Scale Your Recruitment Business Through Team Development and Automation with Mark Smith The Resilient Recruiter

More and more agencies are proving that you can successfully scale your recruitment business by utilizing team development and automation tools. What does the development process look like? Can automation truly open up your time to focus on revenue-producing activities?
Mark Smith, the Managing Director of people2people, has spent the last 15 years implementing these processes. He’s articulated values for the business culture and has developed and retained a team of successful recruiters. people2people has quickly grown into one of the leading agencies in Australia and New Zealand. 
In this episode of The Resilient Recruiter, Mark will share some of the strategies that have helped him scale people2people to the point it’s at now. He’ll talk about managing against your values, motivating and developing your team, their automated chatbot “Pete”, and much more. Don’t miss this engaging and educational episode. 
Outline of This Episode [3:23] What is the “Valley of Death”? [5:32] You need to define your culture’s values [11:50] How to uphold your values [18:00] Mark’s history with Greg Savage [20:05] Mark attributes his success to team development [27:50] An unconventional way to hire and train recruiters [34:20] Applications for Pete—the people2people chatbot [39:35] Other ways Mark implements automation [44:32] The big challenges recruitment agencies will face You need to define your culture’s values As Mark was scaling his business he began to question if his company’s values were staying consistent across their 110 locations. He wanted to definitively know if the culture in his Brisbane office was the same as in Melbourne. After some reflection, he decided his business had reached a point where it was time to articulate their values. 
While researching, he found was that his offices were relatively consistent—and he was relieved. But Mark wanted to forge ahead with his endeavor to fully define what they strive for as a company. He and his team landed on an acronym—STRIDE: Strength (resilience), Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Drive, and Enterprise—that they would use to define their values. With a description firmly in place, they could begin to manage everything against their values. They had a way to evaluate if potential hires line up with their beliefs.
Mark’s company, people2people has since implemented a monthly meeting to talk about wins and performance. They host a yearly STRIDE awards event where people from each office are nominated. They have STRIDE apparel and posters as visual reminders of their values. They’ve found an effective way to implement their team values internally, and Mark believes it greatly impacts their success externally with customer relationships. 
Mark has found success in the power of team development People2people now has 110 staff and 8 different locations in Australia and New Zealand. Mark noted that scaling the business wasn’t easy. When the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) hit, there was a downturn in Australia. He couldn’t attract experienced recruiters and had difficulty hiring externally. So he rallied and decided that he would develop his own team into recruiters. 
When he chose that path for his business it meant he had to develop a process for training. He wanted the customer experience to be the same across the board. But if he was going to develop his own team from the ground up, he wanted to limit staff turnover and increase longevity. This takes hard work and dedication and fully enforcing the values they built the company on. Because of his effort, 35 of his employees have been with the business for longer than 5 years. 
Mark develops his team through succession planning. He has staff trained and ready to step up if a senior consultant moves on. How does he achieve that? His preferred method is to assign a para consultant to a senior consultant in the business. They train with the senior recruiter and handle administrative re