The Art of Strategic Headhunting with Chris Relth

Chris Relth [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. My guess, we're going to talk about how do you build trust? We're going to talk about how do you build trust that leads to new business. My guest has a 95% referral rate with a 75% close rate when it comes to contingency recruiting, but that didn't automatically come. What do you have to do to build the network where the work comes to you? And I am so excited about Chris Routh joining me on this episode. Really just talk about what he's doing to create this referral engine and the work that he's doing that businesses want to come back to him. So, Chris, welcome to the podcast.

Chris Relth [00:00:55]:
Thanks for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:55]:
Benjamin, real quick, before we do a deep dive into your background, talk about what you're doing now.

Chris Relth [00:01:00]:
Started Artemis 2009, late 2009, coming out of the recession. Good time or bad time? You can argue either way, original business partner. We both have kind of funky last names, and we just started googling around, headhunting and found Artemis was the goddess of the hunt. And being young, we're like, oh, let's be the goddess of the Huntley. Turns out there's four other firms with the same name. NASA's program, bottles of wine, a bunch of companies so butchered that one. But Artemis got us to the hunt. That's where it came from.

Chris Relth [00:01:25]:
That's how we originally got going.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:27]:
All right, so how did you even get started in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Chris Relth [00:01:31]:
Like, I think most people fell into it. I took a job out of college at the time at a top sales training program, one of those ones where you move states, you circle states in the country, and then they deploy you to a territory and ended up in Las Vegas and about a year and a half in a college. Friend of mine had grown up at tech systems called me about this mortgage company and going into mortgage recruiting in 2004. So that's where I started out.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:56]:
All right, I'm sure that was a crazy busy, like on fire, but did it blow up for you?

Chris Relth [00:02:01]:
Thankfully, I left before it blew up. But the things that happen in that industry, I mean, the movie the big short is dead on. And we used to pitch, we were recruiting loan officers, but we were paid like external recruiters. So we had folks in the department making tons of money. But I'll never forget, because I didn't know what it meant at the time, but we were offering, hey, come over here. Because we have a 100% stated only no income doc loan, which meant you could have a million dollars for the California ID. So of course, the mortgage industry kind of fell apart. But I was fortunate enough to leave and go to a small OTT staffing firm to start the permanent placement division before mortgage went bye bye during that time.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:34]:
Talk about the perfect timing of making that jump. Yeah, all right. You were recruited away. Why did they look at you? To make that jump and to start that division.

Chris Relth [00:02:46]:
Yeah, I think anything like in our business, it's all about relationships and a relationship. I had introduced me to this, the owner of the firm, we hit it off, and he had a vision, and I came in still wet behind the ears, and he just kind of let me go and exercise the entrepreneurial spirit. Bring in CRM systems, great processes. I really didn't know what I was doing because I never worked at a big firm. I'm very glad that I did nothing because I think you can learn a lot of bad habits. So it was carbon launch on figure it out, and we were able to get a couple good clients, but, you know, thought I figured out the real world was making money, grew a team, and what I didn't know was the term captured vendor. So most of our perm business was with one big Fortune 100 company where we absolutely crushed it for a couple of years. And they went into a hiring freeze.

Chris Relth [00:03:27]:
And I was like, what does that mean? And basically it kind of means game over. So don't be a captured vendor. There's a story there.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:35]:
Oh, wait, okay, so you went deep. You built all these relationships with this major Fortune 100 company, like crushing it, you just said. And then they went out of hiring freeze. Do you guys have, like, a lot of business outside of that?

Chris Relth [00:03:46]:
Not a ton. We did for the it side of the business, but this was mostly sales, pre sales tax roles that we're doing in different divisions of this company. And when the hiring freeze hit, it was also an eye opener to what really happens. Like, we think of our grandparents generation where you retire at the same company after 30 years of gold watch. And what I realized was, you know, if we had placed two salespeople in a region, the one making more money, I, even more successful, was the one that got laid off. And I realized, okay, big corporate America, you're literally just another number, even if you had done really, really well. And then, of course, all the hiring managers and, I mean, this is recession time. Hiring manager.

Chris Relth [00:04:20]:
People we had placed or talked to all started calling me for jobs. There wasn't any jobs to really help them out with. So it was like, hey, mister hiring manager, remember when you didn't return my 25 phone calls and now you want me to help you find a job and there isn't any. Good luck with that.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:34]:
All right, then, fast forward. You started your company with a co founder at the time. What made you decide to make that jump?

Chris Relth [00:04:41]:
Oh, that's a, it's a good story. There's a fork in the road coming out of that. And I was in Orange county, didn't grow up here, wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Maybe go sell software, like a lot of my friends do all those things. And my old boss, still a good friend of mine, introduced me as executive coach. And I was sitting there being a victim, going, I don't like the industry. I don't like Orange County. I don't like this.

Chris Relth [00:05:00]:
And, and he kind of uncovered I didnt like the transactional nature of the business. I liked the relationships. And after me ranting for a good ten minutes, he looked at me calmly and said, hey, so what would you do if you werent afraid? And it just kind of came out. I was like, well, id start a business, but itd be relationship based. And Bonnie is like, so why dont you go do that? And I was like, okay, I guess Im going to do that now. And then a conversation with my dad where he had come down and he was up in the Bay area at the time and were having drinks and he asked me, so what are you going to do next? Im like, what do you think Im going to do? He's like, you're going to start a company, aren't you? And we literally never talked about it. And then I felt like I was on the hook and I had to, even though I had no idea what I was doing at the time. But we got going.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:36]:
That is awesome. So if you never had that conversation with that executive coach, do you think you would have actually started your own company?

Chris Relth [00:05:43]:
Probably eventually. It's always been in, in me. I think my first entrepreneurial venture was taking my lunch money and buying donut holes and then selling them in second grade on campus and doubling my lunch money. So it's always kind of been there. I'm one of those guys where if I had a manager ever in a job, like I wanted to know what I needed to do so they didn't have to manage me. So I never really needed it. I had the discipline and the work ethic. I guess I was also coachable.

Chris Relth [00:06:06]:
I think I would have, would have been in the same space. I just didn't know enough at the time. And I just thought, oh, my friends are killing it doing this. I'll go do that. But I'm very, very glad of those conversations. Despite all the hurdles I've gone through, it's been a hell of a journey.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:19]:
Okay, so I want to jump into the meat of the story. You guys have, like, most of your business is farm referrals. Like, can you talk about that real quick before we start figuring out what you're doing?

Chris Relth [00:06:29]:
Yeah, you know, it kind of happened accidentally for me, so I feel like I compelled to give some people advice, the younger folks on our team. But I spent, I joke now, I spent five and a half years in college at Chico state, as we all call the Harvard of the west. And if you look at like, pound for pound, the quote unquote party schools and who makes money? It's those folks. So if you go to the Santa Barbara's, the asus of the world, the Colorado's of the world, because you know how to build a relationship. So for me, a lot of my first clients were folks I went to college with that were moving into leadership roles that I had built a relationship with because maybe I overstayed my college tenure. And then I think, you know, a lot of it comes down to, in our business, you know, typical big firm, you get in as a recruiter, if you could, you get into sales, and the recruiter becomes kind of that second class citizen. I completely disagree with that. I think theyre both just as important, who cares if you can sell if you cant execute at eye level? So its really wowing the clients and earning their trust.

Chris Relth [00:07:23]:
And theres a lot of different ways to do that. I think one of the things I did accidentally, just because I was single and didnt have a lot going on at the time, during the great Recession, I had all these hiring manager relationships. I knew they werent hiring. A lot of people take their foot off the gas, but I was on them still, hey, lets do lunch, lets go golfing, lets get happy. Chris, im not hiring. I dont care. Lets get together. And guess who called me a year and a half later when they were hiring.

Chris Relth [00:07:44]:
And I think the fundamental thing I tell people also from that executive coach, it is all about relationships, but even more so, it's the influential relationships and the story they tell about you once you're in their trust. So my goal was, you know, one of the things I did 2008 910 eleven still try to do, still unfortunately am, but try to be the poorest guy in the room and not be the cheesy sales guy. So if you're going to this big networking event, you know, you always run into the guy that you meet him and he goes, hey, who does your insurance? And you're like, whoa, buddy. And it's just building an authentic relationship and getting to know people. Eventually they might ask you and eventually they might think of you. Same thing with like creating centers of influence. Or some people say, hey, your network is your net worth. And then for me, same advice I give candidates.

Chris Relth [00:08:27]:
Like, we all do a prep in our industry, right? But one of the things I tell candidates is regardless of the technical fit, same thing I tell a hiring manager, the likability factor is the most important thing. And my belief is how do you become likable? You got to humanize yourself and you got to be authentic and you got to be willing to tell the bad things and how you overcome them. Just like in an interview, that's what I try to do with people that are open to it, is build that authentic relationship. And you find everyone has a story and you've built trust.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:54]:
You know, year after year after year, you're calling these people, taking these people out, having these conversations. Like, first of all, how are you keeping track of all these people and all these, like, relationships? And secondly, like, sometimes, like for the listeners, how long does it take to build that relationship? Sometimes before you actually get the business.

Chris Relth [00:09:10]:
It can take a very, very long time. And then you have to, if someone's referring you into a client, that's double pressure. If you let down the client, that's one thing. But if you let down that client and the referral source, guess who's not going to refer you business. So it's being really honest, hey, that is in our wheelhouse, or it's not. Or, hey, you don't need to use a firm on this. I'll give you quick advice. Don't pay a fee.

Chris Relth [00:09:30]:
Or hey, we don't have the bandwidth. It's little things like that. I think for me to add onto that, one of the early on things I learned is these influential people, these highly successful people that everyone goes are so busy, anyone that's recruited at a high level industry, you realize those are also the most responsive people. There's a reason why they're at where they're at. And I started reaching out to people for help, not for their business, but I don't have a business background. So if there was someone I looked up to that was an entrepreneur that was successful, authentically reaching out and going, hey, I love what you built. Can I run a couple of things by you? And the results that I got were amazing. I always tell the story.

Chris Relth [00:10:04]:
I had this client that should have worked with me. He was at a channel partner of a big Oem we worked with. And I thought I was being cheesy sales guy, like, let me take you out. Let me do this. And he'd always flake on me last minute. And then when I got ready to start the business, I reached out to him, said, I admire what you've done. I'm putting together a business plan. Would you mind if I ran and buy you? And he picked up the phone, called me, and said, what are you doing for lunch today? This is a highly successful guy that went on to sell his business for a good amount of money, not in our space.

Chris Relth [00:10:29]:
But that was an eye opener for me. They liked to help, so I try to help as many people as I can now, if that makes sense. The other question you had something I tell younger people, this can be a lifestyle business. And when people go, work, life balance, I go. The way I'm trying to set it up is there isn't. So if I'm out hanging out with clients that I happen to be friends with, am I really doing business? So I might work 100 hours a week, but it's not business. I'm golfing with four buddies I would have hung out with anyhow. So that's some of the little things I did to get that going.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:59]:
How often did you like? I know a lot of times when we're reaching out to potential clients, it's the calls, the emails, the videos, the postmail, the snail mail, the pigeon. How often do you utilize a different tactic? Like, hey, I have an idea. I love your advice on that. That's completely different. It sounds like it's coming from the heart. It's not like a true sales tactic, but how often do you do that compared to the standard business development kind of stuff that you do?

Chris Relth [00:11:24]:
Not as much anymore, because I think you have to be genuine with it. If you're asking for help, you can't be like, oh, I want this client. Go the can you help me? Angle. I think just like getting candidates, even though we have all this tech now, the best way for client or candidate is to get introduced by someone else that they know, because there's already that integrated potential trust built versus, you know, just cold calling the client or cold calling a candidate. If you're able to get someone that they know or there's some sort of commonality between you two with a relationship that can shorten. I mean, our business is all about managing your time, right? So if you want to get to somebody and you have someone that trusts you, that can make that intro that's much more powerful.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:02]:
And one of the things that we talked about offline is you guys for contingency recruiting. I've seen the numbers. I think it's like 16% of the agreements you get actually get filled. You guys have a close ratio of about 75%, which means you guys are doing a little bit of, let's say, probably some true headhunting and not just recruiting. Could we talk about that too?

Chris Relth [00:12:22]:
Yeah. The way I describe headhunting, for me, if you look at our industry or any service based salesperson, theres the transactional approach, which is most of those industries. But if you look at the top performers in the service based industry, they take that consultative approach. So I think it starts there and focusing on not the deal in front of you, but what are you going to do on this deal to get their business five years from now and earn it? Its not the deal today, its the deals you can get down the road. So head hunting, to me, its the art part of our business. I think theres two sides. You have the science, which is the sourcing, the finding people and all that stuff, which business 101. We have an internal research team now that does all that for us so people can focus on the higher level activities.

Chris Relth [00:13:00]:
But head hunting is, to me, it's securing the best talent in the market, not on the market. And a lot of people say, oh, we're going to get you passive candidates. So it's making another way. I say it's making the otherwise unattainable candidates attainable to our clients. And I think headhunting is best used for niche roles where you can very target like. Let's say we're working with an enterprise software sales company and they want a rep calling on this company with this product. There might be five or ten potential candidates out there, and you want the best out of those candidates. They're not floating around on the job boards.

Chris Relth [00:13:31]:
They're not applying online, they're not responding to inmails. You've got to figure out how to build a relationship with that person because a lot of our industry now, because this perception of unlimited leads has led to, hey, I've got 100 potential target candidates. Let me send out 100 inmails and five people reply. That doesn't mean those are the five best candidates. Are you serving your client well? I think you're better off focusing on the top ten out of that hundred and figuring out how to get them. That means you'll submit less candidates, have less interviews, spend less time, serve your client the best. So that's kind of, I think the difference between recruiting and head hunting. It doesn't mean every search needs the head hunting approach, because there is some you don't, particularly on the staffing side of our business.

Chris Relth [00:14:08]:
But I think that's where we started to build that brand and that reputation.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:12]:
When it comes to those elite candidates, like, you know, the ones that aren't responding, the ones that are, like, you know, not on the job boards, that super narrow list, how are you actually breaking through and getting past the noise to get a hold of those people?

Chris Relth [00:14:24]:
Yeah, it's a challenge nowadays. I mean, if you would ask me numbers wise, eight years ago, if you're on the candidate side of the desk, you made 35 phone calls. You're roughly talking to six to eight people. Now we're averaging about 120 to get those same results because no one answers their phone anymore. That's a challenge, I think, for, for any salesperson. But it's. It's. What is the hook? Why are they going to talk to you? Is it that you can be a career consultant for them? Is it that you might be able to tell them what their market value is? Maybe tell them what's going on in their industry that they may not know? There's a book, the Challenger sale, and he talks about the different types of salespeople and that consultative approach.

Chris Relth [00:14:56]:
You're educating people. Right. So what value are you creating for this person? And I think our industry gets caught up in the value is, ooh, I have a really exciting job. That's maybe not the value. If you can't get that relationship with that person, you're not going to get the best candidate.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:09]:
Love that. And, like, with your close ratio being that high, is it because, like, you also turn down work that doesn't fit your icpenna?

Chris Relth [00:15:18]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think we call them tier one searches, and we just talk. We have three divisions, separate companies on paper, but our search division does all the head hunting, so we call tier one searches, and that's a direct hiring manager relationship because I think any good recruiter headhunter's job isn't just to get the person that technically fits the role. It's the overall company cultural fit and the individual hiring managers fit or that team's fit. And if you don't have that relationship and you haven't built it, you're not going to get what you need. The biggest thing to serve them well, which I do honestly tell clients, is your timely feedback on likes and dislikes will allow us to make the right adjustments and ultimately save you time from interviewing the wrong people.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:54]:
And when it comes down to like, you know, once again, like you're talking about relationships, you're talking about the right people, you're talking about this. Like, how are you actually keeping track of all these things, all these people, all these systems, the CRM, Excel spreadsheet, is it like all in your head?

Chris Relth [00:16:08]:
No. Yeah. When I was at my best, my roles kind of expanded to, frankly right now I'm doing too many things and trying to narrow that down. But when I was at my best doing this, it was a tickler system within our CRM system where you can set and forget it. So if you talk to someone and they just got a new puppy and they're not looking right now, or there's no way you're going to get them for a black and white reason, you tickle them out for three months, same with the client. So you always have that coming. So you just know when you come in, you've got a list. And then I was really good at time blocking my day.

Chris Relth [00:16:38]:
So, you know, you look at your day and you go, okay, I've got eight, 9 hours, whatever it is, I believe in focusing on the one activity at a time. And we all have too many distractions. I mean, I've got six screens sitting right here where it used to be one when I started in the business. So it's really going okay. If I'm making phone calls, especially when you're newer to the business, you're just focused on that, turn everything else off, right? And you do back to back phone calls, get in the rhythm and then of course you then have 20 to 30 minutes of administrative work. Then you do that, then you maybe take a quick break and then you get back to the phone calls or back to what it is, or maybe it's sourcing and you just gotta your day and strategically plan it. But it's super important to keep track of all that stuff because you do this and you get relationships, you forget who the client was. You're definitely not going to remember.

Chris Relth [00:17:19]:
You forget what you talked about. You've got to have a system that reminds you and take good notes doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:25]:
Okay, so you've been incredible when it comes to relationships. It's been your secret weapon. How do you duplicate that with your team?

Chris Relth [00:17:35]:
Yeah, I think its a challenge because so much of our industry is just cold call, cold call, cold call MPC. Or the worst thing I think our industry does is ghost NPC trying to get business where ive talked to and interviewed people that are like, wait, your team only works on two searches at any given time? Im used to working on 25 or 30 and go, well, how many did you close? Two. Well, what if you worked on two to close two? I mean, theres a difference there. So it is, you know, really trying to coach. I dont like managing, but coaching on, hey, heres whats worked for me. What have you done different? I think fundamentally on either candidate or client side, it starts with one simple thing, tell the truth. Thats how youre going to build a relationship and youre going to build trust. So the ways on either side you could do that.

Chris Relth [00:18:16]:
Lets say youve worked on a search for three months. You get to one final theyre going to offer them, but you uncover a red flag where that person may not work out and you know it in four to six months, you should tell that client, even though you might lose that deal, where it might delay it another three months because you're going to get their deals down the road.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:30]:
The work that you're doing, it's all contingent. But do you have exclusives or is it like, are you still kind of like playing the competition game with everybody else?

Chris Relth [00:18:37]:
Yeah. For our search division is where we get the most exclusivity. So we have Artemis search contingent head hunting similar to retained firm, different practices like aerospace and financial services, enterprise software. And then we have Artemis professionals, which is contract and positional perm placement, a little different than targeted head hunting for accounting and finance. And then we have Artemis technologies it, contract focused and positional it placement. But generally, we're always looking for an exclusive, especially for those niche, very targeted roles where there's not a plethora of candidates out there or multiple openings. And if we don't get it out of the gate, it doesn't really concern me. But what we will tell a client is part of any good firm's job is to be a brand ambassador.

Chris Relth [00:19:18]:
So if we're going to reach out to 100 to 200 candidates for this role and you have three or four other firms calling on it, all telling a different story, it dilutes your brand and makes it harder to recruit those people down the road, that's one thing, and I believe that is the truth. But if you have to, on the first search, you want to bring up that, hey, if we can get this done at this level and impress you, would we have an opportunity to earn the next one exclusively? And generally, hiring managers don't want to work with a ton of firms once you've earned their trust. But frankly, if I was a hiring manager and working with a bunch of contingent firms, I'd give it to 100 of them and say who wins? But I do think you honestly want to partner with one firm unless theyre not getting it done.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:56]:
And its just curiosity. I know youre on the contingent side, so I was just wondering myself if at least on the retained its exclusive. But a lot of times when you think of the word contingency, most people know that youre competing against somebody else. So thats why I want to ask that question youve mentioned multiple times offline, online, tell the truth. Why do you think that's so important in our space?

Chris Relth [00:20:18]:
Because if you think just contingent search part of our business, the deals can be big and you're chasing that commission. You're thinking about that commission, not thinking about maybe it's another 100, 200, 300 fees you can get from that client if you tell the truth. Because once you've built that trust, everything runs smoother. They're going to be more likely to return your phone calls. You're going to trust that your feedback or your advice on the candidate is right. Everything will run cleaner down the road. I'll give you an example. I met with a fairly large southern California private equity firm recently and the owner of the firm, oh, you're in search.

Chris Relth [00:20:48]:
And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, well, what makes you different? I'm like, I don't, man. I tell the truth. He's like, oh, we should work together then because he'd had a lot of bad experiences with our industry. I think our industry, like any big, saturated industry, gets a bad reputation for all the right reasons. And I like to be different. So how do we change that? So it's, you know, what's client's complaints if you look at them? Oh, the firm disappeared on us. They never got us what they promised.

Chris Relth [00:21:09]:
If we commit to something with a client, we're going to get it done and we'll go very deep down the road from a consultative nature to give them a market analysis and even go super transparent with heres every single candidate weve identified. Heres the ones that lets use comp thats an easy example. Heres what you want. Heres the five that meet that theyre all 20 grand above your comp. Heres Knight B. That could probably do it. Not going to light the world on fire. Heres Knight C.

Chris Relth [00:21:32]:
Thats missing two out of the six must haves. But theyre coachable skill sets and theyll likely be candid. A. At some point. What do you want to do? You got to pride them the evidence. Sometimes we'll even do graphs and then you break down the entire market. And even though we're contingent, I know a lot of firms don't do this. We'll show them the candidates that we're talking to, and if they want to go call them on their own and go around us, then I probably don't want to work with them anyhow.

Chris Relth [00:21:54]:
So it's really providing solutions and not giving up. And I think that's where we've earned with clients that exclusivity, especially the ones that have worked with firms in the past that gave up on that search. And then we're able to figure it out.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:05]:
It sounds like you're almost doing some of the executive search world in the contingency side of the house and just like unpacking this talk about a different value add.

Chris Relth [00:22:17]:
Yeah, it doesn't seem that complicated, right. But I think so many people get caught up in more searches. Next one, let's throw mud up against the wall and hope something sticks. And in my model for contingent search, I think the secret sauce is the right amount of canes and the right amount of time that will get and take the job. Right. So for us, that's generally because we like to be very targeted, especially as a client. We know that we've worked with, that's five candidates in seven business days. And if we need to go farther, we will.

Chris Relth [00:22:42]:
But we call that filled, and that should be enough to run through the interview process. Obviously, with any new client and new search, there's usually a little bit more because there's that molding out period where you need their feedback to make the right adjustments. But that's part of it. And then it's really focused on, I think, the data that matters in contingent. If you've got some experiences, the number one thing I look at is the first to second round interview ratio because anything before that was a waste of your time and the clients time.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:06]:
Awesome. And like, for most of your searches, you're talking about a narrower list working and trying to get a hold of those people with a different value ad. Like, do some of those candidates, because of, like, the way that you guys are approaching banks differently, do those end up also turning into clients, too?

Chris Relth [00:23:22]:
Occasionally, yeah. Depends on the level of role. But if you've created a memorable experience, particularly if they're more senior and they've worked with other recruiters. Right. Again, the reputation thing of our industry, and you can give them a different feeling and let them know you have a genuine interest in their success. Like, I'll tell Candida, listen, my win isn't that you take the shot. My win is that you're happy and you're doing well three and five years from now. Cause that helps build my brand internally with blank company where we can get more of their business.

Chris Relth [00:23:48]:
And maybe you move up by then and we start working together. It's really that long term.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:52]:
And I kind of wanted to ask you this because I'm really always interested in how people have built their teams. So, Chris, you started this with your buddy, and now you have, was it three different companies with multiple divisions? How have you been able to kind of, first of all, juggle these different companies but also work on building these divisions within those companies, failing miserably over and over again? Talk about that, too.

Chris Relth [00:24:18]:
Yeah, just stick it with it, man. I mean, I think theres a great TED talk, Angela Dutworth on grit, and I think thats the difference. And she defines it as the passion and perseverance for long term goals. But I think one of the bigger eye openers for me by a mentor at a retained firm that we sometimes partner with is when I realized hiring for myself is so hard and I think a lot and it doesnt make any sense. Its what we do for a living. But I think its because if you do well in the industry, you think everyone should like, come on in, this is it. Just do this and youll figure it out. That's the number one thing is you scale.

Chris Relth [00:24:49]:
If I would have focused on that, treating hiring like I would for a client, for myself, it would have been a far different story. I think we've done a much better job since we've had to go through some headaches and reinvent ourselves of putting that together. So for me, the way it's set up now, I spend most of my time in the search division, but we have leaders in our other two divisions, and it's very decentralized, so they're very empowered. We want a culture where we have coaches, not managers. If you need to be manager, your manager, probably not a fit for us. And everything starts with our company. Purpose, which is to build a happy workforce, starting with ours. So the premise there is, if you take the classic company pyramid where most people go money, client, employee, for us, it's team first with the idea that then they're going to put the client first.

Chris Relth [00:25:34]:
If that happens, it might take longer, but you're building a more sustainable relationship based business. But, yeah, hiring the right people and the right cultural fit. Every headache I've had is hanging on to someone that might be a producer. That's poisonous, that does the unethical things, labeling databases and. Okay, it's all right. They're a producer, and it takes away from other people and leads to legal issues.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:58]:
Well, the second you mentioned legal issues, maybe we won't ask for any of those stories.

Chris Relth [00:26:03]:
They're fine. You got to be willing to go through that. In fact, I never referred to myself as an entrepreneur because I didn't think it earned it. Everyone goes out there and calls themselves that. It's like titles in our industry. What do they really mean? Right? Same with candidates who are hung up on their title, even if it's a better move because their ego on LinkedIn. Right. But, yeah, I think you got to learn from those situations.

Chris Relth [00:26:22]:
And I didn't call myself an entrepreneur until literally almost went bankrupt after being in business for nine years because nothing I did wrong and where I could have easily just taken the victim mentality, but I sat down and go, okay, this happened. I'm a personal responsibility guy. You chose to hire those people. You chose to retain those people. You put yourself in this boat. What are you going to do different? What are you going to learn from this and what's the path forward? And that was where the happy thing, life's about being happy. What's going to make me happy? Instead of trying to do everything and anything for me, it's now I want to partner with the leaders at our company. I want to coach where I can personally, professionally with the team.

Chris Relth [00:26:58]:
I get more energy out of watching. We call it the invisible lights, which when someone makes that transition where they can close a deal they couldn't have three months ago, I get more excited for them than they do for themselves. I could care less if I close a deal. So I can't do that. If I was to take my book and just sit in my bedroom, which a lot of people do. Right. And then getting back to, like, the relationships and the rainmaker and a little bit on the strategy vision side, those are the four roles that I want to play.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:20]:
I don't want to do something else. I want to go back to this, and I know you probably can't go into too much detail about the story, but a lot of people have had a rough year. After nine years in business, you sat down and you faced, like, what was potentially almost bankruptcy. And with a team, you didn't go into victim mentality, but, like, how'd you pull yourself through that?

Chris Relth [00:27:44]:
Yeah, I'll tell a little bit of the story. So I had hired two people that, unbeknownst to me, had been fired. I should have ran a backdoor reference and would have figured out quickly they were producers, not in the way that I'd done the business, mostly on the staffing side. But a couple years in, they went from their old firm and doubled their income. You know, as the owner, I put up all the money. There's distributions. They started seeing that and wanted it all, even though, you know, they had base salaries and everything else. They did have equity.

Chris Relth [00:28:10]:
They waited till I was out of the country and went to all the temp clients and candidates and said, hey, great news. There's a rebranding of the firm and had them sign new paperwork. So as an equity owner, you can't really do that and nor can clients move the temps. And they didn't know it wasn't the client's fault. Right. So I'm a greedy guy, and I, again, look out and try to think our industry with this bad rap. These are the people that give us that bad rap. So it was my mission to kind of shut that down.

Chris Relth [00:28:35]:
I was told early on by mentors like, hey, you got to think of the opportunity cost, meaning how much time are you going to spend on that as a small business owner? And it was half my day for over two years on legal issues, so it wasnt fine. And then during that, we got hit with a payroll scam where Im personally guaranteed with our funding factoring company. So it was a low time, destroyed my culture. Youre dealing with legal issues. I had to turn a bunch of business away, which later on you get those clients back when you tell them, hey, Im going through something right now. I cant take this on. Let me refer you to another firm. They go, wait, when you are ready, we want to do business with you.

Chris Relth [00:29:07]:
But yeah, those are lows and lows. And that's why I think it's the people that you work with. That's my number one focus. I want to work with people where we can have a good time. We take what we do serious, but not ourselves. Too serious.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:17]:
You were out of the country. They tried literally taking your entire book of business. Then you had a payroll scam. And this, like, wasn't just like a, hey, this is done in, like, 30 days. This was like two years of, excuse my language, like, fucking hell.

Chris Relth [00:29:31]:
Yeah. It was not fun. It wasn't fun. It was many 24 hours straight, you know, doing stuff for depositions, like finding everyone named Sean in my emails that I've ever sent, stuff like that. That's just a giant waste of your time. But I'm a not quick guy and wanted to do whatever I could to shut that down. So, I mean, you could win in the end, but do you really win? Because you sacrificed growing the business, focusing on clients, the culture that we had going, other than those particular people that destroyed it, and then you make it through. And that was kind of the second fork of the road in my career where I seriously considered, I can go work at another firm and never deal with these business headaches and take my book to business.

Chris Relth [00:30:09]:
I could sit in my bedroom. If it was all about money, I would have sat in my bedroom, but I knew that wasn't going to make me happy. And fortunately, going to people that I trust their advice and realizing I'll never forget it, I'm in this group with my attorney and six or seven other kind of entrepreneur business owners not in our space, and all of us had a lawsuit going with them at the same time. And I realized this is just normal. This is part of the game. But in that particular situation, it's my fault. I hired the people. I retained them.

Chris Relth [00:30:37]:
I let them get away with certain things that I shouldn't have because it was making money. So don't do business with bad people and run backdoor references. That's always helpful.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:48]:
When it comes to now that you've had that lesson, how do you go find the good people to grow your team? And second question. This is, like, many times in recruiting, like, once you start doing good, you kind of start looking around, like, why am I still here when I could go do it myself? How do you keep those top performers also?

Chris Relth [00:31:05]:
Yeah, I mean, I think if someone chooses to do that, I would support them. You know, that's a big risk for any contingent firm. I'll give them advice. I'll tell them the mistakes, but I'll also tell them the pros and cons of it. Right? So, like, my first business partner, he's a couple person shop that ironically transitioned from temp to perm, and he does extremely well. So we had split up, but remained really good friends. And when I started growing, particularly the staffing side, he was like, hey, I should have stuck with it. And then I got in all the legal stuff and im like, I should do what hes doing and be a small shop.

Chris Relth [00:31:35]:
So I think the risk of people that are considering it and its not a terrible move, but theres a couple of things and why I never did it was, number one, being that captured vendor back in the day, because if youre a one two person shop, you can only support a certain amount of clients and if they go away, youre screwed. Two, you're not building an asset. So then it comes down to if you think the financials of that situation, yes, you can make more money technically along the way, but you're not building anything worth anything because no one's going to buy, literally you, they're not buying your book of business, they're buying you. Right. And then, you know, third, when I talk to people that have gone that route, we're in conversations one right now and he's a huge producer by himself and he's getting kind of lonely. Reason I didn't do it is I didn't, I knew I didn't want to recruit forever. And if you want to sell and be in front of clients and also recruit, that's really difficult if you want to be at events and stuff like that because you just got to put in the hours. So when I'm talking to folks like that, I go, listen, yeah, you're going to give up, let's call it 50% of the commission, let's call it.

Chris Relth [00:32:29]:
But if you love selling and we've got the execution team, the marketing support, the finances, to build a team underneath you, if you can sell twice as much, because now you have twice the time and you're making the same money, but you're building an asset, why wouldn't you do that? Blame anyone that tries to do it. But you find most people don't. And then you see so many that go, oh, now I want to, I've had, hey, I'm interested in your firm, but they've been trying to run a firm the last two years. You're like, no, because the minute the market gets hot, you're going to go do that again.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:58]:
I actually just had an interview with somebody from the Pinnacle society and she had a firm for, I think it was like nine to 13 years and decided to hang it up and go internal just because some of the headaches that you went through, she's just like, I just want to recruit?

Chris Relth [00:33:09]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:10]:
I just want to be a top producer.

Chris Relth [00:33:12]:
Yeah. And I've heard that a lot. And it's, you know, there's that saying, like, your worst day is your worst day. So when you start out in this business and someone didn't send you a resume, oh, my gosh, it's terrible. And eventually lose five deals in a quarter, and then sometimes everything goes sideways, but you get used to it and it's just part of the game. I just believe, like, what goes around comes around. You might lose the deal you thought you won. And I used to get pissed off when I was young in this business.

Chris Relth [00:33:32]:
Like, I was the guy that would throw stuff. And what I realized is, like, what did I do or what did I not do? And I got over pretty quickly going, okay, if I put my best foot forward when I was still recruiting and selling and I lost a deal, great. You can't be mad about that. But it was usually when I got upset was when I didn't put my best friend forward. I didn't uncover that black and white reason, like, let's say it was another 30 minutes the candidate had to drive versus their current job. Right. You gotta address that early on. The advice I give is, on that topic is you gotta be a positive pessimist.

Chris Relth [00:34:01]:
You gotta look for why the person's not going to take the job, not why they aren't a take a job. And you got to talk about that early and often. So even if it's like, oh, you're concerned this particular company might give a counteroffer that should be in the first conversation. Right? Hey, how about if that's what you're looking for, here's all the stats why you shouldn't do that. I can write you a fake offer if you want, you can go leverage it. But let's not waste our time and burn your brand with this company and these relationships if you're going to go that route.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:25]:
Awesome. Well, I mean, is there anything that you can recognize as your secret that you could share to kind of like teach other people to, you know, have that trust network, have that referrals coming in that leads to business?

Chris Relth [00:34:40]:
Yeah, I think it's gotta earn their trust, gotta be likable. And trust is so many different things. They might trust you to drive their kids to school, but do they trust you to work with one of their, you know, let's say one of my centers of influence is a financial advisor that has a wealthy client, and he introduces me, and I screw that up. You got to trust it. Because it's part of their business, too. But I think it's getting out there and it's really looking at who do I want to be in front of? And a lot of people go, I shouldn't, you know, be in that room. And they get imposter syndrome. I'll never forget I had it where when I was young, you know, going to Chico State for five and a half years, and all of a sudden I was hanging out with these Harvard business school guys, like, I don't belong here.

Chris Relth [00:35:17]:
And then I get all shy. And what you realize is they're just people. These are just people. Build a relationship with them, find some commonality. And one of my rules is, again, the work life balancing. I want to hang out with people, id hang out with anyhow. So even if someone with a lot of business, but I just dont see the world the same way, maybe I dont work with that person, lets find someone else. Its being really disciplined.

Chris Relth [00:35:36]:
Same thing I tell, like any of these service based industries, including ours, the biggest producers that are the happiest generally arent at big firms. And theyre niched, and theyre niche within a niche. Too many people in our industry get caught up in being a generalist. I dont think youll ever be a consistent, huge builder if you're a generalist. Although I guess I kind of am because of the referral business. But those that are picking up the phone and trying to get business that way, just anything and everything. All my biggest years have been when I was in a niche. Because you figure out that niche, you know, the competition, you know how to sell it, you know how to sell against, you know how to get a hold of the candidate again.

Chris Relth [00:36:07]:
Time management. How can you run the most efficient thing?

Benjamin Mena [00:36:10]:
So when you talk about niche and you talk about niche in a niche, so I give you a perfect example. You know, you have see a lot of people that are like cybersecurity recruiters or, you know, a Govcon recruiter, but there's so many different sectors. How niche down do you typically have to see to be that go to person, that rainmaker, that big biller?

Chris Relth [00:36:27]:
Typically, yeah. I look at some people I know in our industry, there's a guy that only does partners at law firms of a certain size, and he does like six searches a year that are worth a ton of money. I know a guy that places analysts at these types of hedge funds that they're in sowing need, and that's all he does. And everybody knows. And he's built a brand around that. So as an example, I think you start small. So let's say someone, whether staffing, recruiting or retained, if you're an accounting and finance person, you don't want to be the guy or the salesperson that can do anything. Accounting and finance.

Chris Relth [00:37:00]:
You need a CFO and you need an accounts bill person. That's it. Let's do it. And some people can be successful that way. But I think you go to market as these are the five rules. These size companies in this industry, this is what I do. I'm your person. And then of course you can have multiple of them, right? So you might be these five accounting finance positions at manufacturing companies or construction companies that are $50 to $100 million with this setup and you go that route.

Chris Relth [00:37:23]:
But then all of a sudden you're doing five different rules at construction companies that are 250 million to 500 million or whatever it is, however you decipher that, but focusing on that niche because then you're going to get relationships versus trying to build relationships with everything.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:36]:
I absolutely love that. Well, before we jump over the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share about any of the stuff that we've covered already?

Chris Relth [00:37:43]:
Um, no. I think if I can give any more clarity on what the head hunting piece means, that's a lot of it. Because it's not just the building on the relationship side for the referrals. The cool thing about this industry is people move jobs, right? So if you do really well with a particular client and you build a relationship with a couple hiring managers and that person leaves, I've picked up so many clients because that person leaves and now that they're in a leadership role or whatever, then they call me and boom, new client. So really just doing good work selling something is great. But an example ill give you, when people write a write up on a candidates, the middle our industry tends to go, lets say its a sales role because thats easy. Best salesperson ever. Amazing performer.

Chris Relth [00:38:22]:
My rule is dont make any assumptions, only facts. So if you want to say that, then you say number two on a team of 100 the last three years or whatever it is. And if you think your candidates at ten, position them as an eight because you're going to build trust that way. Because if you get on the phone, if you're a hiring manager and you think this is going to be the most amazing thing and this firm's awesome, and then you find out that candidate actually didn't perform, that was fired, and you didn't tell your client that you lost all the trust and, you know, good luck getting other candidates through the mix.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:50]:
How is that solid? Jumping over to the quick questions, and I know these are definitely relevant because you're actively growing a team. What advice would you give to a recruiter that's just getting started in our industry? Be successful?

Chris Relth [00:39:01]:
Yeah, I think obviously pick up the phone is the first thing, but I've had people that can pick up the phone all day long. It's the ability to build a relationship, really focus on how do you do that, get educated on that, go find mentors that have done that at a very, very high level niche. Don't look at the deal in front of you, but execute on that. Deal with the attention of what long term business can you earn when you first start? I think focusing on the front end numbers and the conversion ratios. If it's phone calls, what's your phone call to connect ratio? How do you improve that so you can get more pulled through in a pipeline versus just focusing on make more phone calls? I'd say time blocking right out of the gate. Because when you first start in this business, it's easy to remember anything. Like earlier in our conversation, you remember everything. I know who that candidate is.

Chris Relth [00:39:44]:
But as you then take on maybe a full desk, now you've got a robust pipeline and you got a new search. Like be time blocked and plan your day ahead of time. And always add a little buffer. So if you're going to make an hour of phone calls, plan for an hour and 20 minutes, but only make that hour because you're building some free time for the inevitable fires that are going to come up. I think classic mistake early on in people making this business, including myself, is you don't have to know everything, especially recruiting technical roles. If you're talking to a PhD from MIT, you're not going to know the technologies as well as they do, but you know what to ask and you know how to read their answers and that's how you get a educated on it. Other things, I think intellectual curiosity is key. I call it inch deep, mile wide.

Chris Relth [00:40:25]:
Like, we've worked in so many different industries and I think that's one of the someone asking, what do I love about our industry? I get to learn about a new client that makes money in a way that I didn't know exists on a weekly basis. I think that's really fun. So being intellectually curious and be able to talk about a lot of different topics, and then I'd say fundamentally, it's the grit you got to have grit and the other, I said it earlier, but successful, quote unquote successful people. Do you like to help? Ask for it.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:49]:
Awesome. Same question. But for somebody that's been around the block, there's somebody that's been in the industry 510 25 years. What advice would you give to them?

Chris Relth [00:40:58]:
Yeah, I think we're going through this transformational time with all this new tech. Right. But I was talking to someone that was in the industry. Like when I got in, you had to cold call. Actually made cold calls back then, cause now no one does. But cold calling to a company, a transfer to landline, not know what they did. If it's male, female, that's a cold call. The generation before that would literally fax an office for an open role and hope whoever picked it up on the fax machine called them.

Chris Relth [00:41:23]:
I talked to a guy from that generation and I think any old school person thats been doing this enough may or may not agree with me. Most probably should. But bottom line production with all this technology hasnt gone up. I think theres a lot of fear around the tech and its going to replace us. And I think thats a risk. But its a risk for the people that have built a business on inmails or job boards or things that could be automated. I think the rules that require relationship, or the relationship with the client and some consultative based approach, those are the ones that aren't going to go away. I think, you know, other things for old school people just don't read into the hype of all that stuff.

Chris Relth [00:41:58]:
I look at all this technology, mostly it's a tool to let people know or get in front of people. But it's also created laziness to a certain extent because a search you might have got ten leads on ten years ago, now you can get 102 minutes. And just again, if five people reply to an email, is that the best candidate? So focus on the service level to differentiate yourself because if we can all just send in mails and submit candidates, guess what. Well probably have you out of a job eventually.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:26]:
Well, talking about like tech into that kind of stuff, do you have like a favorite rec tech tool that you love?

Chris Relth [00:42:30]:
Um, the phone? I just wish people picked it up more. No, we use a lot of different tools. I think definitely the research portion of the game, right. I think when I got in that science part, the research, the finding people, that was like 10% of the job. The rest was what I call the art part, that being on the phone, the persuasive skill set, meetings, consulting, all of a sudden it became like 70% of peoples day. So what we did here is, okay, business 101. If this is, call it $40 an hour activity and you want to be worth 100, $200 an hour, why are you doing it? So we have someone that will do all of that that allows you to then, you know, take the extra 4 hours you just got back in your day to be on the phone. And we create a win win.

Chris Relth [00:43:06]:
And the company covers that cost with the premise of we'd rather have, you know, we want to build a happy workforce. Started with ours, right? So if you could do 400 doing everything, let's say, in gross profit, and now we can give you the tools and the support and marketing to do 600 with the same efforts focused on the activities you actually like doing. Because who really loves doing sourcing and finding phone numbers. You're going to be happier, you're going to make more money, you're going to bill more. Why not? So we're investing a lot in that to, in a way, segment the role in a third. So we have research that handles all that, maybe even the initial reach out. You have client partner, the salesperson, you have recruiter. So we'll get more people than a typical contingent.

Chris Relth [00:43:44]:
If we're just talking contingent person, full desk. They're doing everything. Sourcing the client, sourcing the candidate. So we've got sourcing now internally for the client side of things. Right. So if you're a salesperson, you want to build that niche. We talked about going after construction companies, let's say, for accounting and finance for these five roles. We'll do all that for you.

Chris Relth [00:44:01]:
Take whatever methodology and have it running potentially 24/7 if that leads to leads while you're focused on actually calling people.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:08]:
I think that's incredible. I think that's going to be some of the secret sauce that if companies want to grow, they need to have that back in support for their people. Do you ever have, like, these people that like, get in a recruiting role and they want to jump over to the research or the sourcing side of the house? Do you ever see that within your organization?

Chris Relth [00:44:24]:
I haven't, but it could certainly happen. Right. One of the things we do at Artemis is, I believe in unlimited growth. So, you know, if someone wants to take something on or grow their role bigger, they can do that. We will not have a glass ceiling here. Everyone here has a seat at the table. So if they see a better way to do things and it's more efficient, bring it. We'll do it.

Chris Relth [00:44:41]:
Most of it will fail and we're willing to do that. You're not going to get shit from us. If your idea didn't go right, if you vetted it out, we're just going to learn from it. Right. But I haven't seen anyone go from the recruiting side to the research side as of yet. But the way we've structured that role, it's, there's also a commission component to it. So we try to tie everything to one person's success isn't just that one person, it's everyone's success. So if the researcher does a great job on the research and the recruiter in that situation fills the role, they won and the researcher won.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:08]:
Nice. I love that. Awesome. Has there been a book that has made a huge impact on your career?

Chris Relth [00:45:14]:
So many. I'm one of those ADHD, dyslexic. I could read really fast but don't remember. So I'm more of an audible book guy. Good to great. Had a big impact. Jim Collins. There's a fabulous story, speaking of going through the entrepreneurial crappy journey, shoe dogs, Phil Knight's story of Nike.

Chris Relth [00:45:30]:
And I was recommended to a bunch of people. I listened to it and it's literally 99% about the Nike none of us know about. And all the times he should have quit, should have thrown in the pal and look what he turned into. So it's an inspirational story. And then the executive coach I work with, he wrote a book called it's fantastic High Achievers. And the whole premise, he did a thesis in the eighties, I believe. And it's okay, let's take all these high achievers. How many are happy or what percent are happy? And it's like 8%.

Chris Relth [00:45:56]:
So what are the commonalities between high achievers and what are the commonalities between the actual happy high achievers lifes about being happy. Right. It's a great short read that has some stories in it. The hard thing about hard things, I think it's Ben Horowitz. That's a really good one too. I've got so many I could recommend, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:15]:
The executive coach that told you to just go for it, is it the same executive coach that you have now?

Chris Relth [00:46:21]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:22]:
How do you think his coaching over time has impacted your business?

Chris Relth [00:46:25]:
Tremendously. It's a foundation and he had done extremely well in life. And part of a happy high achiever is purpose. So his purpose is to do this. He doesn't do it for the money, so he kind of flies under the radar. I'd say he's the Michael Jordan of coaching. Everyone knows Tony Robbins, but he's. I can name tons of executives he's worked with and just meeting the other people in the network and the focus there is the happy I achiever, one of the commonalities.

Chris Relth [00:46:49]:
So it's not just business by any means. It's personal as well. It's made a huge, huge impact in my life, and I've met with plenty of other coaches and some of them are great, but I'm just so fortunate to have worked with him over the years.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:02]:
Awesome. Talking about your wins, talking about you doing all the stuff that you've done with the business, the growth, the success. When it comes to you, what do you think has been a huge driver for your own personal success?

Chris Relth [00:47:16]:
Trey? It's changed over the years. I think in my twenties it was make money, make money, and that was when we were the captured vendor and I did that, but I wasn't. I wasn't happy. For me, it's enjoying what I'm doing, feel like I'm creating value, an opportunity to give back, to create a legacy to impact lives. For me now it's solving for a feeling, not a number, with the belief that if I hit that feeling, the number will be exponentially bigger. And it's treating people well and feeling like I get to go to work, I don't got to go to work, and there is a big difference. And most days I feel like I get to, unless I have to see a redline agreement.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:52]:
And we're going to kind of go back to the two years of hell and probably some other, you know, there's always ups and downs in this business.

Chris Relth [00:48:00]:
Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:00]:
But for you personally, how do you deal with those hard days and those hard weeks and those hard months? Like, how do you pull yourself through?

Chris Relth [00:48:08]:
I think a big change for me is being open, being vulnerable, because what you'll find is whatever you're going through, someone else has already been through it and probably at a larger scale than you ever imagined. So putting yourself on an island in those situations doesn't serve you well at all. It's talking to people, getting reassured, having people around me. I'm kind of a direct shooter, so I have different people in my network that will give me direct feedback. And feeling that people believe in me sometimes more than I ever believed in myself, kind of makes me feel like I'm on the hook and accountable to live up to what they can see in me. But again, going through some of the stuff I keep a picture of my grandfather up there as an example. If Im having a rough day, thats him on a cot. Korea during World War Two, probably weighs 120 pounds.

Chris Relth [00:48:55]:
Im like, really? My day? Is that bad because I lost this deal or this client didnt give back to me. Theres the bigger things, a workers comp claim or some of that, the b's that comes with being a business owner once youve been through it. We got a legal letter a couple weeks ago and I would have freaked out ten years ago and I was like, oh cool, okay, how do we deal with this? It just doesn't become as big of a deal. So surround yourself with people that have already been there and you realize it's normal, I guess would be my advice. It's just part of the game.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:22]:
Awesome. Now this is going to be a two part question. With all the lessons you've learned, the placements you've made, the people we've hired, the years of recruiting, if you can go back to the very beginning of your recruiting career, like we'll say one or two months in, what advice would you give yourself?

Chris Relth [00:49:36]:
Yeah, I'd say focus on what's going to make you happy. And that feeling that I started focusing on a couple of years ago, not the money for me when I really committed to let's grow, let's create this thing, it's the people, it's the culture and the relationships. It's not paying attention to the number, obviously those matter, but if you focus on those things, you focus on the right culture, you focus on truly caring about the people you work with. It takes the right people but having their back personally and professionally. And we've created this environment with one of our values is trust. And we created our values. I'd done it so many times in the past, it's kind of funny where print these values and I'd write them up and put them on desks and then no one remembered them. And so it took us six months this time, and finally the way we team up on them, we sat a room and we said what do we not want? And the three of us doing this all at the same time said lying.

Chris Relth [00:50:25]:
And so then we word bubbled everything and the word trust came up. Thats why we went with trust. What does that mean? Follow up and follow through. If you make a mistake here, its totally okay, just wear it, dont hide from it. Where a lot of companies, its like, oh, maybe they wont notice. Hey, totally screwed this up. Cool dude. How do we fix it? Not a big deal.

Chris Relth [00:50:43]:
Of course if it happens ten times then it becomes a bigger deal. But starting with that it really is. Id been told this, I knew this but its really focusing on the people. Its the same thing I tell a client thats hiring fast. You may think you're hiring a players but in the market that really see players and if you're growing fast two years from now, guess what? You're never going to get the a player. So it's a building a team of a players regardless of experience level that fit in culturally first, that have character, that integrity, that look out for each other that aren't the shark tank which is most of our industry. Right where I believe in what goes around comes around. So if someone works on a search, fills it six months later they didn't have the bandwidth, someone else works on it and fills it with one of their path k's.

Chris Relth [00:51:21]:
We should celebrate that because it'll come back around to that person again and we've done a really good job. It's the thing I'm by far the most proud of is our team and the synergies with it right now and I wish I would have learned that lesson a long time ago.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:34]:
Well I'm going to re ask this question again and you might recap a story but if not like awesome, everything that you know, like the stuff that you've gone through. If you got a chance to go back and sit down with yourself in the first month or two of Artemis, what advice would you give yourself?

Chris Relth [00:51:50]:
Be a little bit more detailed in what matters most like what is the culture? What are the people that are going to fit in? What is our value proposition that can be executed on a little bit more of the planning versus we just got to make money and focusing there. The easy way to say it is working on the business, not in the business. I knew that term and I still struggle with it. But if I were to focus to more there I wouldnt have had some of those mistakes. I would have been much farther along than we are right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:17]:
Just for the listeners. In a recruiting business, what is the difference between working on your business versus in your business?

Chris Relth [00:52:22]:
Yeah in it is just responding to the emails that come into your inbox all day long. Working on your business is maybe getting out of the office, bringing some key stakeholders together and going what do we want? Whats going to make us happy? What are we seeing in the market right now? One of the things were exploring with the IT division is nearshoring. How can we set up to serve clients here in the US that are now open to hiring outside the US for multiple reasons. Is that the future? How do we differentiate ourselves? Right. It's really hard to do in staffing, it's hard to do in contingent as well because we all kind of say the same thing in front of a client. It's really comes down to who can execute and getting the chance to do that. But how can we truly differentiate ourselves? How can we make clients feel different? How can we challenge that status quo? That's the working on the business stuff.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:07]:
Awesome. Now, before I let you go, if anybody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Chris Relth [00:53:13]:
I've been joking for, I don't know, five, six years that I was going to get a bigger presence on the LinkedIn of the world. But you get caught up and I realized again, being an entrepreneurial, it's like I can do everything and anything. So I'm working on outsource that. But probably LinkedIn's the best. Just find me on LinkedIn, add me. Happy to answer any questions. I mean most people are industry are pretty good at finding an email. So if someone wants to dig my brain about something, feel free to reach out.

Chris Relth [00:53:37]:
But LinkedIn is probably the best way. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:38]:
And before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Chris Relth [00:53:42]:
Yeah, I think overwhelming thing about our industry, lets just all commit to focusing on quality over quantity and truly serving the client well, so we can keep things alive and not get replaced by what everyone thinks. With AI, I dont believe that. I think certain aspects, its the same thing as when LinkedIn came out and we all went, oh shit. And then clients were like, oh we got this LinkedIn thing, were going to use that and six months later they called you because, yeah, it didn't work the way they thought they could, but quality over quantity, let's just all kind of commit to doing that. And I think everyone be amazed. Is it easy? No. But telling the truth to the client will get you more business if you can execute than anything else will.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:21]:
Awesome. Well Chris, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. It's one of the things in our space is like, at least I grew up, everything was just so transactional. In the recruiting world. I learned transactional, I was trained transactional, I was absolutely transactional. But if you want to stay in this game for a long time, you got to learn how to go deep in relationships. I love that you broke down like what you're doing, like things that you're doing to get those long term relationships that build the trust and how to build trust with your network that turns into a referral machine that you get to serve them year after year. So, Chris, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and for the listeners.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:57]:
I want you to make this year your best year yet. Keep crushing it, guys. Thank you.

Chris Relth [00:55:01]:
Thanks, Benjamin. Thanks for listening to this episode of the elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.