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In this episode, host Wendy Coulter discusses the transformative power of branding with guests Hannah Jernigan and Lee Whitley. Lee Whitley, a recruiter who transitioned from software sales to building his own business, shares his journey and insights on adapting strategies to thrive in fluctuating markets. The conversation touches on themes like the Hummingbird Effect, the importance of strong branding, and leveraging personal networks. Lee also offers practical advice for businesses looking to make an impactful change while discussing his unique approach to recruiting that sets his firm apart. Join us for an inspiring discussion about innovation, consistency, and the power of personal connections in driving business success.
00:00 Introduction to Wendy Coulter and Branding
00:54 Meet Hanna Jernigan
01:10 Joy and Holiday Plans
02:10 Introducing Lee Whitley
03:23 Lee Whitley's Career Journey
06:44 The Hummingbird Effect in Recruiting
09:00 Building Elite Teams
20:21 Unexpected Outcomes and Advice
23:38 Networking and Consistency
28:33 The Power of Words and Final Thoughts
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Hummingbird Effect with Wendy Coulter?
Welcome to "The Hummingbird Effect," a podcast dedicated to uncovering the subtle yet powerful ways that small innovations can transform your business. Hosted by Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, this show delves into the stories and strategies behind successful brand building.
For over 25 years, Wendy has helped CEOs and business leaders redefine their brands through innovation and compelling narratives. In this podcast, she shares the insights and lessons learned from her extensive experience, exploring how a strong brand orientation can significantly increase the value of your business.
Each episode features engaging conversations with industry leaders, business advisors, and innovators who have harnessed the power of branding to make a substantial impact. Discover how focusing on core values, mission, and vision can drive your brand beyond mere marketing tactics, fostering a culture that resonates with your audience and enhances your business's reputation.
Inspired by the concept of the Hummingbird Effect—where small, adaptive changes lead to remarkable outcomes—this podcast aims to help you understand and implement the incremental innovations that can elevate your brand and business.
Join Wendy Coulter on "The Hummingbird Effect" and learn how to evolve your brand, attract more customers, and ultimately enhance the value of your business through strategic branding.
[00:00:00]
[00:00:25] Wendy Coulter: Hi, I'm Wendy Coulter and I help CEOs and marketing leaders unlock the power of their brands. For years, business leaders have focused on marketing tactics. I. What truly matters is building a strong brand. Think of it like the Hummingbird Effect.
[00:00:42] Small innovations in branding can lead to surprisingly big results like increased valuation, a stronger culture, and a marketing message that resonates. Welcome to the show today. I have Hannah Jernigan on with me. Hello. Hey Hannah. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Good. We've had a morning talking about strategy.
[00:01:03] We have.
[00:01:03] Hanna: Yes. It's been a very long morning. And it's
[00:01:06] Wendy Coulter: only like lunchtime. Well, it's lunchtime. It's lunchtime. Um, so what's, what's bringing you joy today?
[00:01:14] Hanna: Joy today, I. I don't wanna harp on the holidays. I feel like I did that last time as well. But it is a really joyful time just knowing that I get to look forward to spending not all work time with everyone at work.
[00:01:29] And I get to see all my family and I have my travel plans figured out, which was tough. So that's joyful.
[00:01:37] Wendy Coulter: So my joy today is that first semester of junior year is getting closer and closer to an end. Well, I won't do the, but we do have to come back after the holidays for a couple of weeks, but I'm ready.
[00:01:52] Ready for? I'm ready for the break and a new semester of school for my daughter. Junior year is no joke. So Wendy is basically in high school again. Oh, thanks. Yeah. You learn a lot when you go back and look at pre-calculus all over again. Yeah. Here's that. Um, so today we're going to dive deep into the Hummingbird Effect with Lee Whitley.
[00:02:16] And Lee, welcome to the show. What's bringing you Joy today?
[00:02:20] Lee Whitley: Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. I. Bringing me joy. That's, that's easy. Um, this is basically the last week of work before the holidays. And so I, I joke that companies and employers, I'm in the recruiting business, employers treat hiring at the end of the year the same way I treat my taxes on April 14th.
[00:02:41] They wait until the very last minute. So what that means is that during the, you know, holiday Thanksgiving, up to Christmas when a lot of people are taking their foot off the gas. That's probably one of the most important times for us to be actively recruiting. So for that reason, this week is a flurry of final interviews and reference checks, and it's not this glorious, but you do get to sit back a little bit and see what happens and who gets offers.
[00:03:08] It's less of a outbound recruiting week and more of a fingers crossed. Hope it gets done week. So I'm enjoying seeing. That work come to fruition. And of course, as soon as Friday hits we're, we're pretty much done. So it's been a long year and I'm excited about that.
[00:03:22] Wendy Coulter: Yay. Awesome. Well, so you're, you're talking about recruiting and you started a business not too long ago.
[00:03:30] Lee Whitley: Yep.
[00:03:30] Wendy Coulter: And so tell us about your journey. Um, you're kind of past life and what led you to starting the new business and tell us what it's all about.
[00:03:39] Lee Whitley: Thank you. Um, so I graduated NC State in 2013 and, um, the only job offer I got, yeah, good pack. Um, fingers crossed. Um. The only job offer I got outta college was with Insight Global, which is an IT staffing firm and a really good one.
[00:03:57] So I, I stumbled into recruiting by accident, which I would say 80% of recruiters would tell you that's exactly the case. Um, did that for about a year, worked for a software startup, learned a little bit about entrepreneurship and software and tech. Recruited people for that software startup. And then eventually, I think I realized that although I'd been doing, wearing lots of hats in the startup world, the most lucrative skill that I actually could point to and actually show results for, um, was in recruiting.
[00:04:26] And so at that time in 2018, a lot of my friends were in software sales and they told me about the, the local recruiter in town, his name's Will Barfield. And, and he was, and still is the, the first. Software recruiting headhunter, um, sole business owner in Raleigh. So I joined Barfield Revenue Consulting in 2018.
[00:04:48] Um, I'm still heavily involved with them. They're my lead, um, referral partner. And then basically what happened is that from, you know, 2020 recruiting basically goes to zero during April, may, June of 2020. And then it, it rebounds heavily. A very stark up into the right movement from 2020 to 2022, and then at the end of 2022, I, I could notice the interest rates were were rising offers were getting rescinded.
[00:05:18] Um. Bad signs. And so I, I talked to my business partner, um, and I said, well, what am, what am I gonna do? Where are all the jobs going? And when are they coming back? And it was a very easy conversation. Um, that was late 22, early 23. Um. My business partner said, well, you've got four employees and you've been doing this independently since 2018, so it's time for you to go out on your own so that you can bring in your own business and look out for yourself.
[00:05:45] So that process started in 23, and then the website through Hummingbird launched in early 24. So I'm going on, I guess about a year of, you know, formally being advertised as out on my own.
[00:05:59] Wendy Coulter: Well, I love, um, I love our connections, so we have a lot of connections, whether it's Erica Rosenthal, Lisa Jeffries over at Raleigh Wood, who's also in the marketing world.
[00:06:11] Yes, he's a good friend of mine. Andy, yours. Um, and then will Barfield. And we just talked about Johnny Bass, who you, you think your family probably knows down in Rocky Mount. So, um, really, really neat to always think about all the different business connections that we have with our clients. And I th I thank you for the business that you've brought to Hummingbird over the last year and we're looking forward to 2025.
[00:06:36] So, um, thank you for that. And thank you for being on the show. Um, and so. Before I jump into Hummingbird Effect though, tell us some fun facts. Like I mentioned that you're from Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. Sometimes it's rare in the triangle to find people who are actually like from North Carolina.
[00:06:56] Yeah. Um, we have a lot of of people who've moved into the area, but tell us some other fun facts about Eli.
[00:07:04] Lee Whitley: Um, so I'm third generation NC State, so my grandfather went there in 1952 back when there was no females and maybe 1500. Um, so he was a baseball player at State. My dad actually was a football player at State 1980 a CC Champs last time we've won an a CC championship, which is, um, it's a bittersweet fact.
[00:07:26] Um, so yeah, I, I'm a big time Wolf Packer. I, I, I flew down to Dallas for the Sweet 16, elite eight. Also flew to Phoenix. Um, I've been to Little Rock, Arkansas to watch the baseball team play. So definitely a avid state fan. That's not a fun fact. I would say a fun fact would be I, so I'm a history major from college, which is, which is somewhat rare.
[00:07:46] Um, and I am a bit of a, a, a history buff. My. When my wife goes out to dinner with her friends, she says, what are you gonna do tonight? Oh, let me guess, you're gonna watch a World War II documentary. Mm. And she's right. Um, I, I do wanna put a plug for a recent movie I watch. It's called Midway, um, and it's on Netflix and it's about the battle of Midway in the Pacific.
[00:08:05] Um, and it's fantastic. So I spent a lot of my time, um, reading about, you know, history and watching documentaries. I, I enjoy reading about, you know, leaders and. Militaries and empires of the past. That's something I enjoy. Um, and yeah. Um, I think a, a key to my success is I drive a 2015 Kia Optima. I love that thing.
[00:08:28] It is paid off. It is worth about $5,000 soaking wet. It is Japanese engineered is indestructible, and they will pry that for my dead hands before I get rid of that Kia. It's been, it's been with me through thick and thin. So that, that's, that's my, my best friend outside of my real friends. Yeah.
[00:08:45] Hanna: That's awesome.
[00:08:46] I think one thing that I love on this podcast is I am getting my collection of who I would call if I was ever on a game show and there was a question I just didn't know. Now I have war, history. History, world War, war ii, world Sports. Yeah, sports. So that's exciting. Um, so with your brand, Lee, something that I love is you're not the typical recruiter and we've had the chance to talk about that in our meetings and.
[00:09:09] Even today, and I mean that by your name's, not Whitley Healthcare recruiting or Whitley Transportation recruiting. I'm making administrative Staffing, right? Or Yeah. Um, you are Whitley recruiting and then your tagline is. Building elite teams. So you really focus on just finding the best in the business and putting them where they need to be. So can you talk about why you have that differentiation, how you got there?
[00:09:37] Lee Whitley: Yes. So that is by necessity and that is outta survival. I, I, historically, 80% of the recruiting I've done has been recruiting salespeople for software startups.
[00:09:51] That's what I love to do. That's what I'm known for. The, the truth is, I, I've seen that vertical shrivel twice, 20, 20 and 23, 24, and so. It's very difficult to focus on that and only that and still be able to survive downturns. Um, not only is, so you want to talk about building an elite team because any growing business, the talent who they hire, that's the main thing that they can actually control that will have the biggest.
[00:10:31] Impact on their success and their growth and their culture, and frankly the happiness of the team and the employers. So the idea of building elite teams is that because me and my team have been trained to recruit in a very competitive environment, so software startups, it's an extremely competitive, there's other agencies that work on it.
[00:10:56] Employee referrals are very strong job posting, and the branding of these organizations is very strong, so you have to be extremely fast in order to survive. And so our urgency and our skill, what I found is that when I launched Whitley, thanks to Hummingbird, a lot of my friends who had nothing to do with software just said, oh, well, I own a furniture company and I need a NetSuite administrator, so I'm gonna call Lee.
[00:11:26] That hire itself was mission critical to that business. They had used agencies prior that were specific furniture, specific recruiting firms, and they told me that we outperformed. Um, and so I think that because you're trained in the software world to hit a hundred mile an hour fastball over and over, that certainly translates to privately held smaller family owned businesses.
[00:11:53] Um. So that's the idea is that any business that can grow or wants to grow, we can help and, and that's a diversification play for us, frankly.
[00:12:03] Hanna: Right. And that is your hummingbird effect. You kind of flipped the script. You found a change to make in an area that you needed to, to survive, as you said. But I question how uncomfortable was it to make that switch?
[00:12:19] How did you attack going into it? And then there was obvious success there, but kind of changing your mindset. How did that feel?
[00:12:30] Lee Whitley: So I, yes. So I had to put on my sales and business development hat for the first time. And that goes back to why I started it, right? I, from 2018 to 2022, I never had to ask people for business.
[00:12:40] And when you start, you know, a business and you, you brand yourself as the owner. The c, I don't like the word CEO 'cause I'm still recruiting. There is natural. Imposter syndrome, but you're actually calling someone or meeting them and actually introducing yourself from one owner to another CEO O mm-hmm.
[00:13:00] That, that was awkward and, you know, reaching out to people and getting hard nos was painful. Um, so that's been a transition. Luckily, now I'm just used to it, so it's fine. Um, what's interesting is that the. The business that we did outside of software and tech, that was not painful at all. It, it, it. That just came naturally, that that was an accident.
[00:13:29] I, I just kept hammering content consistently, and then the non-software people just reached out to me. And I, I actually found that to be fairly easy. The, the difficult part was hosting networking events, right? Mm-hmm. So, you know, I'm the mc. Hey everyone, thanks for coming. Um, putting yourself out there, you know, asking people for referrals up to the CEO.
[00:13:51] Um, I. Being told no. That that was the hard part. I, I think this year of the first year, yeah.
[00:13:59] Wendy Coulter: So Lee, we talk about the hummingbird effect and how in order to achieve a seemingly um, in order to make a seemingly small change, and it impacts something in a big way. Yeah. Um, oftentimes takes innovation, but you don't know you're being innovative.
[00:14:20] So can you talk about kind of what the innovation of this has been for you in this first year in business?
[00:14:32] Lee Whitley: It, it's, it's doing. So what I've liked about Hummingbird is that it's been a lot of core marketing fundamentals, case studies, testimonials, doing case studies, doing testimonials, and just simply putting that on LinkedIn and putting that on the internet.
[00:14:54] You're not gonna see a lot of staffing firms that will post a testimonial about their client. See? It's, it's a bit protective. You, you don't want people to know who your clients are because then they can call on 'em. But we chose loyal clients that we trust and just simply saying, I worked with this company and we made 16 hires in five months and 40% of candidates that interviewed and accepted offers.
[00:15:24] Everyone has the stats. Like I'm not the only person who's good at recruiting, but sending that out, um. Google reviews. I, I love Google reviews and that's anytime that you get someone a job, like why wouldn't you ask for a five star Google review? It's just something that's lost. It's just maybe not that important big, but it's so simple.
[00:15:47] And doing the simple things like old school and just consistently showing goodwill to the market and, and, and just showing a, a brand of. Partnership and cooperation and like delightful experiences, continuing to blast that and just making sure that's at the top of people's mind. Very simple. But, um, I, I think that's brought in a lot more business than I thought it would.
[00:16:18] Hanna: And you have mentioned earlier that. Those sales calls or sales meetings were uncomfortable. So you got comfortable living in the uncomfortable which I love and I try to do often, but how would you say your branding helped it become more comfortable? How did investing in that part of your business help you succeed?
[00:16:40] Lee Whitley: The personal feel of the website helps, um, the pictures of the team, not only on the front page, you know. In our headshot, but the, the personal team, pictures of us with our families or doing our hobbies, that's given people an idea of not only who we are, but why we do what we do. Um, so that I think makes people feel comfortable that we're gonna take care of them because we value our lives and what we're trying to get out of this.
[00:17:12] Mm-hmm. Um. So, yeah, I, I think that the, the personal, just basic touch of the website helped and the testimonials help. And if you, you look at the testimonials, a lot of them are personal. Like, I've worked with other agencies, but these guides, listen, that's one of the first ones is that they listen or, um, they don't waste our time.
[00:17:37] Like this was a seamless situation. Um. It's not all about increasing revenue and saving time. It's a lot of, it's about the impact that we've had. So, another one is that, you know, we've found sales reps that have become leaders, so that's like a quadruple whammy of a hire. Mm-hmm. Basically, you killed four birds of one stone.
[00:18:01] Um, that personal touch of the website and just being as genuine as possible. I think that's made prospects feel more comfortable working with us.
[00:18:12] Hanna: We touched on earlier your hummingbird effect being you're not niched down too far, but that's another one as well. Um, you don't do what everyone else does.
[00:18:22] You tell people who your clients are. You talk about your team. Has that had any impact on your team as well, like inside culture to making the change that you were doing outwardly to the people that you wanted to work with? I.
[00:18:37] Lee Whitley: Yes. Um, I've got a very good team that, that I trust. It's very important, especially with the small business, to only work with people you trust.
[00:18:48] There was never a concern there, but I, I think this year has solidified that we have worked together in a foxhole to do whatever it took and that, that feeling within the team that. Everyone was a part of survival and that this is the, the website and all these things, it, it speaks to why we do this. We do this because we can live the life that we want on our own terms, make good money in a flexible environment while making people's lives better, like helping.
[00:19:33] Even if we don't hire a hundred people, I would still say we've helped significantly hundreds this year, every day. Um, so yes. Um, I, I think that confirms to the team why we do what we do, and that's why they like it.
[00:19:51] . I think as we all started our businesses, we were kind of headed into an unknown, right?
[00:20:28] Wendy Coulter: I've been heading into the unknown for almost 30 years, and there's still unknown in front of me. Um, I'm just curious as to what kind of unexpected outcomes have happened for you. Since you started the business as the result of the approach that you've taken with this building, elite teams not being so much in a niche, even though you came from a niche, you realized you needed to be some in a, you needed to do it different in order to survive.
[00:21:01] Lee Whitley: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Wendy Coulter: What unexpected outcomes have you experienced as a result?
[00:21:05] Lee Whitley: I have a very specific number. Um. I knew that this year would be a little scary. Um, but I didn't know how it was gonna look. So if you talk about our niche software, sales generally have a pattern of people coming back. I, I can somewhat forecast, I.
[00:21:28] What software sales, recruiting revenue is gonna look like based on the economy. I can forecast that I didn't understand. And that's the scary thing about staffing. I, I don't know who I'm gonna be recruiting for in February. I have no idea. Um, and so I certainly didn't know that this year, um, our numbers, the revenue for this year.
[00:21:47] So if you take the amount of revenue that we took in, that was from referrals from my. Friends that don't do business with me, just friends of mine who know who I am, that referred me business that I have never done before. Let's say that number is a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. Now total up the entire amount of revenue.
[00:22:10] Now subtract all expenses was your profit. It is almost identical, exact. Profit to the number that I brought in from referrals, meaning that had my friends not noticed that, oh, Lee started his own business. Oh, it looks to me like Lee just, you know, he's a great recruiter. That's the what they got. Had that not happened, our profit would've been zero.
[00:22:36] We would've flatlined. So there's no, and it's kind of like, oh man, I don't wanna get spiritual. But it just, it's just too, it's just too funny.
[00:22:47] Wendy Coulter: What advice would you give other businesses that are looking to leverage similar opportunities to what you've done?
[00:22:54] Lee Whitley: Cash. You've just gotta have cash. You, you've gotta have cash. But you do, you, you've gotta invest in, in marketing, you've gotta invest, not just in your website, but whether it's consistent content, which is easy and effective or targeted advertising, whatever it is, you've got to have some sort of consistent.
[00:23:21] Communication with the market.
[00:23:23] Wendy Coulter: So you talk about consistency in the market.
[00:23:27] Um, and we were talking a little bit before the show about consistency being something that you felt like has just really impacted what you've done. Can you, can you talk more about that and also talk about, um, how you can be consistent, but stay adaptable?
[00:23:50] Lee Whitley: Yes. So consistent is different than. Active,
[00:23:57] you've gotta do it enough for people not to forget about you. That that's the big story, is that I think it's easy for people to forget, like what I even do. Is he even still doing recruiting? Oh yeah. He just does the software stuff like.
[00:24:08] They can't forget what you're doing. So I think that consistency in that aspect of being mindful of how often you're getting people's attention. You've got the key things that you do that bring in revenue, but that's not everything that your audience cares about. Um. You know, we had a post about us at a golf tournament that we sponsored for charity, and then, you know, there's a picture of us eating dinner together for the holiday Christmas party.
[00:24:37] Like that has nothing to do with our offer to acceptance ratio. But that continues, like the fact that these are the people who we are and these are the people that you're working with to deliver for your team. So there's different types of messages out there because. You're a well-rounded business in the sense that you don't just sell one type of product.
[00:25:02] You know, so you've gotta talk about the different things you do, um, but you're also well-rounded as a group of people, which I think clients and people care about.
[00:25:11] Hanna: I think you touched on something that is really difficult to actually do, and we were kind of talking about it this morning. It's tough to have your strategy and to follow through with it, what yours is you're gonna post.
[00:25:24] What matters. That's a really hard thing to actually, yeah, I think the intention,
[00:25:28] Wendy Coulter: the intention of that is, um, is honorable and I think a lot of.
[00:25:35] Even larger brands don't have that kind of intention in what they're doing with their marketing. Um, there's, there's always the pressure on marketing teams to show numbers and to show very strong results. It's hard to show results when the num, there aren't numbers there. And so I think a lot of marketers get into this need to continue to grow the numbers Yeah.
[00:26:03] Of. What they're doing, thinking that's going to lead to results and the numbers being bigger in terms of results, and it doesn't always play out that way. Um, and so, you know, talk about intentionality. I mean, how has that played out? How has that played out for you?
[00:26:24] Lee Whitley: One of, I think one of the most impactful things that I do is, um, I hosted. Two or three, um, networking meetups. So basically I, I pay for food and drinks, um, and you invite speakers or sometimes you don't. And it's important when I send something out on LinkedIn that we are hosting an event. It's important that that gets a lot of impressions because.
[00:27:01] If you think about everything we've talked about around our team, how we help people, so how, what does that mat matriculate into? So what is like the end of that funnel? A big one for me is that because we invest in our reputation, if I'm hosting a sales networking event, we get over a hundred RSVPs and we get 60 to 80 to show up just from a LinkedIn post, which is pretty good.
[00:27:29] Um. That event. It makes perfect sense why I would do that. Um, you're giving back to the people that you serve because they, this is not a marketing conversation, this is just what's happened in the world. There's not enough human interaction and people want to meet someone who works over at Bandwidth. Ah, I'd love to meet someone who works over, um, at Pendo, et cetera.
[00:27:53] Um, so I offer basically an opportunity for people to do that. Um. We pay for it and we organize it. Um, and that it keeps you close to the people that you care about. It puts you in front of hiring managers and sales reps. Um, but it's self-serving philanthropic. It's both. So I think that's a key thing that we do.
[00:28:22] In everything that I put out in the internet. I wanna make sure that it continues that sentiment.
[00:28:29] Wendy Coulter: I wanna go somewhere, um, a little bit different. So what you may or may not know is you do have two alumni sitting across the table from you, from NC State. Yeah. You've got one who. Tailgates like a mad person throughout the, throughout the seasons and, um, and so passionate, very passionate, and a passionate fan that you might not want to be sitting near if things go awry at a game.
[00:28:58] Um. And so going back to the fact that you've got, um, a degree in history from NC State Yeah. And today you're running a business, right? Yeah. And, and there are a lot of stories like that that I know of people who started in one place and have landed in another. Can you talk about, however, how that experience and maybe that network has served you today in your business?
[00:29:27] 'cause I think that's another example of a hummingbird effect. Um, you even could go back as far as relationships from. Rocky Mountain Wilson, North Carolina to NC State to you. You have mentioned your friends a few times, and so are those long-term friendships? EE.
[00:29:49] Lee Whitley: Every referral that I've had this year, outside of the software realm, they're either someone from NC State or someone from Rocky Mount.
[00:29:56] Yeah. And that's the benefit of going to NC State, is that you can work in the city in which you went to college too. Right. So I. I have been spoiled and, and maybe I should have challenged myself a little bit more, but I graduated in 2013. I've never had an issue knowing who to hang out with it. It's been baked in.
[00:30:18] Um, and so, yeah, like one of my roommates is now one of the leading guys at Dogwood Bank, right? So that's on the website. And I don't recruit for banks, but I guess I do now my best friend from Rocky Mountain who owns that furniture company or you know. That is now a success story because I proved that I could hire highly technical person to work in office in Rocky Mount, which is not easy to do, and that's a feat, um, that the, the Raleigh is like, so I, my parents grew up, or my dad grew up in Rocky Mount and like in the eighties and nineties, Centura Bank and Hardee's and all these businesses like.
[00:31:02] That was a rising tide. And for that reason, that generation of, you know, the, the 55 to 65-year-old crowd, they all did well because of that. Being in Raleigh right now is, is a cheat cut. It's not even fair. Like you just show up and do the right things and network and like you're gonna find opportunity.
[00:31:22] So going to NC State, having a strong network of people that you know actually. Respect me and have sent me business. Like I said earlier, the numbers would not have mathed this year without it. But only what I'll say about history is that our team, all four of us, we are all above average writers. Um, when you ask someone what makes a good recruiter, they would say, well, you've gotta be able to sniff people out.
[00:31:48] You've gotta be able to be really good on the phone. You've gotta be able to do a lot of calls. Those are all true. You've gotta have activity, you've gotta have good people skills. I, I think. What about the ability to write 20 personalized outreach messages in seven minutes? What about that? What about like, I don't need chat GPT to write a job description.
[00:32:11] It takes me three minutes and it's good, like when you're emailing a SVB of sales, like they are more senior to you, but if you write a certain way mm-hmm. You look different. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, that's the way that we get things done. How do you schedule 20 interviews at a time? You've gotta be a concise writer.
[00:32:34] Um, history, you know, I, I, I didn't major in business and I. A lot of my friends who majored in business got better jobs than I did outta college, which is fair, but I don't, they're not bad writers like most of them have, and, and business writing is different. You can really just adapt your writing. But I, I think that, you know, outta the box, writing's been a advantage I've had, and believe it or not, my entire team, they share that skill.
[00:33:04] Hanna: That's a really cool thing to, to pull out of that and to a skill to take with you. Who would've thought that you'd
[00:33:10] Wendy Coulter: want
[00:33:10] Hanna: the power
[00:33:11] Wendy Coulter: of words? Yeah. Right. I mean that's, that's a lifelong gift is what that is. 'cause a lot of people don't ever get into that writing place at all. And when you're in business, it does like, help you rise to the top to be able to communicate well.
[00:33:27] And that's, you know, that's part of marketing too, that communications piece. Um, so what else do you have to share?
[00:33:37] Lee Whitley: If you agree that talent is important to your business, if you agree that talent's gonna help you generate more revenue, profit. You know, increase market share. Go into new industries. If you agree that talent's gonna take you there, um, you've gotta have a meeting with all the stakeholders in the interview process.
[00:33:57] Everyone needs to understand that this is an offensive movement. This is not a cautious movement. This is not something that is a distraction that's taking them away. This is critical towards making them look better and making the business. Bring in more money because the timing in between interviews, your ability to schedule efficiently to get feedback to candidates, including denying them.
[00:34:25] Deny them fast. They'll love you for it. They get candidates get mad when you deny them after six weeks. They don't get mad after two weeks. Um, make sure whenever you're recruiting. That everyone involved understands what this means to the business and understands that this is an offensive movement for them if everyone's on the same page versus this just being another task.
[00:34:47] It'll, you'll get more candidates because of time, 'cause they won't get other offers. And it, it just generally speaking, is a good exercise for the people within the business to operate as a unit and to understand that talent acquisition is just as important, if not more important than delivering that deliverable back to the client.
[00:35:08] You know, during the holidays it's maybe sometimes more important and everyone needs to feel the same way when they're doing it.
[00:35:14] Wendy Coulter: You're so passionate about your business. So we, we really appreciate having you on today. These have been great insights, Lee. It's great to get to know you even better, and I'm excited for you going into 2025.
[00:35:29] I think it'll be a, a fantastic year. So, any final thoughts Hannah? No.
[00:35:34] Hanna: Would you mind sharing with the listeners how to get in touch with you?
[00:35:38] Lee Whitley: Oh yeah. Um, Lee, LE e@whitleyrecruiting.com.
[00:35:44] Hanna: His LinkedIn that he's so wildly talked about is just Whitley recruiting
[00:35:49] Lee Whitley: Lee Whitley recruiter. That's the tagline. Okay.
[00:35:53] Not CEO, not scaling teams recruiter.
[00:35:57] Wendy Coulter: Thank you. Thank you so much again, Lee, for coming on and sharing your stories with us today. And thank you to all the listeners who are hearing this episode today as we go into the holiday season. Um, have a joyful season and go out and find your hummingbird effect.
[00:36:15] Thank you.
[00:36:16]