The Marketing Rules Podcast in Writing: Bobby Banerjee

00:01.21

ThinkinCircles

Welcome back everybody to the Marketing Rules Podcast and it’s my pleasure today to be joined by Bobby Banerjee. Bobby, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

00:10.60

Bobby Banerjee

Likewise. Great too great to be on.

00:19.63

ThinkinCircles

For those who don’t know you, could you give yourself a little bit of an introduction, tell us a little bit about your background and what you do today.

00:27.27

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, absolutely. So, I started off as a recruiter myself just over ten years ago working for S3 in Birmingham so had the trials and tribulations of being a brand-new consultant in the world of the world of tech recruitment. Three, well I say that, three and a half, two and a half successful years my first year was an absolute nightmare. Um tore most of my hair around I think I did 2 deals in my first-year um and ah so most have but ah, most places probably wouldn’t behind me now but over the last seven or eight years I’ve been helping young recruiters. Essentially try and now perform the market by you know by doing a lot of training and coaching with them that looks at the humanist areas of recruitment because we forget that we’re working with humans, and it’s how do we? How would we react to certain things and using empathy-based learning I guess if you want to give it a fancy title. Um, to be able to be to be able to um, kind of get success from people. That’s the that’s the plan. You know it’s trying to get people to think about things from that that viewpoint and just remember that they were.

01:26.11

ThinkinCircles

Putting the consultant backing consultant right.

01:39.57

Bobby Banerjee

They were a candidate looking for a job at 1 point and they’ve had they’ve been people with buying power. So how do you use that that that self that self-k knowledge to then-to-then kind of impart what you do on others.

01:49.53

ThinkinCircles

I Think it’s one of those things that a lot of recruiters are now kind of paying more attention to, right? You know I was kind of I always made this joke around. You know, recruitment consultants didn’t really do much consulting. You know that was you know that that consulting part was kind of left out and I know that’s become more and more important because. As this kind of fight over good Candidates. You want to kind of be able to build those relationships and take people on that journey with you and not necessarily just sell the role but sell everything that goes around with kind of being ah just an empathetic recruiter which ah we don’t have the. Best reputations of in this in in this space right.

02:28.86

Bobby Banerjee

Well, yeah, I mean what I love about the industry is that you can be absolutely anyone and make a success of yourself. It doesn’t matter about your socioeconomic background. It doesn’t matter about creed colour race gender you can make it you could make yourself a successful you can make yourself a success in recruitment The other problem is that absolutely anyone can join so it doesn’t matter what your behavioural issues are that you can that you can make a success by having some really poor attitudes and therefore people remember those things I mean dare I dare I start using it as a marketing tool but you know it’s those things around. What has happened in our industry over certain you know, however, many years our car bought the status is it’s something that we’re 5 times more likely to rant about something that we are to rave about something so along those lines and so we then therefore are more likely to take to Twitter LinkedIn

03:15.97

ThinkinCircles

Something on that.

03:26.72

Bobby Banerjee

Facebook Google and if you ever do a search around why recruiters are and let it autofill. You should see some of the results.

03:34.54

ThinkinCircles

Ah, ah, um, yeah, I yeah, that sounds dangerous. To be honest, you know I mean and slightly probably slightly depressing as well. Um, but today what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to kind of. We’re going to tune into that a little bit right because I thought what a good idea would be is if we talk to some of the businesses out there. They are probably you’ve you know you kind of. The types of business you work with the types of business that think in circles work with who are either just starting up have just started up maybe a year or so old and some of the things that between us we think are important that sometimes can get dropped off the radar because you know you are incredibly busy. Your time and resource short but things that in the long term to medium term can really kind of play out to make you a better business, right? and more successful business. So, I think that’s a great place to kind of start and um. And you know you kick us off right? What is kind of some of the things just off the top. What we should be considering.

04:30.30

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, so well like I say um so I started I started up myself a couple of years ago and there’s a lot of things that you can think about whilst I guess being in the business and being on the working on the business at the same time. So, I guess I’d want to split it up in the exact same way because even as a trainer I found myself working in the business a lot rather than on and therefore by strategy my plan of action my go- to market kind of you know, kind of Playbook had gone out the window at of various points. So, I guess from the first point of. The first port of call is having a plan and have ah you know have a have a one-year three-year five-year plan and be able to hold yourself and help and get someone else to help you be accountable to it whether it’s a coach whether it’s someone that you trust whether is someone that you. That you value as a mentor figure. Whatever that looks like have ah have a plan that someone else can be accountable to but then I guess we’ve got to talk about the stuff that’s in the business as well. So, what generally tends to happen is people rely on their old networks people are out on restrictive covenants.

05:25.95

ThinkinCircles

Yeah.

05:38.61

Bobby Banerjee

So, you’re building something from either scratch or on a knowledge base that is a little bit lower than you’d like to like to be and so what people seem to forget in the world of recruitment that your first six months whether it’s as a business owner or as a rookie recruiter. Is essentially one massive marketing exercise and that’s so saying that just because I’m on I’m on a marketing rules podcast. But if you think about. But if you think about what you’re doing now what you’re trying to do is get your name out in the marketplace and whether that is. You know whether that is as a good recruiter whether it is a good person whether it is as a knowledgeable person in your marketplace or you’re doing at the boat is trying to get those things and you know what jobs will come in as a by-product of doing that well. So, it’s about your outreach so it’s about the LinkedIn Outreach it’s a bit it’s about the I guess the emails. The how do we build up a great database of people that are really bought into us and I wish I could say that’s all sales. But unfortunately, James I guess that’s all marketing because you’re a b testing. On the messaging that you put out to people because you are you are checking out different types of emails to see whether they fit you’re looking at things from a hopefully from an empathetic perspective and realizing what would make me respond to those to those messages whether I was a candidate or a client.

06:55.75

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, yeah.

07:00.19

Bobby Banerjee

And so, if I take the candidate side to start off with because every good business starts with having some great candidates to speak to because again, it’s not like you can just like most businesses without a without a product offering what can you do? So, if you are going to engage with people. The first thing that you want to think about is in this market. What is going to make people want to move what is going to make people want to move away from the relative safety of their current job where they’re safe. They’re settled. They’ve got training. They’ve got coaching. They’ve got everything that they need and a progression plan. To be able to go to the relative uncertainty of a new job where they could be last in first out or you see the is it Leo the acronym. Um, you know you have those things you don’t have all the same benefits. You potentially don’t have all those increased circumstances. And so, you kind of think about what is going to make someone going to move from that situation. Once you once you understand that the outreach can become a lot easier to deal with, I mean from your perspective. What are you seeing kind of people do or not do that could be easy fixes.

08:08.14

ThinkinCircles

So um, I’m going to kind of pick up some of the kind of points that you made as well. So okay, so with a plan, right? You know the amount of Business. You don’t do that right? that we see who kind of start off their business amount of and you know what it’s more of a thought exercise doing ah a business plan than it is anything Else. You don’t have to even stick to it. Right? Most businesses don’t stick to it. It’s about actually putting something pen to paper and doing that So Anyone who’s listening who’s maybe a recruiter or just about to start their own business or has even done it over the last kind of couple of years and hasn’t written a plan. It’s still always worth doing because it’s just it’s says kind of philosophical exercise so you can kind of. Put your brain into a slightly different space and take it out of working in the business to working on the business which is the great point that you kind of Made. So do it and even if you don’t ever look at it Again. It’s just an exercise to go through the other things that we’re kind of I guess that we we’re kind of we’re seeing is um. Is it just kind of just bad communication from our from agencies, right? And that’s always the kind of thing that is kind of seems to be a bit not necessarily umbriferous. It’s nowhere near as bad as it was right? but and when I talk about bad communication. It’s just easy that constitutes of no communication, right? as well.

09:22.41

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah.

09:25.10

ThinkinCircles

You know that is one of the things that and we have every kind of tool at our disposal in the currently within the recruitment space to communicate with people whether it is you know podcasts whether it is YouTube whether it’s live streaming. Whether it’s WhatsApp groups whether it’s other communities whether it’s slack if you’re in any it space whether it’s Discord whether it’s red. There are all these places where you can communicate with people why you know? Ah so last year you know.

09:46.96

Bobby Banerjee

I mean you even forgot TikTok and Instagram.

09:54.21

ThinkinCircles

You know, but all there all these places, right? where you can have you have a touch point right? and you know, and I speak a lot about this when it comes to kind of building your brand. You know every place you’ve got a touch point is a point is a point is a touch point with your brand, right? and everyone who has any interaction with is kind of has that interaction with your brand but has the potential of being. We all want them to be either refer as advocates and in in in the recurred space. Go potentially become a client and potentially become a candidate as Well. So, there’s all of that but people just not getting that thinking. That’s such a big job to do and it’s better to you know ghost people.

10:18.65

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, totally.

10:28.83

ThinkinCircles

And worry about those consequences as opposed to try and keep in contact with people. So

10:32.87

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, and just and I think it’s also important to remember that we’ve all ghost to people before you know it’s not. You know it’s okay to have done it. It’s what you’ve learned from the experience and why you. And almost kind of doing a bit of a post-mortem on it thinking why you did it and most and from the research that I do because I speak to lots of recruits, I guess I 12 trained over twelve hundred maybe thirteen hundred now um you know, essentially, we try to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Or something that we think is going to be more uncomfortable than it. But you know in you know, yeah in invariably turns out to be and so we’ve got to frame it and in a way that maybe isn’t uncomfortable. Maybe if yeah if that person hasn’t got the job. That’s okay, you know it’s okay that people don’t get jobs. You are going to be placing less than.

11:17.70

ThinkinCircles

M.

11:24.58

Bobby Banerjee

10 to 15% of all people that you put forward to interview and that’s not that’s not a stat. That’s that I’ve cut that’s kind of come up with you just look at it from a general perspective if you’re working 2 or 3 jobs. You’re probably sending 7 or 8 candidates to interview of which maybe 1 maybe two get and get a job. Yeah, that’s just the cold fact ah of the world of a recruitment. So, what happens to all those conversations that you’ve had with people that have already gone through this amazing process with you and then didn’t get the job what we generally tend to do is leave them out in the cold or just I’ll just give them. Oh, I didn’t you know you weren’t quite work quite right for us whereas that person can therefore be a good advocate of your service because what we generally tend to do, and you’ll tell me about I’m sure you’re a better exponent of net promoter scores and this that and the other than I am but. Ah, net promoter score is usually done on satisfaction from usually people who have gone through the service but it’s looking at those people that haven’t had the full service and have still had an amazing experience. They’re the ones that become your biggest advocates in the marketplace. So how are you going to speak to all those people that maybe you didn’t place and go well actually I’m sorry that we weren’t able to place you and, in all honesty, the feedback that I’ve got from the client isn’t enough to help you so what I’m going to do is I’m going to find you other opportunities based on the fact that.

12:50.99

Bobby Banerjee

You know, since you were good for this company. You’re bound to be great for another couple of companies.

12:56.19

ThinkinCircles

So, the usual response that kind of comes from that is oh we’ve because we’ve got so many people applying, we’ve got so many kinds of so much coming in that we just can’t handle it. Ah which isn’t an excuse these days right? because there’s ways of the ways of automating that kind of response. So

13:09.22

Bobby Banerjee

I mean I stopped recruiting well in in in earnest on a desk five years five years ago and even then, there was all the technology at your disposal to be able to even if it was off a job board. You can green.

13:11.97

ThinkinCircles

You know so.

13:27.30

Bobby Banerjee

Amber and red people based on the based on the job board that you used and send messages out to those people who were all in red and you can easily base it based on whether you know I guess there were. People who didn’t have the right to work in the Ku or didn’t have the right skill set and you can actually just nit-pick and send little emails just say look on this occasion you weren’t quite right because we are looking for a Ku citizen but I’d love to keep in touch and the amount of people that would come back to me and just say oh my god this is the first email that I’ve had of this in months. And that makes and that makes you just think oh my god is common courtesy and common sense just two of the things that are missing from our day-to-day job because we’re just so in the moment that we forget to apply little things that maybe what that took ah an extra three four minutes out of my day. But it can have a blessing impact on your brand.

14:16.27

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, yeah, and that’s the interesting thing as well isn’t it because you know without getting kind of to hit up in in how branding works, but you know your all those little outreaches affects your personal brand and the and the larger brand of the business that you’re either. You know, cultivating. All that you work for and all of it can have on all of it can have a positive negative or passive effect, right? And that’s what you want to get over and to come to your point about Net Promoter Score if anybody’s kind of listening and not heard of naps. It’s worth kind of It’s a very simple kind of formula for understanding. Um, ah. If someone was a kind of an advocate of your business. Basically, you’ll all have received, and you all have tried to score someone or something a product or services from 1 to 10 you know and that’s how to refer us to a friend or colleague. Yeah, exactly, and that and that and that can be and that can be adapted in the recruitment space.

15:00.50

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, and on 1 to 10 how likely are you to buy this product service yet all that kind of stuff.

15:12.81

ThinkinCircles

And is being to be used within the recruitment space and I think and ah probably to kind of I think once you go down that route you then suddenly think well, and Naps has its kind of limitations. You start kind of branching out to other and other those kind of advocacy scores but it’s a good place to start to understand. And it’s very simple and it’s quick and easy to roll out right.

15:32.77

Bobby Banerjee

Yeah, totally and the thing is what I what I noticed when we started out started the process off at s 3 the issues that usually face are people don’t realize what a good score is people have a limit on what they’re going to give um you know somewhat you know it’s a bit like the old. Football analogy of people could score a hat trick but in in the newspapers. They’ll still only be given an 8 out of 10 because that’s the most that they’ll ever give and so there’s those little dynamics that you must navigate, and people don’t really realize that it’s only a 9 or 10 out of 10 that is seen as a as a true positive.

15:55.58

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, yeah.

16:05.29

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, it’s not yeah, you can look at you can Google it but it’s 9 and 10 of the kind of advocates and then then basically you either get the passive and then you get the kind of negatives ones at the bottom and you miners see the with the scores together you minus and.

16:07.51

Bobby Banerjee

Because a 7 or is it a 7 or 8 or a six seven or eight that is a yeah. Um, exactly pass it and yeah, the point I was coming up. Yeah, the point that I was going to come on to be the fact that if you know if you scored seventy or eighty percent in any other walk of life that would be steamered as excellent.

16:21.95

ThinkinCircles

Um, to play score and that and that’s what gives you us complete.

16:32.67

Bobby Banerjee

And so that’s why people potentially give those give those scores out because they think that is excellence in in university if you get 70 that’s a first that’s a first-class degree. So obviously we then need to educate people what that that service needs to look like to be a 9 or 10 to these people to then be able to give those scores out. Therefore, you know brings us back nicely onto the service and what is the service that you are offering what we’re not very good at with our candidates and our client is showcasing the lifecycle from start to finish. They don’t know the work that gets done by recruiters to be able to find people their role. Or be able to find ah candidates for a company because people don’t realize that the yes, there’s a lot of technology being used and but there is a Boolean search and we do look at how many keywords come up on a Boolean search but we’re also there working with candidates who invariably because. Both’re not very good as British people of selling ourselves. We don’t write very good CVS, but we miss things off or we try and write 15 years’ worth of experience and in ah in a paragraph or conversely six months in 3 pages and so. And so, it’s and unfortunately, I wouldn’t say anything in between because it seems to be doesn’t seem to be that that it seems very polar in how people do things and so if we’re having to have conversations to get this information out of people to understand what skillets they’ve had that they might not have necessarily talked about.

18:05.29

Bobby Banerjee

And so, mm.

18:05.54

ThinkinCircles

Its’s it’s a crazy thing, right? that we’re still there right after all this time, right? You know that you know we have these conversations about kind of the cv being dead or not and we’re still having trouble. We are writing them you know, and I mean it’s kind of you know we haven’t cracked the first bit you know, um. But you know from your perspective and the businesses that you kind of you work with, right? you know for the ones who are kind of in their earlier stages. Let’s say because I know you kind of coach kind of you know people coming into the space or people are new into space or new in you know.

18:21.91

Bobby Banerjee

Yet.

18:37.32

ThinkinCircles

What does that kind of you know if you’re kind of coaching someone. Ah, you know what that looks like so you if you say look first six months you these are the things you need to kind of concentrate on in la mean how does that how does that look.

18:48.44

Bobby Banerjee

But yeah, it looks to be optimist. It looks really bespoke so we look at you. So, want to work with a newish business. Um, we look at it and go like I say what’s the plan first and foremost understand what the plan is and how we can then. Help create stuff around the plan, and it can be. It can fall into several different things and it’s looking as if you know a lot of people end up getting again that that a stereotype of the fact that people think that they need to do absolutely everything in the business when they first start one. You know they need to be. You know they need to be the salesperson need to be the office manager they need to be the painter and decorator they need to be the marketing the marketing specialist and then we get all this tech to try and help us on our way, but the problem is what we’ve got up. There isn’t quite ready to use the tech like.

19:29.58

ThinkinCircles

Um, yep.

19:41.14

Bobby Banerjee

I could try and create a marketing platform using canvas am I going to no because I’m not a marketer and I don’t know enough about it and so it’s working with it. So, what I end up doing is work with companies to look at what can be what can be taken by them. What’s in their strengths. It’s almost like doing a bit of a Swot analysis with people and going.

19:57.96

ThinkinCircles

Right.

20:00.43

Bobby Banerjee

Where do you see your strengths and weaknesses and what can be done with those weaknesses and what can we do to keep building on those strengths because if you’re a Bd person but doesn’t like candidate acquisition. There’s stuff for that. You know you can outsource a lot of that. If like me, you’re not very good at marketing There are so many there are so many good things that you can do whether it’s using someone like selves, or you know there’s freelancers via fevered and Upwork or whatever. Whatever you do just have a think about if I was charging myself out what I would charge would I be looking for and would I be doing the task. That I’m doing for that money.

20:36.58

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, it’s a great point, right? You know? Um I talk about this a lot as well in some of the kind of presentations as you know as start-ups which we you know which hat you are wearing today right? is it your you know admin hat your accountancy hat your marketing hat you know, and you can’t wear them all because you just look stupid. Right? So, you can only really want wear 1 or 2 hats at any 1 time and even then, you still look a bit stupid from a man who’s wearing a hat, right? now you know I mean it is it is you know you’ve got a kind of church concentrate on would pull to your strengths. The obvious thing is like no one you know when you’re starting busy. You don’t do your own accounts right? You’re crazy if you want to do that.

21:09.40

Bobby Banerjee

In.

21:12.65

ThinkinCircles

Because you’re not an accountant that’s not what you do So the fact that you know as you kind of eloquently put it. You need to kind of outsource. Basically, what you don’t want to do and as recruitment has become more and more complex. You know, ah probably for the for the better to a certain extent. You need to be at a kind of. Move off or move out. Ah you know, take those hats, and give them to someone else do on your behalf. Basically, whether that is the marketing whether it is the kind of whatever else you know, probably not going to do your own I T that kind of stuff right? All that kind of stuff. It’s yeah obvious.

21:34.84

Bobby Banerjee

Um, yeah.

21:42.52

Bobby Banerjee

Absolutely like yeah there are some good There are some good places to go. There are some great growth partners out there. Um I’ve been working with a growth partner myself in what they do for me is get rid of you know, kind of find the right corm you know because oh my god how many hours can that take for someone. Especially in recruitment and that’s because recruitment crams. There are hundreds of them and all of them do Evers a slightly of different things and you know it’s looking at those aspects for me, you were 100 % right it was accounting but you know I’m not you know I’d like to think I’m quite good at maths but accounting. Not a chance. So why not get either some technology or the help of someone that can do that. Luckily my kind of growth partner helps me with that because he then takes all that stuff found founds tech, I’ve now just got an apt where I just must put all my receipts down. He’s going to have a go because I still have those receipts to do. Um, but it just makes your life so much easier because then it means I can get into training coaching consulting.

22:47.73

ThinkinCircles

But I think the thing that holds some businesses back and recruiters back at this point is because they’re going to. They’re thinking. Well, it will cost money, right? Well, you know that’s that you can’t really start new businesses on a shoestring right? You need a bit of, but you need backing you can do it for Ah, you know on a shoestring. But. You’re probably then that’s your mindset moving forward, right? If you’re going to try and you’re going to be tight with a business whereas. I mean one of the things I’ve learned is you know, spend money where you need to spend money right? that is kind of that. That’s kind of my ethos with ah with my business and what we try and kind of.

23:09.40

Bobby Banerjee

Um.

23:22.17

ThinkinCircles

You know, ah expect from our from our clients is you know you need to spend money to you know and I’m going to say to make money because that’s just that just crass. But there are certain areas where you need to kind of have a budget for because it’s going to make your life a damn site easier if you try and do it on a shoestring then it kind of just all falls a bit flat.

23:36.93

Bobby Banerjee

I think I think what? what we generally tend to fall in the trap of is cost versus value and I’ve again I’ve had to learn that the hard way because I tried to so for example for a cram, I just tried to use excel for the first year yeah

23:42.23

ThinkinCircles

Exactly.

23:56.43

Bobby Banerjee

Exactly what a stupid move that was especially when there are such amazing free crams out there for fledgling businesses. So then realize hang on that helps and then you know and that was because I was just too busy thinking about the cost because I had a business partner at the time, but I just thought cost. Because I wanted to make sure that the bottom line was as profitable as it could be but then I realized that the amount of time that I’ve spent sequencing. Um you know, creating mass emails that make sense to people. Um, you know, fortunate that the person that I’ve hired has now started off a brand-new ah brand new kind of email campaign where we can drip feed. Bits and pieces of exciting news each week or business development tips and it’s like you know all these weird, wonderful things that can then hopefully build business so of the off the medium to longer term sure you look at your short term and go right? Where am I where’s my next where’s my next deal where’s my next meal coming from. But. That comes from but you’ve got to have a look at your short-term goals as well as your medium to long-term goals and don’t just stray off the off the medium to long term because you know but I’ll be honest, 1 of my media to long-term goals was to be part of a networking group and that’s how we met and.

25:04.53

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, exactly.

25:07.80

Bobby Banerjee

And so, for me, you know that was a really big thing because you know in most networking Groups. You must pay some money which is fine, but it’s the Knowledge. It’s the Expertise. It’s the I hate using the word exposure, but it is great to have access to lots of different people and. And so, it’s how do you view your short to medium term goals and the money that you spend to make those things happen.

25:29.59

ThinkinCircles

Yeah, Bobby, there’s some absolutely great tips. Um, hopefully if you’ve been listening to this. There’s enough to kind of take away if you are kind of starting around business. Um Bobby as always. We are going to include all your details in the show notes if anybody wants. No map you or your business they can kind of reach out. Um, but for now it’s been absolute pleasure. Thank you very much.

25:49.77

Bobby Banerjee

No worries look forward to another one soon.

Watch the interview: