Marcus Sheridan made me write this article about…What Are Your Fees?

Marcus Sheridan you made me do this ??

I originally wrote this article in 2016 before Marcus had even published his amazing book “They Ask, You Answer”.

As an avid reader at the time of his Blogs and a regular listener to his podcasts where we heard about him versus the basement cross-trainer and how he believed answering clients questions however hard they were was a necessary part of the process to enable clients to truly trust you and that we are here to ‘serve’ them.

I then wrote and published this article on LinkedIn Articles / Pulse back when articles were actually a great source of content on LinkedIn.

After I saw Marcus’s upcoming online seminar “How Effectively Addressing Cost Online Can Make You Millions with Marcus Sheridan” - I thought it was time for a refresher after 8 years so here it is!

What Are Your Fees?

This is one of the top three questions I get asked every day by clients when they want to know about how we can help them.

Sometimes it is the first question we get asked but that is always a warning sign i.e., if price is the ONLY / MAIN reason we might be chosen as a recruitment partner then as a 100% specialist Treasury recruiter it’s unlikely that will be able to win.

As I am a recruiter within my specific niche, we have ?a lower volume of activity meaning we do not benefit from the repeat assignments and volume of positions that many generalist recruiters have access to that often means they can offer ‘bulk’ discounts.

But do you know what, that’s OK, we do an amazing job when recruiting Treasury professionals.

When we recruit a Treasurer if we do our job then the Treasurer is likely to stay at least 3 years but usually its 5+ years not a huge opportunity from them BUT when we do place one its then about helping them build or expand their treasury team and that is where the magic happens ??

We live and breathe treasury recruitment; the intellectual challenge makes it more interesting, and we own our niche!!!

We target candidates and clients and that costs us research time, effort, and money and the fees we charge enable us to give a great service and this is what we do!

We speak at treasury conferences across the USA, the UK and Europe, this costs us in terms of time, effort, and money and this becomes a real pressure when we are being asked to flex our fees.

So when we are asked by procurement departments to agree to 18%, 15% maybe less sometimes! Yep, it happens…

?“Mike our other guys on our PSL have agreed to work at cheap rates.

You are at 30% for the senior roles and 25% for the junior roles”

Yes, I am, as that is what it costs us to recruit people for you!

Why don’t you give the role to the guys on your PSL at 15% and see how they get on?

There is usually a reason they are that cheap and then they fail…

They will look for the next couple of months or so and they may get lucky and find one or two candidates.

Good luck to them, they will need it.

After 6 to 8 weeks, they have not produced a successful result!

I get the call “Mike, I want you to do a search for us”

“OOOOKAYYYY” I say with trepidation knowing what is coming next….

“Mike, we would love to give you a crack at the search!”

“Greatttttt”

BUT we want you to match the fees of those guys who have produced no results for the past 8 weeks….

RIGHT….

Yep, we still want you to work on a contingent basis where all the risk lies with you.

RIGHT….

Mike I want you to invest your time and money in doing the search with no guarantee of revenue in the process but don’t worry zero cost and zero commitment from us.

Yep 100% risk to you and 0% to us to use your services.

Oh, and by the way you should know you will be going into a?“scorched earth” Treasury Recruitment market?where a series of generalist recruiters have blanketed the market, mis-sold the role, some of them struggle to spell the word?treasury?let alone understand how to recruit a treasury role.

If there was someone suitable, they have decided that as you are using a generalist agency to recruit, you are not serious about treasury anyway and they have been turned off from the role by the recruiter.

Mike, good luck with the role because you are going to need it!

Okay so when I originally wrote this article way back in 2016 it sounded like a bit of a RANT, well because I think at the time it was.

Now I’m a bit older & tiny bit wiser – I’ve reflected on that time and do you know what it was a rant but now I don’t mind so much.

If a client must go through a process like that I understand, they feel those methods are necessary they must prove they have searched the market via LinkedIn and still come up empty.

Do I mind, no…

BUT now I am that bit wiser I would just say do what you must do.

If you must let your internal team and the LinkedIn search fail, then do so…

BUT please understand when you ask for a reduced rate once you have gone through all that please don’t get mad at us when we say sorry, but we can’t discount our fee.

I have just explained why in the 900+ WORDS ABOVE ??????????????????????

SO, RANT OVER – WHATS YOUR ANSWER THEN GENIUS???

Well, I have?THREE YES THREE SOLUTIONS!

Solution I – Contingent Approach

“NO-WIN, NO-FEE,” FULL FEE IF I AM SUCCESSFUL!

Client A – “Mike, I will pay you the full 25% or 30% fee for a full search that I am instructing you on, but it is a “NO-WIN, NO FEE contingent basis”.

I am prepared to pay you a full fee if you find me the right person.

If you do not, we won’t pay you.

Mike, you do the work; you take the risk BUT for a FULL FEE!

“Mike if you recruit my next ￡150,000 Treasurer, they should be worth that fee if they cannot save me that money in:

• bank fees and refinancing
• savings through a new Treasury management system
• motivating the team and getting much more out of them in the first three, six or at least within the first twelve months

Then I will not want to recruit that person anyway!

No win, no fee but at a full fee if you find that person for us.”

?

Solution 2 – Retained Search

RETAINER, SHORTLIST FEE, COMPLETION

Client B – “Mike, let us de-risk this process for both sides and I will retain you to find me a Treasury person, but I would appreciate some flexibility on the fee as I am committing exclusively to you. What can we do? Can we work together on this?”

I can flex on the fee as you are trusting in me by retaining me and I will be able to dedicate time and paid research resources to the search.

I believe I can recruit the role and I want to work on it with you.

I will charge you 1/third of what the estimated fee will be at the beginning.

You will be paying for my time.

Will I make loads of profit from the Retainer fee? No.

In most cases we barely break even or make a profit until a Shortlist fee is paid, the?profit for my business is in the Completion fee.

We agree that I will charge you your Shortlist fee when I give you a shortlist that you love.

When the person starts, I charge you the Completion fee.

If my shortlist fails, I do not charge you, I find you more suitable treasury professionals.

If the person does not start, I don’t charge you I go back to a shortlist stage and find more great candidates.

Mmmmm, Retained Search – Mike what is your record?

I have a 100% record of Retained searches over the past 25 years.

Wow, why? Well, it is in the record!

Because it is 100%….

Sorry, what does that mean to me as a client?

That means I know you will work and work and work to find you the right person.

Have I lost money working on retained searches in the past?

Yes – I have!

Why?

Because I have never failed over the past 25 years, and I do not intend to start NOW!

I have not failed yet, so I want to keep that 100% record.

Hang on Mike, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, back up the truck.

I am still nervous – you have said you will charge me.

1/3rd?at the beginning as a Retainer

1/3rd?at the beginning as a Shortlist

1/3rd?at the beginning as a Completion

My fingers are still blistered, I have been burnt by less reliable recruiters in the past. We are still nervous we retained recruiters, and they did not deliver results.

Horrible recruiters who charged me and virtually ran off with my cash?

Don’t worry!!!

How about we combine both approaches and meet in the middle?

Solution 3 – Staged Search

RETAINER, COMPLETION FEE

As before I will charge you a retainer, this will pay for some of my time.

1/3rd?at the beginning as a Retainer

2/3rds?at the beginning as a Completion

The overall fee will be lower than the CONTINGENT APPROACH in total where I take all the risk but higher than my RETAINED SEARCH fee as the risk is higher.

We meet in the middle.

I only charge you the final 2/3rds?of the fee upon completion of the assignment i.e., if I don’t recruit the role I am going to lose money.

I am betting on the fact that I can find you that right person.

If I don’t recruit the role I will lose money.

You will have paid for some of my time and not been burnt in the process.

I have created what I believe is a “win-win situation” for both you as a client and me as recruiter.

Believe me I am incentivised to recruit the role – I’m not in business to lose money.

I hope this diatribe didn’t put you to sleep, rather it gave you an insight into what we do for our clients and if you are a candidate, you gained an insight into the world we live in and recruit within.

Next time you are recruiting we can have a sensible open chat about what approach suits you best. I want to recruit your next Treasury professional. That is why I am here!

As always if you have further questions – call me! I would love to help!

Pop over to our website and see more information about how to recruit your next Treasurer today! https://treasuryrecruitment.com/