Recruiting Conversations

Richard Milligan, Recruiting Coach
  • 4.7 (47)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Biweekly

Welcome to the Recruiting Conversations Podcast, a conversation designed to help Recruiting Leaders who manage a team as well as recruit. Richard Milligan is a speaker, author, strategist, and recruiting coach who built 21 teams as a Recruiting Leader.

  1. 2d ago

    2.1 Years to 62 Days: 5 Moves That Collapsed My Recruiting Timeline

    You're making the calls, you're sending the messages, you're showing up every single day and outworking everybody you know, and the recruiting board just isn't moving. The seats aren't filling, and there's this quiet voice in the back of your head asking if you're even cut out for this. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. The problem almost never is how hard you're working. It's what you're working. Once you point that same effort at the one thing that moves people, recruiting stops feeling like a grind and starts feeling like momentum. I'll give you a five-move framework I call the Relationship Capital Account. Episode Breakdown [00:01:21] The Season I'm Least Proud Of For years I was what I'd call a hardcore recruiter. I chased, I pitched, I led with the opportunity, my company, my comp, my whole presentation, and I worked like a maniac doing it. A few years back I pulled my own CRM data to see what all that effort was buying me, and the numbers stopped me cold. [00:01:47] From 2.1 Years to 62 Days In my hardcore recruiting years, it took me an average of 2.1 years to land a single hire. More than two years of grinding per person. Then I changed one thing. I quit showing up as a recruiter and started showing up as a relationship builder. Same CRM, same industry, same me. When I pulled that number again, it had collapsed to 62 days. My effort was never the problem. I was always willing to outwork the room. The effort was pointed at the wrong thing, spent trying to extract a decision instead of building something that made the decision easy. [00:02:43] The Framework: The Relationship Capital Account Picture a bank account, except what you're depositing isn't money, it's relationship. Every real conversation you capture, every piece of value you give, every time you show up useful, that's a deposit. Bringing somebody onto your team, that's a withdrawal. And here's the rule that trips people up. You can only make a big withdrawal if you've funded the account first. [00:03:15] Move 1: Audit Where Your Effort Is Going Most of us count dials and texts and how busy we felt, and none of that is a deposit, it's just activity. The average leader follows up with only 7 people about once every 9 to 12 months, and the most common message is some version of just checking in. That's the friend zone, and the friend zone doesn't convert. So look hard at your last 90 days and separate the activity from the real deposits. [00:03:49] Move 2: Trade Checking In for Value That Earns Its Way Back When you give somebody something useful with nothing attached, they lean toward you. I invested real time into writing one article recently, put it out with no ask on it, and the next week 5 people reached out wanting time on my calendar. I didn't chase a single one of them. The value did the pulling. [00:04:12] Move 3: Make Your Deposits on a Cadence and Build Them on One Idea Most leaders either go quiet for months or they dump everything at once and have nothing left to say. Pick one idea and ascend on it. Send one valuable piece this month, then next month point right back to it and hand them the next step to use it. You're not starting over, you're stacking value on one thread, and every touch gives you a reason to show up again. [00:04:40] Move 4: Reopen Your Cold Names With a Value-First Ask You've got people who went quiet or told you not right now, and most leaders just let them sit. Don't. Reach back out and tell them the truth, that one of your goals this year is to become more valuable to the people in your world, and ask if they'd be open to you sharing an idea from time to time when you think it'll help them grow their business. Almost everybody says yes, because you're not asking for anything, you're offering. [00:05:20] Move 5: Measure the Account, Not the Activity Stop scoring your week by how many dials you made and start scoring it by how much capital you built. Even a small list works. If you've got 6 good names and you send every one of them real value every single month, the odds say one of those six will make a move inside the next year, and you'll be the call when they do. I coached a branch leader who ran a value-first campaign on his target list for 90 days and hired 18 loan officers, because nobody else in their world was bringing that kind of value. He didn't outwork everybody. He just funded the account before he tried to make a withdrawal. [00:06:02] Why It Works When you lead with value and you're not asking for anything, you flip the whole dynamic, and the recruit stops feeling recruited and starts feeling led. That's why one article turned into five conversations with zero chasing. Relationship capital compounds, so the deposits you make before you need them are the ones that pay off the biggest. Think about a great outfielder. The best ones never have to dive, they read it early and they're already standing where the ball is going to land. That's what a funded account does for you. And the biggest reason of all is the one I lived. When you stop being a recruiter and start being a relationship builder, the timeline doesn't shrink a little, it collapses, the way mine went from two years to two months. The grind never moved my number. The relationship did. [00:07:14] Your Small Win Today Pull your CRM and count how many people you delivered real value to in the last 90 days. Not checked in on, gave something useful to. That number is your starting capital, and just knowing it changes how you spend tomorrow. [00:07:34] Three Bigger Moves This Week Pick six names and send each one a real piece of value, all pointing back to one idea, so your warm pipeline stops going cold and your team sees what value-first looks like in practice. Hunt down every just-checking-in message in your follow-up and replace it with something of value, so you stop friend-zoning your best names and start converting them. Then take one playbook or resource you already have, run it through AI, and break it into six pieces of value, so you can recruit off one asset for a quarter instead of scrambling for something new every single week. Key Takeaways The problem almost never is how hard you're working. It's what you're working. You can only make a big withdrawal if you've funded the account first. Hires come out of relationship capital you deposited long before you needed it. Dials and texts and how busy you felt aren't deposits. They're activity. Just checking in is the friend zone, and the friend zone doesn't convert. Value moves people, contact doesn't. Give something useful with no ask attached and the value does the pulling. One article, five inbound conversations, zero chasing. Six good names getting real value every single month beats a huge cold list. The odds say one of those six moves inside the year, and you'll be the call. Stop being a recruiter and start being a relationship builder and the timeline doesn't shrink, it collapses. 2.1 years to 62 days on the same CRM. If you want help building your own recruiting system, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to think it through with you. And if you'd rather build this kind of thing in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. The next one's July 17th at 12 PM ET. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  2. Jul 7

    Recruits Can Smell Your Template: 5 Moves to Automate Without Losing Them

    You know you need to be consistent. The leaders who win are the ones who stay in the conversation over months and years. But the moment you try to automate your follow-up, it feels robotic, and people can smell a template from a mile off. So you're stuck choosing between consistent but cold or personal but hit and miss. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. Automation isn't the enemy of the relationship. Used right, it's the thing that protects it. You automate the structure, and you leave the connection alone. I'll give you a five-move framework I call Automate the Structure, Protect the Connection. Episode Breakdown [00:01:18] The Proof: This Podcast Is a Cloned Voice The podcast you're listening to right now is a cloned version of my voice. We've been running it that way for over a year, and almost nobody has noticed. The reason they don't notice is that it's built entirely from my own words. My newsletter goes out twice a week, written by AI but trained only on my own knowledge base, never on random stuff scraped off the internet, so it doesn't come out generic. It comes out sounding like me at scale. [00:02:01] The Insight: Automation Multiplies You, It Doesn't Replace You The automation didn't replace me, it multiplied me, because what got handed to the machine was the structure and the heavy lifting while the voice running through all of it stayed mine. The leaders losing the relationship are the ones who automated their voice. The leaders winning automated everything around their voice and guarded the voice itself. [00:02:35] Move 1: Separate Structure From Communication This is the unlock. The system's only job is to tell you who to reach and when to reach them. That's structure, and structure is the part that fails us, because we forget. The message itself, the words, that's communication, and that part stays human and stays yours. Let the system carry the reminder and keep the relationship in your own hands. [00:03:00] Move 2: Trade the Drip for a Value Stream A generic drip sequence built on templates tells a sharp producer one thing, that they're on a list somewhere. Replace it with a steady stream of specific, useful value aimed at that one person. And the bar out there is low. Most leaders follow up with about 7 people once every 9 to 12 months, and 97% of them open with I'm just checking in. Checking in moves nothing. Value moves the relationship forward. [00:03:40] Move 3: Write to an Audience of One My rule is that nothing goes out unless it reads like it was written for a single person, even when it's scaled to hundreds. Spam is the single most non-affirming thing a leader can send, and affirmation is one of the strongest leading indicators of recruiting success there is. So whether it goes to one recruit or 200, it has to feel like it was meant for the one person reading it. [00:04:08] Move 4: Make the Value Tangible and Make It Fast Don't promise a benefit, hand over a real one. Instead of telling a recruit you'll introduce them to people someday, hand them the top 250 real estate agents in their market. With the tools we have now, that's about a 3-minute exercise, and almost no recruiter ever does it. Automation is what lets you deliver something that specific across a whole pipeline without it swallowing your week. [00:04:40] Move 5: Train the AI on You and Keep Your Hands on It If you're going to let AI help you draft, train it only on your own words and your own stories, then tell it to sound like you. Ban the short, choppy sentences, kill the dashes, and keep the writing flowing the way you talk. Just like working with a human writer, when it makes mistakes, give it feedback so it can improve. Generic inputs will always give you generic outputs. Keep a human in the loop, and that human is you or someone on your team. That one pass before send is the difference between scaled and soulless, and it costs you about a minute. [00:05:35] Why It Works People can feel the difference between being processed and being seen every time, even when they can't put a finger on it. Automate the connection itself and they feel processed, and you lose them. But look at what was broken in the first place. It was never your sincerity, it was your structure. You don't forget to care, you forget who to call and when. When you automate the structure and protect the communication, you're fixing the part that was broken instead of the part that was already fine. Value works because contact on its own is just noise, while a specific useful thing delivered to the right person is a deposit, and deposits move a relationship forward. And training the AI on you guards the one thing that can never be copied, which is your voice. [00:06:29] Your Small Win Tonight Take the next follow-up you're about to send, the just-checking-in one, and rewrite it around one useful thing for that specific person. One article, one introduction, one insight they'd want. Send that instead. The win is turning a single check-in into a single deposit. [00:06:54] Three Bigger Moves This Week Identify a cadence for value delivery, then set up a simple reminder system that tells you who to touch and when, so consistency stops riding on your memory and your warm relationships stop going cold while you're buried in everything else. Take one generic drip and rebuild it as a value stream for your top prospects, so your follow-up starts feeling like a relationship instead of a list, and that's what keeps people in the conversation for years. Then have your AI tool interview you to identify your voice and how you speak, train it on your meetings, emails, and social posts, and review every piece before it goes out so you scale your voice without any of it sliding into noise. Key Takeaways Automation isn't the enemy of the relationship. Used right, it's the thing that protects it. Automate the structure and protect the connection. Automate the voice itself and you lose people. The system's only job is to tell you who to reach and when. The words stay human and stay yours. Most leaders follow up with 7 people once every 9 to 12 months, and 97% open with just checking in. Checking in moves nothing, value does. Write to an audience of one, even at scale. Spam is the most non-affirming thing a leader can send. Don't promise a benefit, hand over a real one. The top 250 agents in a recruit's market is a 3-minute deposit almost no recruiter ever makes. What was broken was never your sincerity, it was your structure. You don't forget to care, you forget who to call and when. If you want help building a follow-up system that scales your voice instead of flattening it, or help training your AI tools to mimic you, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to think it through with you. And if you'd rather build this kind of thing in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. The next one's July 17 at 12 PM ET. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  3. Jun 30

    They Hear the Doubt Before You Finish: 5 Moves to a Certain Tone

    You can have the perfect words. The script can be tight, and it still falls flat, because people hear the hesitation. They feel the doubt underneath your voice, and they react to your tone long before they process a single word you say. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. People respond to how you say it before they respond to what you say, and certainty in your delivery isn't a personality trait you were born with. It's something you build. I'll give you a five-move framework I call Certainty Is Built, Not Faked. Episode Breakdown [00:01:22] The Definition That Explains Everything: Recruiting Is a Transference of Energy For a long time I thought the magic was in the words, in finding the perfect line. Then I started paying attention to what was happening on my calls, and people weren't responding to the words at all. They were responding to whatever sat underneath them. When I was certain, certainty transferred. When I was unsure, that came through too, no matter how clean the script was. Two leaders can read the identical words off the identical page, and one fills the room with energy while the other drains it. The script was never the difference. What was getting transferred underneath it was. [00:02:14] Move 1: Start With Belief Certainty in your tone runs downstream of certainty in your conviction. A leader without a clear, exciting vision has nothing to transfer, and the voice always tells the truth the words are trying to hide. So before you touch delivery, settle your own belief. Are you sure about where you're taking people? Are you sure this is a great place to land? If the answer wobbles, that's the first thing to fix, because no amount of vocal technique covers a leader who isn't sure. [00:02:54] Move 2: Anchor to the Future Everything that excites you lives out in front of you, the growth, the milestone, the thing you're building. So before every call this week, name one specific future outcome that lights you up and open the call carrying it. Start flat and the whole call runs flat. Start anchored to something that moves you and the energy is real, and real energy is the thing that transfers. [00:03:21] Move 3: Slow Your Pace Down Certainty sounds slow and grounded. Hesitation rushes, and it scrambles to fill every silence. So leave some space. Stop talking just to plug the gap, because the person who's comfortable with a beat of silence is the one who sounds in control. Pace is one of the loudest certainty signals you have, and almost nobody manages it on purpose. [00:03:48] Move 4: Fix the Room People feel your energy through whatever channel you're on, and the channel eats some of it on the way. On a virtual meeting especially, the ordinary everyday version of you drains the room, because the screen flattens everything by default. So you add the energy back on purpose. Raise it a notch, use your hands, sort out your lighting and your audio before the call ever starts. That isn't vanity, it's clearing the obstacles between your certainty and the other person feeling it. Treat the camera like a recruiting stage instead of a casual call. [00:04:30] Move 5: Pursue With Certainty The way you chase tells people everything about your belief. Here's a number that should stop you cold. A company left more than 3,000 voicemails and got about 12 callbacks, and not one of them was a fit. A voicemail mostly says please call me back, and that's a low-status, uncertain move. Certainty dials, then redials within the hour, then dials again before the day is out, without ever leaving the needy message. How you pursue is part of your tone too. [00:05:05] Why It Works Human beings process tone before content. We're wired to read the emotional signal first, to decide is this person safe and is this person sure, before we ever weigh the information itself. So your tone arrives first and frames everything that comes after it. Certainty and doubt are both contagious, which is the whole idea behind transference, and it's the reason your inner state matters more than your script. And anchoring to the future works because that excitement isn't manufactured, it's real, and real emotion carries in a way performed emotion never will. You're not learning to fake confidence. You're learning to connect to something true and let it ride through your voice. [00:05:52] Your Small Win Tonight Before your next call, write down the one thing about your business that has you fired up this week, then say your opening line out loud over and over until it sounds as sure as you feel about that one thing. That's the win for tonight, getting your voice to match your belief in the first 30 seconds. [00:06:15] Three Bigger Moves This Week Record yourself on a real call or a role play and just listen, for hesitation, for pace, for energy, because you can't fix a tone you've never heard, and once you can hear it you can coach it in everyone around you. Fix your virtual setup, the lighting, the audio, the energy you bring to the screen, because when you model that, your whole team's calls start landing better. Then kill the voicemail habit and replace it with dialing and redialing, which protects your team's time and shows them what it looks like to pursue without begging. Key Takeaways People respond to how you say it before they respond to what you say. Certainty isn't a trait you were born with, it's built. Recruiting is a transference of energy and passion. The script was never the difference, what gets transferred underneath it is. Certainty in your tone runs downstream of certainty in your conviction. The voice always tells the truth the words are trying to hide. Certainty sounds slow and grounded. The person comfortable with a beat of silence is the one who sounds in control. The screen flattens your energy by default, so on video you add it back on purpose. Treat the camera like a recruiting stage. How you pursue is part of your tone. Certainty dials and redials, it doesn't leave the needy voicemail (3,000 voicemails, 12 callbacks, zero fits). You're not learning to fake confidence. You're learning to connect to something true and let it ride through your voice. If you want help getting your delivery to match your belief, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to work through it with you. And if you'd rather sharpen this kind of thing in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  4. Jun 23

    You Can't Coach Desire: 5 Moves to Stop Wasting Your Best Hours

    You've got somebody with real potential. You can see exactly what they could become, so you pour in time, coaching, and energy, and they just don't move. Instead of reading that, you double down, because surely if you care a little more or explain it one more time, it'll click. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. You can coach skill, you can coach strategy, but you cannot coach desire. And the day you learn to tell the difference is the day you get your time, your energy, and your focus back. I'll give you a five-move framework I call Stop Coaching Desire, Start Reading It. Episode Breakdown [00:01:22] The $9,000 Book Bet Back in 2022 I wanted to write my book, and I'd wanted to for years, but wanting it wasn't getting it done. Life kept winning, the book kept losing. So I did something a little crazy. I went to a friend and made a bet. For every day I didn't write for at least one hour, I owed him $1,000. Real money, real checks, no way out of it. Over that year I wrote that man $9,000 in checks. But I finished the book. The bet didn't make me want to write it. The want had been there for years. All the accountability did was take a desire I already had and force it into motion. [00:02:12] The Insight: Structure Amplifies Desire, It Can't Manufacture It You can build the most beautiful structure in the world around somebody, the coaching, the accountability, the deadlines, and if the want isn't already inside them, you're bracing up thin air. That's what leaders miss with their people. [00:02:32] Move 1: Know the Difference Between Potential and Desire Potential is what somebody could do. Desire is what they're already doing. Confusing the two is the most expensive mistake leaders make, because the most dangerous person on your team is the one with enormous potential and no desire. Their potential keeps you hooked while their lack of desire drains you dry. [00:03:05] Move 2: Read Desire Through Behavior, Not Words Everybody will tell you they want it. Talk is easy and free. Desire shows up in one place, and that's who does the homework. Give them a small assignment, some research, a script to role play, one call to make before you talk again, then watch what comes back. The one who shows up the next day with it done is telling you something the one who forgot never will. Run it this week with someone already on your team or someone you're recruiting, and inside a couple of weeks you stop guessing about who wants it. [00:04:00] Move 3: Teach Before You Push Sometimes what looks like no desire is a skill gap in disguise. Motivation without education backfires. Push somebody to recruit before you've taught them how, and they'll try, it'll feel awful, and they'll quietly decide recruiting just isn't for them. So lead with education first, then motivation, then application. Think about how we develop a young athlete. My own son had a mindset coach, skills coaches, and years of structured play around him, but all of that structure was wrapped around a kid who wanted it. The coaching made a willing athlete great. It would have made an unwilling one quit. [00:05:05] Move 4: Stop Carrying the Unwilling This is where leaders get stuck. We take the person with the most potential and the least desire and pour our best hours into them month after month, hoping. Put a budget on it. Decide how much time and energy you'll invest before the behavior has to show, and then hold that line. Carrying someone who won't move isn't kindness, it's a slow leak in your leadership. [00:05:35] Move 5: Pour Into the People Already Moving Take the energy you were spending trying to light a fire under the unwilling and move it to the people already showing you desire through their actions. That's where coaching compounds. Desire plus your coaching is a multiplier. No desire plus your coaching is just you worn out. [00:05:55] Why It Works Desire is internal. Skill moves from one person to another, you can teach it, but desire has to already live inside someone, and you can't install it from the outside no matter how much you care. Behavior is the only honest signal you've got, because talk is free and action costs something, so the person who does the small, hard thing is telling you the truth about their want. And here's the part that stings. Your time and energy are finite, so every hour you spend carrying someone who won't move is an hour you stole from someone who would. [00:06:45] Your Small Win Tonight Pick the one person you've been over-investing in with little return and answer one straight question, skill gap or desire gap. If it's skill, you've got a teaching plan. If it's desire, you've got a decision to make. Naming it plainly is the win for tonight. [00:07:10] Three Bigger Moves This Week Give one small assignment and watch who does the homework, because that shows you your real movers in days instead of months. Teach one skill before you ask anyone to hit a number, which separates the unequipped from the unwilling so you stop losing good people you mislabeled as lazy. Then take your best coaching hours back from the unwilling and reinvest them in the people already moving, because coaching compounds where desire already lives, and that lifts the standard for the whole team. Key Takeaways You can coach skill and you can coach strategy. You cannot coach desire. Structure amplifies desire, it can't manufacture it. Build accountability around an empty want and you're bracing up thin air. The most dangerous person on your team is the one with enormous potential and no desire. The potential keeps you hooked while the lack of desire drains you dry. Talk is free, action costs something, so read desire through who does the homework, not who says the right words. Sometimes what looks like no desire is a skill gap in disguise. Lead with education, then motivation, then application. Carrying someone who won't move isn't kindness, it's a slow leak in your leadership. Put a budget on your investment and hold the line. Every hour you spend carrying the unwilling is an hour you stole from someone who would run. Coaching compounds where desire already lives. If you're wrestling with where to keep investing and where to let go, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to think it through with you. And if you'd rather work on this kind of thing in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  5. Jun 16

    You're Buried and Begging for Help: 5 Moves to Win the Budget

    You need help to grow. You can't keep doing every part of this yourself and expect the team to get bigger. But every time you bring up a recruiter or a dialer, the conversation stalls, and you walk out with a no, or a maybe that quietly dies. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. You don't earn a yes by asking for help. You earn it by walking in like an owner with a business case and the math behind it. I'll give you a five-move framework I call Making the Case Like an Owner, so you flip that conversation for good. Episode Breakdown [00:01:13] The Tale of Two Leaders Two leaders walk into the same executive's office in the same month. Both are buried, both want help. The first sits down and asks like an employee asking for a favor, says he's drowning and can't keep up, can he please get a recruiter. What the executive hears is an expense and a complaint, cost with nothing on the other side of it, so the answer is some version of not right now. The second leader carries something different. He doesn't ask for relief, he lays out an investment, the cost, the return, and ties it straight to the growth number the company already set. Same request, same executive, two completely different outcomes. The money was rarely the real obstacle. The framing was. [00:02:10] Move 1: Lead With the Math Walk in with numbers instead of feelings. A real recruiter right now runs somewhere around a $50,000 to $55,000 base with another $35,000 to $45,000 in bonus tied to appointments set and hires made. Now your executive is holding a clear picture, a known cost with most of the upside riding on results. [00:02:38] Move 2: Connect It to the Company's Growth Executives fund growth, not comfort. If leadership set a growth number for the year, tie this hire straight to that number, so you're not asking for help, you're showing them how the goal they set gets hit. And there's a deeper version worth saying out loud. The data shows the overwhelming majority of new producers join because of the leader, not the company brand and not the corporate platform. That makes you and your capacity to recruit the highest-return investment the company can make, and a recruiter or a dialer is simply how they protect that investment. [00:03:23] Move 3: Take the Risk Off the Table A lot of these asks die because the executive pictures a big fixed cost with no floor under it. So remove the fear. Load most of the comp onto results, appointments set and hires made, so the money follows the value instead of leading it. And the timing is on your side. The recruiter talent pool is unusually deep right now, with early-career recruiters getting pushed out of other industries by AI. One leader I coached ran a single ad and pulled more than 370 applicants in two days. You can be choosy in a way you couldn't be a few years ago, and that lowers the risk again. [00:04:09] Move 4: Put a Price on Your Own Hours This is the number leaders forget to bring, and it's the biggest one. Your time. Every time you get yanked off the phones to put out a fire, it costs about 20 minutes just to climb back into focus, and across a normal week of interruptions, that's hours of the work only you can do gone. A recruiter or a dialer isn't a cost. It's you buying back the hours that turn into hires. Name that number, and the investment starts arguing for itself. [00:04:45] Move 5: Close With Proof Land the whole case on evidence. I coached a leader who built his recruiting engine the right way, and in 90 days he hired 18 producers who fit his avatar, then 7 more the next month, which added roughly $100 million in annualized volume. You're not asking your executive to gamble on a hunch. You're pointing at a path other leaders have already walked. [00:05:15] Why It Works Executives say yes to returns, not to needs. The moment you stop presenting a cost and start presenting an investment with a number beside it, you're speaking the one language a decision maker buys in. Taking the risk off the table works because most no's aren't really no, they're a fear of a fixed cost with no floor, and a results-based structure quietly dissolves that fear. And proof closes the gap the same way it does in recruiting. A decision maker can argue with your projection all day long, but they can't argue with a result somebody has already produced. [00:05:55] Your Small Win Tonight Write one sentence. If I get this recruiter or this dialer, here's the return in hires and in volume over the next twelve months. One clean sentence that sets a return right next to the cost. Because if you can't say that sentence out loud yet, you aren't ready for the meeting, and now you know exactly what to go build. [00:06:23] Three Bigger Moves This Week Build the comp plan, a base plus a results-based bonus on appointments set and hires made, because that structure protects the company on the downside and signals the role is built to pay for itself. Do the time math, counting the hours you lose every week to interruptions and putting a dollar figure on them, which reframes the whole conversation from an expense into you reclaiming the hours that build the team. Then pull one proof point, yours or from the industry, of a recruiting engine that produced real hires and real volume, because proof lifts the risk off your executive's shoulders, and a decision with the risk removed is a yes. Key Takeaways You don't earn a yes by asking for help. You earn it by walking in like an owner with a business case and the math behind it. The money is rarely the real obstacle. The framing is. Executives fund growth, not comfort, so tie the ask straight to the growth number leadership already set. Most producers join because of the leader, not the brand, which makes your capacity to recruit the highest-return investment the company can make. Most no's aren't really no. They're a fear of a fixed cost with no floor, and a results-based comp structure dissolves that fear. Your time is the number leaders forget to bring. A recruiter or a dialer isn't a cost, it's buying back the hours that turn into hires. A decision maker can argue with your projection all day, but they can't argue with a result somebody has already produced. If you want help building the business case and the math behind your ask, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to think it through with you. And if you'd rather build it in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. The next one's Friday, June 19th at 12:00 PM Eastern. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  6. Jun 9

    Your People Nod and Nothing Happens: 5 Moves to Fix Your Vision

    Here's the Ep 216 summary, following the SOP, in Richard's voice. You've worked on your vision. You've refined the message, you say it on a call, and people nod. They agree, they tell you it sounds great, and then nothing happens. Nobody moves. That quiet frustration is what today's episode is about, because vision doesn't move people just because it sounds good. It moves people when it's clear, when it's personal, when there's real tension, and when you can prove it. Sounding good is actually the trap. I'll walk you through a five-part framework I call Vision That Moves, and most leaders are missing at least three pieces of it. Episode Breakdown [00:01:25] The Reframe: Vision Is a Dream, Not a Sentence on the Wall The Hebrew root for the word vision is chazon, and it doesn't mean a tidy sentence on a wall. It means a dream, something so big you're almost afraid to say it out loud. When I went back and looked at my own vision statement, I was a little embarrassed, because what I had wasn't a dream. It was a flattened corporate sentence that moved absolutely nobody, including me. I'd sanded it down until it was safe, and safe vision is forgettable vision. The day I rewrote it as an actual dream, people started leaning in. Same leader, same team, completely different pull. [00:02:38] Move 1: Aim at the Right Altitude There are three levels of vision. Me vision, which is what the leader gets. Corporate vision, which is what the company gets. And team vision, which is what the person joining you actually gets. Almost everyone pitches corporate vision, the mission statement and the big logo on the wall, while the recruit sits there politely wondering what's in it for them. Team vision is the only altitude that answers the question they're actually asking. [00:03:17] Move 2: Get Out of the Clouds and Into the Dirt A clouds pitch says our culture is great, our technology is the best, everybody here supports each other. It sounds good and means nothing, because every one of your competitors says the exact same words. A dirt pitch is specific. It names a number, a measurable outcome, a tool out loud. People can't grab onto a cloud. They can grab onto a number. [00:03:57] Move 3: Add Tension A vision with no gap creates no movement. If where they are right now and where you're pointing feel basically the same, there's no reason for anybody to move their feet. So you lovingly name the gap. Here's where you are, here's what's actually possible for you, and here's the quiet cost of staying exactly where you are for three more years. No tension, no motion. That's not pressure, that's clarity. [00:04:28] Move 4: Bring Proof This is the one leaders skip, and it's the most powerful one you've got. The most credible thing you can ever show a recruit isn't a promise, it's a person. I had a leader recently whose biggest producer was closing two or three deals a month before she joined him, and she's doubled that since. That's not a pitch, that's proof of concept living and breathing on his team. Proof dissolves skepticism faster than any slide deck you'll ever build. [00:05:09] Move 5: Transfer the Energy Here's my actual definition of recruiting. It's a transference of energy and passion. Everything that excites you lives in the future, the milestone, the growth, the place you're all going. If you deliver your vision flat, it doesn't matter how good the words on the page are. Nothing transfers. Your genuine energy about the future is the fuel, and without it the best vision ever written just sits there in the room and dies. [00:05:42] Why It Works People don't move toward fog. The brain can't take action on something vague, so when your vision is abstract, the honest human response is a polite nod and zero behavior change. Make it specific and personal and you finally give them something to grab and pull themselves toward. Proof works because skepticism is the default setting for any good producer who's been pitched a hundred times by a hundred leaders who all sounded the same. And energy works because emotion is contagious. That's why two leaders can say the identical words and only one of them moves the room. The words were never the variable. Clarity, tension, proof, and energy were. [00:06:50] Your Small Win Tonight Rewrite your team vision for the year 2035 and start that sentence with the words, our dream is. If the new sentence doesn't make you a little uncomfortable to say out loud, it isn't big enough yet, so push it further. A vision big enough to scare you a little is the only kind that's big enough to pull other people. [00:07:20] Three Bigger Moves This Week Draft a team-level vision that names exactly what a producer who joins you gets out of the next three years, because people commit to what's in it for them. Take one abstract claim in your current pitch and replace it with a real number, a measurable outcome, or a tool you can name out loud. Then pick one person already on your team who has grown since they joined and make their story the proof you tell, which honors the producer you already have and shows every recruit that what you promise around here actually happens. Key Takeaways Vision doesn't move people because it sounds good. It moves them when it's clear, personal, full of real tension, and provable. Sounding good is the trap. Safe vision is forgettable vision. Pitch team vision, what the person joining actually gets, not corporate vision. It's the only altitude that answers what's in it for me. Get out of the clouds and into the dirt. People can't grab a cloud, they can grab a number. No tension, no motion. Name the gap and the quiet cost of staying, and that's clarity, not pressure. The most credible thing you can show a recruit isn't a promise, it's a person who changed. Recruiting is a transference of energy. Deliver your vision flat and nothing transfers, no matter how good the words are. If you want help sharpening a vision that actually pulls the right people toward you instead of just earning polite nods, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and I'd be glad to think it through with you. And if you'd rather build it in real time, I host a biweekly working lunch where we do exactly that together. The next one's Friday June 19 at 12 PM ET. You can add it, plus all of our other 4C live events, straight to your calendar here: http://cal.ae/suuaiiw

  7. Jun 2

    The Bait and Switch That's Costing You Producers: 5 Moves to Fix It

    Here's the summary rewritten in Richard's voice, speaking directly to the listener. You're growing, which means you're recruiting. But every time you go hard after new talent, this quiet fear shows up. Are you telling your best people they're replaceable? So you slow down. You recruit with one hand on the brake, and both your growth and your retention suffer for it. In this episode I want to flip that tension on its head, because recruiting and retention aren't competing priorities. They're the same skill pointed in two directions, and I'm going to hand you a five-move framework I call the Inward Playbook so you can win at both at once. Episode Breakdown [00:00:53] The Tension Every Recruiting Leader Feels Growth requires recruiting, but the second you go hard after new talent, that fear shows up that you're telling your current team they're not enough. So you recruit with one hand on the brake, and that's exactly why both your growth and your retention suffer. [00:01:25] The Twenty-Six-Year Marriage Principle I've been married to Leah for twenty-six years, and it's not because I was a good dater. It's because I never stopped courting her. The pursuit didn't end at the wedding. The pursuit became the marriage. And the same thing is true for the team you lead. [00:01:53] The Bait and Switch Most of us recruit like a great date and then lead like a flat partner. We pursue a producer hard, we cast vision, we make that person feel like the most important talent in the market, and then the moment they sign, we disappear into operational mode. About three to four months in, that producer realizes the person who recruited them isn't the person they work for. They won't always say it out loud, but they feel it, and they start answering the phone when your competitor calls. [00:02:43] The Framework: The Inward Playbook Whatever makes you compelling to a recruit on the outside, take that same energy and point it inward at the people you already have. Because if we're awesome externally and average internally, we can expect to lose our people. [00:03:15] Move 1: Cast the Vision Out Loud When your team constantly hears where you're going over the next one, three, and five years, recruiting stops feeling threatening and it starts feeling necessary. They get that adding people is how the vision actually gets built. But when your team never hears the vision, recruiting feels random, like you're chasing instead of building. [00:03:52] Move 2: Court the Team You Already Have Retention isn't about perks, it's about connection. Are you having consistent one-on-ones? Do your producers feel like you understand their goals? Do they know exactly how they fit into the next phase? Take the same pursuit you'd give a brand new recruit and turn it around and give it to the producer who's been with you for three years. When people feel seen, they don't feel replaced by growth. They feel like they're part of it. [00:04:20] Move 3: Make Recruiting a Team Sport When you get seven people involved with a candidate, that candidate is 71% likely to join the organization. So bring your team into the process. Tell them the kind of person you're looking for, ask for referrals, let your best people meet the recruit. And here's what's interesting, your best people tend to attract more people just like them. That's how culture scales. [00:05:01] Move 4: Recruit Up, Never Down When you recruit the right way, it raises the level of the team, it doesn't threaten it. Back in 2015 I sat down and looked at the prior year, and anybody I'd added that year grew their business by 32% on average. Growth isn't a threat to your current team. Growth is the rising tide. So the question is never am I recruiting too much, it's am I recruiting the right people. [00:05:40] Move 5: Name It and Put It on the Calendar First, name it out loud. Tell your team the truth, that you're going to keep growing and bring in strong people, and at the same time you're committed to helping every one of them grow inside of this. That kind of transparency removes the tension, because now nothing feels hidden. Second, protect it on the calendar. You can't spend all your time recruiting and expect retention to take care of itself, and you can't spend all your time managing and expect growth to show up on its own. You need rhythms, and when those rhythms are consistent, nothing gets neglected. [00:06:27] Why It Works People don't leave because you recruited. They leave because the version of you that recruited them disappeared. We're all wired to notice when attention we used to have goes away, and that drop gets felt way more sharply than the absence of attention we never had in the first place. So when you stop courting your team, it doesn't register as neutral, it registers as loss. And that's also why involving the team lands at 71%. Belonging isn't one relationship with the leader at the top, it's a web of relationships across the whole organization, and the more threads there are, the harder it is to walk away. [00:08:02] Your Small Win Tonight Take out a piece of paper and write down three things you do during recruiting that you don't do for your current team. Maybe it's the energy you bring to the call, maybe it's how clearly you cast the vision, maybe it's just how often you reach out. Pick one and do it for a current producer before you go to bed tonight. One text, one call, one conversation. [00:08:43] Three Bigger Moves This Week Write a team-level vision that names what each of your producers personally gets out of the next three years, and share the rough draft even if it isn't perfect yet. Put three questions at the top of your next team meeting and answer them out loud before anything else, where have we been, where are we now, and where are we going. Then build yourself a one-page retention playbook, the same way you'd build a recruiting playbook, just aimed inward. Key Takeaways Recruiting and retention aren't competing priorities. They're the same skill pointed in two directions. The bait and switch isn't about pay. It's about the experience of being pursued disappearing the moment your producer signs. Cast the vision out loud and recruiting stops feeling like a threat, it starts feeling like the plan your team is part of. Get seven people involved with a candidate and they're 71% likely to join, because belonging is built on a web of relationships, not a single thread to you at the top. Recruit up, never down. Growth is the rising tide that lifts your current producers, an average of 32% in my own numbers. People feel a loss of attention far more sharply than they ever felt its absence, so staying consistent is what keeps them. You can't recruit all the time and expect retention to handle itself, or manage all the time and expect growth to show up on its own. Protect both on the calendar. If you want help building a retention playbook that lets you recruit aggressively without losing the team you've got, reach out. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar, and we'll think through it together. And if you'd rather build it live, I host a biweekly working lunch where we put this kind of thing together in real time. The next one's this Friday, June 5th at 12:00 PM Eastern, and you can RSVP here.

  8. May 26

    Stop Betting on Potential Alone: 7 Standards That Turn Potential Into Results

    You see something in this recruit. The character, the work ethic, the attitude, the way they think. You believe that in the right environment they become a top performer. But the numbers are not there yet. This is one of the most common and most consequential decisions a recruiting leader makes. Get it right and you gain a future star. Get it wrong and you spend a year managing it. This episode gives you the framework to decide with clarity. Episode Breakdown [00:01:25] The First Question: Potential or Projection? There is a critical difference between seeing real indicators of future growth and simply hoping someone will improve. Potential is based on evidence. Projection is based on hope. Do they follow through? Are they coachable? Do they take ownership? Are they consistent even without results yet? The question is not whether you like this recruit. The question is whether they demonstrate the habits of someone who will grow. [00:02:05] Standard 1: Know Your Current Season Are you in a building phase or a scaling phase? If you are building, you may have room to develop high-potential recruits. If you are scaling, you need proven performance and less development risk. A lot of leaders get into trouble by mixing these two phases. Before you say yes, ask yourself: does this decision match the season I am in? [00:02:40] Standard 2: Do Not Lower the Standard. Adjust the Path. Strong leaders do not ignore the production gap. They ask: if I bring this person on, what needs to be true for them to succeed here? That might mean a clear 90-day plan, weekly accountability, specific activity expectations, and more hands-on coaching early on. You are not lowering the bar. You are building a bridge to the bar. [00:03:10] Standard 3: Be Honest With the Recruit Do not bring someone in under vague expectations and hope it works out. Say it clearly: I believe in where you can go, but we need to be aligned on what it takes to get there. Walk them through what success looks like, what is expected, and what will happen if those expectations are not met. Clarity protects both of you. [00:03:45] Standard 4: Protect Your Culture Every recruit you bring on sends a message to your team. If your top performers see you consistently bringing in people who are not producing and not improving, it creates frustration. But if they see someone with clear potential and a clear plan who is growing, it builds belief. Ask yourself: will this hire raise confidence in the direction you are going, or create doubt? [00:04:15] Standard 5: Watch Behavior Before You Watch Results When someone is in a growth phase, results can lag. But behavior shows up immediately. Are they doing what you asked? Are they showing discipline? Are they engaging in coaching? Are they adjusting quickly? If the behavior is right, results usually follow. If the behavior is off, it rarely fixes itself. [00:04:40] Standard 6: Be Willing to Make a Decision Quickly One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is holding on too long because they believed in someone's potential. Belief is important, but it cannot replace accountability. If the recruit is not executing, not growing, and not meeting agreed expectations, address it early. That is not failure. That is leadership. [00:05:14] The Formula That Turns Belief Into Results Bringing someone on for who they can become is not wrong. Some of the best hires you will ever make will be people who were not fully developed yet. But you do not bet on potential alone. You bet on potential plus behavior plus structure plus accountability. That combination is what turns belief into results. [00:05:40] Your Challenge This Week Think of one recruit you are considering right now. Ask yourself: Do they show the behaviors of someone who will grow? Does this fit the season I am in? Do I have a clear development plan? Am I prepared to hold the standard if it does not work? If yes, move forward with intention. If unclear, slow down. Disciplined recruiting is what protects long-term growth. Key Takeaways Potential is based on evidence. Projection is based on hope. Look for behaviors, not just belief. Your season matters. Building phases allow for more development risk. Scaling phases require more proven performance. Do not lower the bar. Build a bridge to it. A 90-day plan with clear accountability is how you develop without compromising your standard. Clarity protects both the leader and the recruit. Vague expectations set everyone up to fail. Every hire sends a message to your team. Ask whether this decision builds confidence or creates doubt. Behavior shows up before results do. If early behavior is off, do not wait for results to confirm it. Belief cannot replace accountability. Make decisions quickly if expectations are not being met. If you want help building a development plan for a high-potential recruit or thinking through where to draw the line on a decision you are weighing right now, let's talk. Visit bookrichardnow.com and grab time on my calendar. We will work through the framework together so you can move forward with clarity and confidence.

See All (100)

4.7
out of 5
47 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Recruiting Conversations Podcast, a conversation designed to help Recruiting Leaders who manage a team as well as recruit. Richard Milligan is a speaker, author, strategist, and recruiting coach who built 21 teams as a Recruiting Leader.

Information

  • Creator
    Richard Milligan, Recruiting Coach
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 4C Recruiting 2019
  • Show Website
    Recruiting Conversations

You Might Also Like