feel like I need to go. Like, I've done a lot of recruiting, hiring interrogators for different military organizations and other organizations. So now I feel like I need to go back to recruit them, to become recruiters.

Jennifer Meyer [00:15:49]:
That's a whole nother story, 100%.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:53]:
Can you give some examples on the business development side or the NPC marketing side? How would you use a pattern interruption in a conversation like that?

Jennifer Meyer [00:16:00]:
It could be something as simple as. And I talk a lot about this, how you approach Even the first 30 seconds of the conversation. So with MPC marketing, you know, the biggest thing for me is why I couldn't get behind MPC marketing was I felt it was super presumptuous and arrogant for me to come to somebody that I didn't know and say, I've got the perfect candidate for you. And I can do that if you're a client. And I can say, hey, Benjamin, you know, I don't know if you're looking for somebody like this, but I'm telling you, this person would fit perfectly in your organization. And this is why. But when I don't know you, how do you really say that? And there's a lot of people that are comfortable saying it. More power to them.

Jennifer Meyer [00:16:35]:
I never was comfortable. And so I developed this approach to say, look, I don't know if the person is right for you or not. I don't know what type of value this person could bring for you. But I do believe, based on my knowledge of the industry, that this person has a skill set that's very attractive because. Or what they've done is this. So I figured we're both adults, we can talk about it, figure out if it makes sense to further the conversation and go from there. And it just like. But it's a very casual.

Jennifer Meyer [00:17:04]:
It's not this, like, in your face. And they're not used to that. And so all of a sudden their back just comes off, off the wall of like, okay, this person's not going to try to oversell me on why I should look at this individual because she doesn't know me and she has no idea. But let's just talk about it, you know, so there's that, you know, there's the piece that you know. And I, again, people that know me have heard me say this a gazillion times. Like when they answer the phone and they say, hey, you know, Benjamin, this is Jen Meyer. I'm the senior vice president, Kovig and associates, how are you? They're like, oh, God, a salesperson. Right? Like, they just know.

Jennifer Meyer [00:17:38]:
And so I've switched it up in here to where the team is always like, can you hear me okay? You know, it's like, this is who I am. Can you hear me okay? And it's like, yeah, I can hear you fine. Okay. I've just been having some headset issues. But anyway. And like, you just go on. Right. They're not used to that navigation of the conversation, so it just disrupts it enough to where they don't get that knee jerk reaction of like, we're not hiring.

Jennifer Meyer [00:18:02]:
Oh, whatever, you know, Because, I mean.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:05]:
Just listening to that and the way that you're talking about it, like, how often have us recruiters had these conversations? We're almost having the exact same conversation that every other recruiter is actually having. Even though that we think that we're special.

Jennifer Meyer [00:18:16]:
Exactly. We're part of the MRI network Management Recruiters. And, you know, Management recruiters was developed 60 years ago or whatever it is now, and everybody learned the same. We all learned the same way. And you just nailed it. Benjamin. All of us think that we're unique in our way of saying things or what we do, but all roads lead to the same thing, you know, and we're all saying it the same. And one of the biggest mistakes is that we've trained our potential clients or companies out there that the minute we call, they say one of five things we don't use.

Jennifer Meyer [00:18:52]:
Recruiters send a resume, we're not hiring. What's your fee? They say one of five things. So if we can divert that to where we're now directing the conversation a little bit better, it changes the dialogue.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:06]:
Is there any, like, pattern interruption examples that you would also use on the recruiting side of the desk?

Jennifer Meyer [00:19:11]:
So a couple things that I would say. I take the same approach with recruiting that I just talked to you about. Like, I don't know if this is the right opportunity for you. I don't know you at all. But let me tell you a little bit about it. We can determine if it's something we want to explore further. Right. So I take a very, like, casual approach there.

Jennifer Meyer [00:19:27]:
Secondarily, you mentioned a lot of people have trouble with the business development side. And so we have a lot of good recruiters, but we don't teach them how to maximize those conversations. Because the reality is, is that I think it's upwards of like 18 to 20% call us back of the voicemails that we leave or the output that we do on the recruiting side, less than 1%. It happens on the business development side. So it's like if you have somebody on the phone from a recruiting side, take advantage of that and change the conversation and flip it. But again, our candidates are used to us saying, you know, hey, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you, but how are you doing on, you know, how's your team doing? Are you hiring within your organization? I mean, that's the conversation, right? So what I try to do is change it a little bit from a recruiting standpoint of one. You know, again, they're used to us saying, you know, well, what else are you exploring? Or where else have you interviewed? So I don't put you in front of those companies. Right.

Jennifer Meyer [00:20:23]:
But really we're trying to find leads, you know, So I may say that, I may say, how's your interviewing going? Even if they said they're not looking, I'll say, how's interviewing going? And they'll say, either, oh, I haven't interviewed anywhere. Oh, well, why not? Or they'll say, oh, you know, it's, it's going okay. Well, I mean, how many have you gone on? You know, three. Oh, well, where are you on that process? Oh, and who was that with? You know, so it's just like coming in through the side door to get. And that's really to get leads that are out there. So there's a business development technique. There's. I'll use it a lot on reference checks in the sense where I'll say, you know, because usually we're doing reference checks when we know we're getting an offer, right? Or up to an offer.

Jennifer Meyer [00:21:02]:
If you were to back that in and do it earlier in the process, even if it's after the first interview, one of them, not all of them. And you were a reference for a person that I was working with. My reference check to you would be a normal reference. And then usually you would say, or I would bring up that we're not at a stage of an offer with this person at this time. Or you may say, oh, what are they interviewing going for? And at that point I would say, well, you know, it's very early in the process, but I always want to do a third party endorsement for everybody that I work with to make sure that they are who they say they are. Don't your recruiters do that, Benjamin? And they'll usually go, no. And I'll go, oh, that's interesting. Anyway, and I'll just move on and I won't like go in for the kill and then I'll circle back.

Jennifer Meyer [00:21:48]:
But I'm planting this quality thing that I do along the way. So it's just small things like that that you can do outside of just hard charging business development.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:59]:
So there's two ways I want to go, but the way I want to go first with this is you were talking about recruiters having these conversations, way more conversations than a salesperson has when they're just banging for sales calls. But you're like turning everything into like opening up for leads, doing some homework on you. I found that you actually encouraged that in your office. Can you talk about like lead development, encouraging them? The structure that you have to really just set that up for success with a team.

Jennifer Meyer [00:22:23]:
I mean, we. And unfortunately we just very recently lost her. She passed away, but one of the legends in our business. I mean she has been $1 million producer before million dollar producers even existed. She built her entire business on recruiting. She never ever made a system element call, which is crazy. And so a lot can come out of recruiting. But unfortunately recruiters get blinders on and that's the direction that they go.

Jennifer Meyer [00:22:50]:
So, you know, like any good salesperson, you have to be incentivized to do it. And we're still kind of working through the tweak of this, but in the business unit I worked in or I was overseeing, we did have a 10% lead generation aspect to our split arrangements. So there was this encouragement to like, if you got the lead and you turned it into a search, you got whatever that is, right. But at the very least, get the lead and bubble it up to somebody that is a little bit more experienced in that arena. And then you would still get your little piece for it or. And you'd have right of first refusal to recruit on it. Right. So you really still could get more of the piece of the pie.

Jennifer Meyer [00:23:30]:
And then we had a KPI around it. Like we had an expectation that they had to develop two leads a week, like off of their recruitings because they have to be mindful of it. If you don't put that in place where you're saying you need to focus on this, then it just, you know, their focus is fulfilling the positions that they're working on.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:48]:
When I was listening to that, it took me back to like my first recruiting job way back when, and I ended up opening up out of happen chance, like a multimillion dollar account. And then they redrew my district and took it completely away from me. And I'm like, oh, no, I had to train the recruiter that did this. And that recruiter ended up having that single account that took her to the president's club. And they actually, at the end of the year, was just like, well, you should have worked harder. And I was just like, it's always.

Jennifer Meyer [00:24:14]:
Salt in the wound.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:15]:
And I was just thinking, man, like, talk about a structure to set up success and a structure to encourage it after it's habitual.

Jennifer Meyer [00:24:23]:
You don't need to encourage it any more. Right, because people are just encouraged by the fact that they can make more money. But in the beginning, like, there's gotta be a little. I mean, you gotta put some incentive in there. I mean, we're all money motivated. We wouldn't be in this business if we weren't. So you gotta put something tied to it. But I laugh at that story because I'm like, God, we're all guilty of, like, doing things within our own office.

Jennifer Meyer [00:24:43]:
Which is why people get recruited because they're, you know, mad at the management team for, you know, messing with their money. So. But we do the same thing, I guess, what your company did. Anyway, we do know they're taking this.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:55]:
Conversation in, like, another direction, like doing pattern interruption and thinking about things. Different means you've spent time, effort, energy, thinking about the words in our business, the words we're saying. And I feel like words has a huge impact on how we think, what we do, our actions. I think I know this is something, a conversation that we had before we hit record a little while ago. You think words are a huge part of a recruiter success. Can you talk about that?

Jennifer Meyer [00:25:22]:
I think words are a huge part of recruiter's success. I think that if people could be more mindful of how their words land on other people. And I mean, listen, Benjamin, you and I could get into a very deep conversation about how that you should live your personal life like that as well. But if we're talking business, if people would just speak to people in a way that they knew that other person was going to hear them versus how they wanted to say it, it would change their word. They would change their words. Right? Because a lot of times we look at it from a viewpoint of a lens of, well, what would I want to be told, right? Like, how would I hear it? But that doesn't mean that's how the other person hears it. The laws of interpretation are endless. If I say the word pizza, what do you say? Like, what's the first word that comes to your mind?

Benjamin Mena [00:26:13]:
Like a slice of pizza? Slice.

Jennifer Meyer [00:26:15]:
Okay. My first is New York, right? One word that is universal. And everybody knows, but somebody's going to think of things differently because it's based on their own lens, right? So if I use words that open up that opportunity for that person to describe what it means to them versus you trying to be a recruiter that's boasting about how much we know and how much we know about an industry and how good we are and all of these things, it's going to change the conversation, you know, And I think a lot of us as recruiters, we were taught that we needed to be experts in our industry, which I don't disagree with. But the reality is I need to be an expert in talent acquisition and people and psychology and solving people's problems. I used to recruit most recently in the building products arena, and I worked with a lot of carpet manufacturers. And I'm telling you, all I knew about carpet was that it was fuzzy side up. Like, I didn't know, need to know how it was manufactured and how it was sold and all of these things. Like, all I needed to know was what is the infrastructure and culture of your organization? Because that's my lane and I can connect those dots.

Jennifer Meyer [00:27:32]:
You worry about your industry and I'll worry about my industry, and together we will make magic. But I'm not going to sit here and get into a pissing match with you about who knows more about the business. When I started to shift my words to get them to hear that, you know, and not interpret what they were saying for them, it just changed the conversations.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:54]:
You come off as very curious. You come off as inquisitive. You come off as, like, you know, super friendly. I know in recruiting a lot of times, like, you have a script that works, you know, like, MRI is perfect when it comes to, like, this is how you recruit. Did you have to, like, with your curiosity and how you approach things and how you think about things, like, almost rewrite the scripts for yourself.

Jennifer Meyer [00:28:16]:
In the beginning, I used other people's scripts because I was like, I'm not going to come in and say, I know more than you do. You've been doing this. Right? So I really was given the scripts over time. Yes. I had to work them into what my comfort level was. And my comfort level was, you know, I was 21 years old when I got in this business. I said I was an outdoor rec major. I started in this business working in the logistics industry.

Jennifer Meyer [00:28:40]:
And I didn't even know how to spell it. I was like, I cannot be on the hot seat. And so how I reworked the script was to just ask a lot of questions and take it off of me talking very early in the conversation because what was I going to talk about? You know, I didn't know anything. And then that style just continued. And, and I don't, I don't think you can teach somebody to be curious. I think that you're either a curious person or you're not. But yes, I do have a natural curiosity about people.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:11]:
I want to jump to one more question that I have before we head over to the pinnacle pointers. So most people outside of mri, when they think of the word planning, they can think of like my three things I need to do today. And that's about it. What I have learned, because I didn't grow up in the MRI network, my recruiting career planning means a lot of different things. And I know that you've talked about your team and how important it is to plan and how you're like, what is actually going to happen? Can you explain what planning is? And then also like what you expect from your team when it comes to their planning.

Jennifer Meyer [00:29:48]:
So there is a huge difference between a plan and a list, right? And we all fall into the list category. Like, well, I got a list, right? And I used to laugh at my team because I said, I think for the first five years of my business, I didn't place any candidate that's last name was after the letter M, right? Because you'd start at A and you get to about M and you'd find your three candidates and you'd move on, right? And so I said, at the very least, plan, flip that ascending descending order and start at Z. Because those people are never getting phone calls. I'm very much into time blocking. I am a very, very high energy person. So sitting in a chair for eight hours a day on the phone is super hard for me. So I very early on had to block it out by hours or hour and a half to where, you know, I gave myself that permission to have these like little short incremental time away from having to just, you know, call, call, call. And because of that I was able to just say, okay, I know I'll get to my email later, right? I also, from a planning perspective, I'm a shiny object like squirrel, like most of us are.

Jennifer Meyer [00:30:56]:
We're all adhd, whether we've been diagnosed or not. You have to like do yourself favors, you know, shut your email down, shut your notifications down, turn off your ringer of your cell phone. If people need to get a hold of you, they will. Nothing is going to blow up so much in the next hour that it's going to cost you your career. And so I had to train myself through a discipline to work the way I need to work, which is not to have all these things going on around me because I have a really hard time focusing. So that was first and foremost. So it's like time block your day, be realistic about it. Know who you are and what works for you.

Jennifer Meyer [00:31:31]:
You know, if you're a morning person, then put your most important calls in the morning. If you're not a morning person, then start those most important calls at 10 o'clock like it doesn't really matter. It matters that you're just true to who you are and working within your own personality when it comes to, you know, the lists and stuff. It's like it's really important that you go through and you prioritize these things, right? Like you should be able to open up a plan and say in this hour I need to call these 20 people. And you've already looked at them, you already know those are the 20 people because those are going to be the people that are going to be the closest to your money, right? And closest to the probability of either being a candidate or being a hiring manager versus just, I'm just going to run down this list and it's never ending. And when I, you know, whatever I get through, I get through and whatever I don't will be tomorrow. So it's like set your goals hourly, set your goals daily. At the very least, if you don't get to them, send an email to those people saying, you know, I meant to get to you today.

Jennifer Meyer [00:32:29]:
And I always do a delayed email to like a 9 o'clock at night email because they think I'm still working. So that's a little nugget. Commit and be task oriented and not time oriented, right? Like commit to what you need to accomplish that day to move that needle forward. The other thing is that the first question I ask myself and I think that people should be asking themselves is where are your sendouts coming from? Where are your sendouts coming from? Because that's going to guide you. Either your send out is coming from the fact that you need to NPC market. It may come from you need to find a candidate to CDS in order to, you know, get a send out. It may be that you need to find a job order like whatever it is. But that's the number one question I ask myself every day is like where are my sendouts coming from today? And that's how I prioritize my time.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:15]:
Absolutely love that. And like when it comes to send outs and everything, like what is working right now with you guys and business.

Jennifer Meyer [00:33:21]:
Development, we still, for the most part we have a lot of people that still NPC market. If you're thinking about like strategy wise just because. And it's not always that we'll place that candidate but it's definitely that it opens the dialogue for conversation and it's easier to call somebody when you have something in hand versus I want to call to energies myself. Nobody has time for that. So I mean that's our biggest business development push. But you know, we have some, I mean the average tenure in our office is 10 years. So we have some pretty tenured individuals that have great networks and we do a lot of conferences, we do a lot of speaking engagements. We're just really, really active and outward facing individuals.

Jennifer Meyer [00:34:01]:
So I don't think that there's any one thing that is working the best. I think it's compounded, you know, with everything and making the most out of every single conversation that you're having in every aspect of this business.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:17]:
I love that. And it's one of the things I've heard you say time and time again, like these conversations that you're having. Just like recruiters need to go deeper. They need to like yes, relationship wise, this is where you can get your next client from. It's. Yeah, I think you've said it in multiple other places that recruiters are really missing out on those conversations 100%.

Jennifer Meyer [00:34:35]:
We all get very tunnel visioned into what do we need to accomplish in this minute versus what's the bigger picture?

Benjamin Mena [00:34:41]:
All right. And so before we jump over to the quick fire questions, the pinnacle pointers, is there anything else that you'd love to share about anything we've already covered?

Jennifer Meyer [00:34:49]:
No, I think, I think that really, I mean I think that the biggest thing is that, you know, the business isn't easy. I don't want to say it's hard, right? Like, I mean fighting cancer is hard or laying asphalt and you know, Phoenix and the summer is hard. Right. I'm sitting in an air conditioned office, I don't even have to pick up the phone anymore. Like it's not hard, it's just mentally challenging. And you have to be able to mentally spar with yourself through it and try new things like take risks. We're not doctors. Nobody's going to die if you don't say the right thing.

Jennifer Meyer [00:35:18]:
So you just have to be willing to just try it. And you know, there's no right or wrong unless it's illegal. Right? Like stay legal, stay up for it, but just try it. Be bold.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:30]:
For somebody that's just getting started as a recruiter this year, what advice would you give them to see success in their career?

Jennifer Meyer [00:35:36]:
I think that if you're getting into the business right now, I think that it's still, I'm just going to say it's still a numbers game, right. And I think that the people that I've seen not succeed are the people that come in and they try to reinvent the wheel or they try to think that they know more than the person that's trying to train them knows. And there is a reason why it's worked for the last 60 years. And yeah, there may be tweaks and, you know, certain resources that can be used nowadays that we didn't have 25 years ago. But at the end of the day, it's still a people business and you've got to just, however you get that to. The end result of getting people on the phone can be different depending on, you know, industries and who they are. But you need to be talking to as many people a day as you can every day and put in the extra time, right? Like have two days a week where you work late hours. The more you dedicate yourself in the beginning to learning the industry and learning the business and talking to as many people as you can, the better off you're going to be in the long run.

Jennifer Meyer [00:36:43]:
It's just numbers, simple math, same question.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:46]:
But for somebody that's been in the game 5, 20 years, 20, 30 years, what advice would you give to them to keep on seeing success?

Jennifer Meyer [00:36:53]:
You know, I think that all of us in the business, we've evolved over time. Hopefully, you know, you're not a 20 year rookie, but I think most of us have evolved over time and I think that we kind of get lazy. You know, I hate to say it, but like, we start to see success and we stop doing all of the stuff that works so well for us. And so the one thing I would tell recruiters is stay on your metrics. It's something we all hate to do. Your metrics are going to be very different than my metrics that are going to be very different than Rick's, Rich's metrics. I mean, everybody's metrics are different. But know your own metrics because when you know your metrics, you can see the trends before they happen.

Jennifer Meyer [00:37:32]:
When we hit 08 and that or 07 and that next wave of recession was about to hit. I knew that I was going to close 80% of whatever was on my hot sheet all the time from the time I was a year in the business and I couldn't close a door if I tried. I mean, everything I touched at that point fell apart. But I hadn't changed anything I was doing. So I was like, something's going on with the industry. Something is happening. So it changed my conversations. I started looking at it from a holistic.

Jennifer Meyer [00:38:02]:
And I pivoted and I pivoted. I mean, I'm not kidding you, like six more months before it fell and I still grew 13%. But I wouldn't have known to do that if I didn't know my metrics. And so I think that over time, as key recruiters or, you know, successful recruiters, we just go, eh, we know how to do the business. We know the business, we know how to do it. We don't know our numbers 99% of the time. We don't even know what our fee is 99% of the time. And we just move through the motions.

Jennifer Meyer [00:38:31]:
And I think that if we knew our business, right, like, get deep into the weeds of your business, you could pivot or recalibrate before you actually get there, which would save a lot, or you could expand and grow a lot faster than you think you can.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:48]:
How do you keep track of all your metrics over time?

Jennifer Meyer [00:38:53]:
So, I mean, we're in Crete. I don't know what other people use out there. I will say that probably is one of the best platforms of their reporting structure that I've seen. I used to be on PCRecruiter for years and years and years. They're great. I helped them develop forever years ago. Like, I admire them tremendously, but there were always some gaps in their platform in that regard. And I do think that Prelate makes it very, very easy for customizable reports that you could break it down every ratio you're looking for.

Jennifer Meyer [00:39:24]:
As long as it's in the system, which again, is a whole other conversation. As long as it's in the system, we'll be able to extract it out to find that report.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:32]:
Awesome. What does the Pinnacle Society mean to you?

Jennifer Meyer [00:39:35]:
You know, first and foremost, I mean, I haven't been in it very long. It's only been, I think, going on two years. I spoke at it years ago before I became a member, and I was in awe of just the whole experience. And I came into the pinnacle Society. And one, I'm extraordinarily humbled by the fact that I'm in it. I mean, again, I wasn't kidding when I said, like, I sit next to these people and I feel like a kindergartner, but I just feel it's so cliche. But I really, really do feel like it's just family. You know, we're all cut from the same cloth.

Jennifer Meyer [00:40:09]:
Maybe we do the business a little bit different ways that are all successful, so there's no judgment one way or another. The ideas are incredible. The entrepreneurialness, the vulnerability. I mean, look, we're in a tough business and we are like a land of misfits, right? And you find your people and it's an instant acceptance and an instant opportunity to learn, grow, cry, laugh. I mean, it's everything. It's everything. It's been incredible.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:37]:
I love that. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your career?

Jennifer Meyer [00:40:44]:
You're going to laugh. And it's so. It's so elementary. But the one book that just stood with me all the time was. Do you remember the book who Moved my Cheese?

Benjamin Mena [00:40:54]:
Yeah. I felt like you were to say.

Jennifer Meyer [00:40:55]:
That I am telling you that for whatever reason, it was the biggest impact of, like, I'm not dealing with this, right? Like, I used to tell people, I'm like, you're not even moving my cheese. Or like, making it moldy. Like, get away from me. I do not have the energy to do this. So for whatever reason, that book, I read it very early in my career and it has definitely stuck with me.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:18]:
Oh, I mean, it stuck with you enough that when you were looking at your KPIs when things were changing, you're.

Jennifer Meyer [00:41:22]:
Like, huh, My cheese is moving 100%. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:29]:
You've been a top goer for years. Like, you've been successful in this business even with your own company now and like, kind of like with an agency. What do you think has been a driver of your own personal success?

Jennifer Meyer [00:41:39]:
And that shifted. Like, my driver early on in my career was really, absolutely 100% money. I mean, it was a bonus and great that I was helping people while I was doing it. But, I mean, I was extraordinarily money motivated. I am dysfunctionally competitive, right? Like, colleague at soccer, you know, swam my whole life. So I'm really competitive. And so it did fill that for me, that void of, like, competition. But it was money.

Jennifer Meyer [00:42:03]:
I was not in it to be a social worker. That was for sure. Over time, it's definitely evolved to where that is great and it's still a driver. But I feel like my desire to teach people in this business how to do the business right and create an opportunity of a lifestyle for themselves is a much greater driver than my own personal financial gain out of it. You know, and I'm older now, so, I mean, you know, my kids are older. I'm 50, almost 50. Life evolves and changes for different reasons. But I love again, knowing that I was a catalyst to solve somebody's problem, whether it's internally in govig or a peer, a friend, a client, a candidate.

Jennifer Meyer [00:42:45]:
Like, it's fun to know that you had a positive impact on people that way. And I was given. I mean, I. It wasn't handed to me. I had to work for it. But I was given an opportunity to provide a lifestyle for myself and my family that I would have never, ever had if I would have been a park ranger or whatever else I was going to be doing. Who knows what I was going to be doing? But I know for sure I would not have been making the money or had the lifestyle that I've had. So my experiences have been great.

Jennifer Meyer [00:43:12]:
And if I can provide that opportunity, they have to work for it. But if I can provide that opportunity for people and to do. And to have this business be a respectable business, like, I don't want it to be that we're just slimy and in it for the wrong reasons and not realizing that we, you know, affect people's lives. I don't want to be a part of that. So if I can impact people to do the business and do business right and for the right reasons, then I'm all for it.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:37]:
Before I ask the last question or the last set of questions, you said you didn't make a placement for eight months, which I've seen some of the best recruiters struggle when they first started. Why didn't they fire you?

Jennifer Meyer [00:43:50]:
I should have fired myself. Listen, I quit seven times. I swear to God I could. I was too poor and didn't have a car, so I couldn't drive home. But I think that I. I don't know. I guess you have to ask them why they didn't fire me. My assumption, why didn't you quit?

Benjamin Mena [00:44:04]:
Then?

Jennifer Meyer [00:44:05]:
I was told by my dad that I was not allowed to quit until after I made a placement because he's like, if you quit before then you're just a quitter. Like, you're not up for the hard work, which, you know, he was a New York Italian and so, like, I was going to prove him wrong, right? I mean, it was a dad daughter relationship. But he said, if you quit after you've made a placement where that's supposed to be the height of it, when you're most excitable, like you, you know, you slayed the dragon, then you don't like the business, the business isn't right for you. And so I made a promise that I was not going to quit until after I made a placement. I didn't make a placement for you. Then you make the placement, you realize how great it is, and you're like, okay, I feel like I've ripped the band aid off and we're good to go. Now, from the time, like from that last four months in the business, I mean, it just. The floodgates opened.

Jennifer Meyer [00:44:50]:
It's like it just started to click. And I ended up billing like 300, 000 in that last four months. And that was back in 96, 97. So, I mean, that was a lot of money at the time. But I did try to quit. And I'm not kidding, the last time I tried to quit, I didn't have a car, so I couldn't go anywhere. So I just figured, well, I guess I'll get back on the business, back on the phones. But I think they didn't fire me because my heart was in it and I worked very, very hard.

Jennifer Meyer [00:45:14]:
And I think they just had the faith in me. You know, they were like, she's not trying to make the easy way out. She's leaning in. She's doing all these things. They didn't have a desk to give me, so I was starting from complete scratch in an area that they didn't specialize in. So I just think there was a lot of little things like that. I'm very, very grateful they did not fire me. Now, at the time, I was hoping they would have fired me because I was miserable.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:41]:
Well, that goes into the next question. Like everything that you know. Now, if you had the chance to sit down with yourself within that first eight months, what advice would you tell yourself?

Jennifer Meyer [00:45:49]:
I talk about that thing of planning. I wish I would have just been a little bit more strategic in my approach. I think a lot of why I wasn't successful in the beginning is because I just didn't have any framework of why or how I should be calling or what my cadence should have been at the time to get there. It was just like, I'm just going to plow through this, right? And I did seek out a lot of Great mentors in the business who I attribute a lot of my success to because they taught me a ton. But I think that I just, I didn't really learn from my own mistakes, if that makes sense. Like, I feel like I just kept beating my head up against the wall, not scared to make the mistakes, but I didn't learn as quickly. I wasn't as fast to learning as quickly on that. I just kind of definition of insanity.

Jennifer Meyer [00:46:33]:
Kept doing the same thing, expecting different results, and I finally got there, but I probably would have gotten there a lot quicker.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:39]:
And I want to ask that question again. Going back in time to, you know, when you had your own business, you know a lot about the world. Now you understand the ins and outs. What advice would you give yourself when you launched your own company?

Jennifer Meyer [00:46:51]:
I don't know if I would have gone into business for myself if I knew then what I know now. Like, it sounds silly, but it's like it was great for me. I wouldn't have changed it because I can't. Right. Like it was what it was. But I do think that if I would have found the opportunity to know my own strengths and be in the right pocket of my lane earlier in my career and focused on that versus trying to do things that didn't come easy to me and spending so much energy on that, I would have just excelled, probably bigger than I did. But I was so honed in on feeling like, you know, the next natural step was for me to own my own business and so that's what I should do, you know, versus like, it's okay to be an account executive working for somebody else, let them deal with all that. If you really don't want to do it and you focus on your lane and look at it from a holistic business view versus what's my fee on one placement.

Jennifer Meyer [00:47:46]:
But like, what are the possibilities on a greater scale, you know, from a Wood two perspective versus a singular placement? I don't know if I would open my own business. I. I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for, but I. I don't know if I would have.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:58]:
No. That's why I love asking this question is cuz, I mean, it was your business for 14 years. Like talk about a lesson learned. Like you now are in your lane winning.

Jennifer Meyer [00:48:07]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:08]:
Maybe you wouldn't have got there. Maybe you would have gotten there sooner, maybe.

Jennifer Meyer [00:48:11]:
And. And listen, there was a lot of lessons learned and I'm probably better in this role now because I did own my own business. Business Right. But you understand what the financials are, and you understand how operations work. And I can have probably a little bit more strategic conversations with my clients that I probably wouldn't have been able to have if I wasn't, like, in the seat. I can say things that maybe other people can't say in the sense of, like, you know, look, I was a business owner, and I wouldn't pay a fee if I didn't have to. Right. Like, so that's, you know, it's stupid to spend money if you don't have to spend money or, you know, it's things like that that I can.

Jennifer Meyer [00:48:42]:
I can take my experiences and use to my advantage when I'm talking to companies, but, I don't know. It was a lot. It was a lot. It's fun. Is there gray hair geared? Because I'm pretty sure that came from.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:53]:
Well, Jen, for anybody that would love to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Jennifer Meyer [00:48:57]:
I am on LinkedIn. I don't do the Twitter thing. I don't do podcasts myself. I do them with people like yourself that have me. So thank you. They could find me at Govig, Facebook. I don't know, probably the normal ways that anybody would find me.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:13]:
Awesome. Well, before I let you go, is there anything else that you'd love to share with the listeners?

Jennifer Meyer [00:49:17]:
You know, for me, again, I cannot speak highly enough about recruiting, and I just would encourage people to just be bold. Right. And I would encourage people to think differently about the business because our clients and our candidates are a lot more savvy. They're very smart individuals, and, you know, we got to stay ahead of them. So never stop learning. That's what makes the business fun. There's no one way to do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:42]:
Awesome. Well, Jen, I so excited to chat with you. Thank you for sharing today. I know Rich Rosen has been talking about you nonstop. Top.

Jennifer Meyer [00:49:49]:
Rich is great. See, he's one of those that I barely. I've barely met him, and it's like he's like a brother from another mother.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:58]:
Well, for the listeners, I want you guys to keep crushing it and make 2024 your best year yet. Thank you, guys.