Increase Your Client Base and Save Time With Business Development Efforts! | Alex Dovganetskiy
welcome back to another live episode of the relevant recruiter show today i get to speak with a good friend of mine former client of mine Alex Dovganetskiy from allies search i've been practicing saying that all morning alex thank you for joining me today we're going to be talking about alex's journey as a recruiter and talking specifically about how he's been able to leverage the relevant recruiter program and helping him and his team change the way they're doing business development and become more efficient but alex thank you for joining me today on the show it's my pleasure dying thanks for the invite i appreciate it awesome uh i know where you're at in the world but why don't you share everybody else uh you know a little bit of details where are you located what's the family life like what do you got going on with the personal life right now sure we're located in harrisonburg virginia about a couple hours away from dc uh came here back in 1997. we immigrated to california in 92 but lived in sacramento for a while then came to virginia 97 i've been living here ever since uh family is great um a 21 year old daughter finishing up she's a senior in college i just got a you know son's first year freshman in high school so uh wife's doing great so doing pretty good awesome awesome cool and just to give everyone a little bit more backstory your wife does work with you correct right correct okay all right cool we'll definitely be we'll definitely dive into a couple of those questions and see how the husband and wife team are doing alex give us uh your little story personally i mean how did you get started off in in the recruiting industry absolutely well i've always wanted to have a business uh my uncles uh we were probably the only family that didn't own a business uh my uncles so growing up um living in california leaving in russia california they always had some kind of a business they were doing so i was just watching them uh watching them and you know i that's something i always wanted to do now i didn't start my journey until i was about 37 which is 2017. uh well i was a focus factory manager working for a huge manufacturing plant and i was interacting with a lot of staffing and recruiting agencies and because of my position i was mainly talking to the executives the vp's directors and just kind of picking their brains about what the industry is about um you know what what are they doing you know why are they in this business so uh it really picked my interest so i i guess i can say it's kind of by accident it was just it happened uh but i felt i just you just kind of have that feeling that you know this is it and uh you know at age 37 you're like it's now or never uh i know it could be wrong but some people start their businesses in 40s so in 50s it doesn't matter but for me it was uh that was it i really felt that it was time so i actually started it in uh 2017 august 21st and i did it on the site for about two years okay so i mean i had an hour lunch uh go out and eat real quick then i'll do my cold calls you know reach out uh get uh get some traction and then i would come home and work till about 9 p.m go to bed start all over again so i did that for about two years before i actually started on my own so nice nice so you never you never worked for another agency you were never an internal recruiter this is just something you saw as an opportunity and just went for it great question yeah yeah because we did a little research and we saw that a lot of recruiting and staffing uh owners or founders they were either on the sales side and they went into recruiting or they uh quit some kind of a recruiting agency and started on their own so with us being in uh up manufacturing supply chain you know for our whole uh career we saw an opportunity that we could do uh not not something different everybody does the same way of getting candidates but you just saw us opportunity of having that language to our clients and able to speak to them at uh at their level because we understand what the hr the operation managers the plant managers directors what they're going through what they have open positions so i felt like we have had had the advantage there and uh be able to you know really speak their language and uh connect with them at the next level yeah yeah be curious i mean what kind of i would imagine it was probably hard to come into an industry that you know you had done the research on but you'd never actually formally done done the job so to speak what kind of stories did you have anything going in turn on internally kind of telling you that you weren't going to be able to succeed like how did you get over those types of things because i think that's kind of a normal part of being an entrepreneur oh yeah absolutely i mean absolutely i'm a man of faith so i believe things happen for us not to us all right we start there and you know there's a lot of prayers went into starting the business yeah yeah yeah you know uh i it's not something i just decided and i said okay here's i'm gonna do it you know there's a lot of women in preparation also uh my wife i mean she's been a great support you know without her i wouldn't have been where i'm at now not in just business but in general right i also had uh um i consulted a lot with uh jessica shadow worth as you know her shout out to her yeah she's uh have phenomenal recruiter and a business owner now and also kaylee bloom i work with uh both of those young ladies and they really helped me understand recruiting uh they really helped me kind of boom any questions i had i would reach out to them and they really uh explained to me the details of you know the the the rejections uh the no's the yeses what to do when so they really guided me in the right direction so it was a lot of help got it cool as you kind of started out outside of you know just the time obviously when you're starting out and you're working your day job and then doing this in between you know that was probably your biggest challenge but outside of that like what were some of the biggest challenges you were facing you know as a business owner um especially a first-time business owner well i mean it's a business on paper right uh it's more like a high-paying job right i believe until it gets to that point right right a business is where you kind of kind of uh have a team of people working and you don't have to get involved with the day-to-day operations but um but to answer your question um i mean it was just not understanding the business side you know i've i believe i've wasted a lot of money on promotional stuff stuff that i didn't know i thought i needed but i didn't uh there was a lot of time and money went into that um you know some of the people i see their business takes off and it just runs uh quick i mean um i believe just some of those folks have a good knowledge of just quitting other firms they understand a lot so i was just uh going in for something i had no clue about the industry as much and also as running the business itself so um just knowing that you need that you need the llc you need the emails you need uh the the uh the license you need an account and so there's a lot of little details that went into the process that i didn't know about that i just had to figure out so but i also see a lot of courses on that now some folks offer so i mean if you're starting out i would it's worth to take the course right uh you would save a lot of money in time yep bridge that gap get there faster absolutely 100 what do you think you know like when you kind of come to this industry you've been in it for a couple of couple you know years now i mean what what kind of problems are you trying to solve you know um so to speak like what are you trying to do to make make an impact and change the industry from where you sit as far as the industry or problems with that for clients more just kind of the industry like what you what are you trying to do differently than the rest of recruiters out there you mentioned that you kind of saw it working in in you know in-house and that's what kind of inspired you to think that you could do something a little bit better i mean what are you thinking specifically that you know could be improved great question um being as a candidate i've worked with a number of recruiters that i was placed by and then i have a lot of friends and colleagues that were working with other headhunters is one is giving feedback no matter what to the candidate that is crucial i mean uh i know sometimes candidates get kind of fired up they start asking all these questions why you know start beating their child saying i i was a good candidate just look past that simply say tell them give them some feedback and say you didn't work out you know they're looking at somebody else there's a better candidate you know find out come up with some kind of a reasoning and give them some feedback i would say one two is that you know don't work in positions you cannot feel i mean uh there's there's some positions that um you just won't be able to feel and we have to be upfront with the clients i mean when we accept a new uh new customer now we actually do the research on the industry the position to pay the area uh the company to really understand the position that's one of the non-negotiables is that we will not work on positions we cannot understand right so i would say that's another one and then um really um i'm not saying you have to be in working like we did in manufacturing supply chain to be successful i mean there's a lot of people are really successful uh if they didn't have the background of the companies they're working with but that helps uh just because you can really get at their level and understand them so right right now going kind of the next question is like what are you trying to solve you guys are focused on manufacturing supply chain correct correct what types of problems are you trying to solve for for them specifically well i would say though one of the number one is turnover right i mean you have to find the right candidates for the fit i mean uh a lot of times especially when you're uh in a in a desperate mode to make a placement and people know what i'm talking when they're starting out you just want to make that placement because you have to get that revenue going because you got a chance of running out of business so really looking and making sure that that candidate is for the company and uh you know not force it do not report it uh you know really let be the guy between a candidate and a client and if something this red flags you know it's it's better to walk away because it will hurt in the long term because right turnover is one of the things that uh one of the costs one of the other than uh the materials labor is one of the most costly things for the companies and turnover is a big part of that 100 yeah 100 what are you seeing right now like with your market just out of curiosity i know speaking with a lot of people you know things have really picked up are you kind of seeing the same thing with what the market you're targeting right now when i see uh us picking up or yeah yeah starting to get really busy in in lots of open positions and yep yep we definitely see that going on right now at uh i would say at the mid-level on leadership positions uh of course the executive positions have been put on hold last year we haven't seen those come back yet but there's a lot of engineering positions um for the actual engineers in engineering and leadership uh we see uh of course the frontline supervision those are always reoccurring right uh we see a lot of analysts right now because and we started asking questions you know it's like you see one client second client or client they're all looking for analysts you start asking questions why well they're part of these uh zoo meetings that they get on like with uh some of the group staring and they're saying that you know they want an analyst to and you know to have the analytic analytics and predict what's going to happen because with this whole pandemic thing that you know a lot of people got caught uh not being ready so uh there's analysts they've been hired so and we see those jobs posted as well by other companies so right right yeah that's that's interesting so they're basically trying to get ahead of the next storm so to speak yep yep i wonder if there's any numbers that are going to predict the next pandemic out there i would say i'll tell you this for the past 50 years we've had a recession depression we had something so you look at the trend it's about every decade so there we go you were taking always gonna be something there's gonna be some yeah absolutely absolutely yeah it's always funny because every time it comes up it's always you're always feeling like it's an interesting time of life and it's just a part of life right there's always it is it helps yep very cool so you know what were some of the outside of you know we talked about a little bit of the mindset work what were some of the challenges that you were facing you know from client development and things like that as you were going out and trying to grow this business well i mean uh i did a lot of call calls i mean that's that's what you you look to do i mean that's what you were taught for the past you know couple decades is uh if more you call call you reach out and you uh try to get the business so i've done that for four years and uh i mean especially now i think coco it's it's really hard to do i'm not saying you always had to get on the phone to to close a deal that's just right although i had some that were closed by email never even spoke to the person i mean it just depends on the client right you know and we've made those kind of placements so it's pretty crazy it's crazy as it sounds but i mean cold calling is one that was really uh ineffective for us um we also that did an email reach out as well it was better because uh with an email this goes into inbox that they can respond to mark unread you know the girls reply i mean cold call requires more more calories to return your call i sort of call them that right the less calories the client has to burn to get back to you or to close the deal the better that's kind of how it works what i've learned got it you gotta speak your calories right it's so different but that's just how it works i love the analogy i think it's great never heard of explained that way but i think it makes a lot of sense you know um what you know what how did we get connected like where's i think it was jessica shuttleworth but like was there something else that kind of attracted you towards you know me before even knowing really what i did well i'm really careful who i work with and i do a lot of research and uh you reached out to me i've kind of put it on the back burner i believe you should talk to me by linkedin and then we connected and then i uh i was kind of watching your content and seeing what you post i've seen a couple of success stories um so one of them was jessica so i reached out to jess i said hey jess i mean uh what do you think about this guy is he worth working with he's like yeah i mean uh it really worked for us there's something different that he does uh from the marketing standpoint that we haven't seen before we haven't done it's actually working for us so i've done a little bit more uh research did a little bit of digging and i was like you reached out again and again i was like there's got to be a reason for that so that's kind of how we connected is uh that referral and i saw your content that you posted really uh really shift my mind towards working with you got it got it that's awesome to hear that's awesome to hear i mean what about our work together do you feel like you know has impacted your business the most absolutely i mean just the way you um you show us the market i mean we did actually when we were for the past three years we've done very little marketing right most of what we did was uh was trying to do sales right uh but marketing is really important because that's what breeds brings in the leads in into sales and turns them into sales so i mean you really showed us how to um understand your client as one understanding their their pains like uh what what are their pains what do they need actually from you i mean you're not going to work with all the clients and there's some that they're just and one thing about recruiting that i've learned is that if they need you it's not hard to close that deal and when they need you but they don't need you no matter what you do no matter what strategy you use you're just wasting your time right so that that was a big big factor that we learned from the program is um that understanding what your client needs you know understand our painting points what are they looking for where they add so you can reach out to them what social media platform they're on and uh to kind of really uh understand your business of what kind of value you can bring you know what is your message you know uh what do you stand for what might and be really uh specific about the kind of niche that you're going after and you have to be able to speak to your audience to your content as well and content is another one i i don't like making videos i don't i really don't uh i i don't like create content i'm gonna be honest with you yeah let's give you time when i'm gonna dedicate delegate to somebody else but you know you have to do it right now you're wearing multiple hats and uh what i've learned is that making content kind of takes you out of your comfort zone yeah you know i you speak a little bit different you uh you become more confident you have different kind of hand movement now so and you need that as a business person i believe you need to be able to engage you know able to and because this is what it's uh trending that's what's going on right now and it's going to be going forward i mean it's the video making uh folks who want to watch videos instead of reading some of the content right but yeah that's kind of um it was a really good guide to understand us where we are we need to go and understand our clients and pick our niche right i think you bring up something interesting that i think it's it really is where a lot of people feel is this the whole content right like in really not loving the content but also kind of knowing that it's a necessary evil like how did the program help you work through that to like go okay i don't want to do this but i have to do this and you know how did we make it kind of easier and pointed to you know get you clarity on what you should be creating well you're really good at holding people accountable that's one uh that the result is really good i mean uh i mean when you're in the program you're actually stick with us and making sure that uh you gotta do the work i mean it doesn't matter no matter what right uh you you can pay thousands of dollars for a program if you don't know the work it's uh it's irrelevant yeah so you have to do the work but you really guided us through and if there was any kind of hesitance from us you always point us the right directions like well start just start making a video just just make one video right then practice making a video then you know just keep going you have to start you can't take step five without taking the step one right it's kind of steps incremental changes that you will notice going through the program that um i'll look at my videos now from last year and i scratched my head like wow it's a big change yeah it is a big change so yeah there was a really good guy guiding us through uh the content and actually what what kind of content to create i mean you really laid out the steps uh what we need to follow because it's good to create content but the content needs to be value ad right i mean there's a lot of content out there with cats and dogs you know and you just watch stuff that you'll be entertained that's not what we're here for right here to you know to understand and uh and to get more clients and have more business that's what we're here for so content the first couple videos probably until you get to uh stage when you're comfortable you uh you might make few videos that we're just just talking but you have to switch and make sure the content is valued at to the clients that's the main thing because you'll be just wasting your time yep yep now that's great feedback and and i know you've been on that journey i know you embraced the content you know fully and i remember we talked early on about your dislike for the videos and uh i applaud you for sticking with it getting better at it and you know making it you know help make an impact on your business you know um and the consistency i'm sure is starting to pay off for you um you know with people seeing your brand and seeing your message and probably reaching out to you you know about business just as a direct result of your content but yeah i think it's content's a challenge right and it's certainly a grind and you know kudos to you for sticking with it and making it work for you what do you think you know like what are some of the results that you've had just you know from as a result of going through the program well uh we went through the program successfully we completed it on time i was sticked around just a little bit longer just a little bit longer just to uh i mean i love the group interactions because you just learn so much from different people we're all there for the same purpose but we have our different point of views different ways of understanding things it's a lot of support in a group too yeah i know eventually i had to get out of the group because i've completed a course but i miss it it was a really good collaboration with the folks and we had a great group of people um but it's um i mean it's going through there just to understand of uh what was needed from us so we've actually gained about four clients since working uh working with you now it would have been a lot more uh but you're not going to work with everybody i mean there's uh i would say we at least have a conversation a couple times a week right now and if if we have three non-negotiables that some clients don't meet i mean it could have been 15 clients but we have to stick with the non-negotiables because uh you're just not going to work with everybody yep yep that's awesome so four new clients plus you're getting several calls a week that's yep that's amazing that's amazing now i know that you've got a team underneath you you know working right now has that allowed you you know to expand expand the efforts absolutely i mean going through the program the tools you provided it free up at least 50 percent of my time during the day i mean honestly that's really great that is huge yep yep and we use those tools to uh for the business development for marketing and also working the recruiters as well yep yep it beat up a lot of my time i i i mean it's like uh a big change huge right right that's awesome to hear man um i love i love doing these interviews and hearing the success and you know i mean like you said you have to put in the work signing up for the program doesn't do anything unless you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do it so yeah and not only we got those four clients um donnie we also made placements with those clients as well i mean i don't want to say we've got clients we actually brought in revenue right i mean would i have had those clients if we went through your course i don't know right but i know that i did and we do have we do see a huge impact and we have more job orders with those clients right it was a big change that's awesome i'd love to hear that what do you think you know when you're looking at i mean you mentioned earlier that you're kind of very picky about the people you work with i'm sure you did other you know research i mean what do you think makes me different than what else your what else you've kind of seen in the marketplace or even experienced well how do i say this i can't i've been i've been declining a lot of folks to work with for some reason i've accepted to work with you so i can't really say what kind of material they provide or uh what services they provide if they work or don't work right i'll tell you one thing you have to like somebody to trust somebody okay i would start there because if you don't like somebody there's no trust right it's just like a date right when you go out we all you know when you ask how your girlfriend your wife uh she has to like you or a man he has to like you right now before she gets in your car there's some kind of a connection or like right before she has the trust say okay we're going on a date right right so that like has to come there's something about what you've done uh you know through your content through just uh some of the other testimonials that um we just liked you and we said okay let's trust him let's work with him and see what happens got it any uh any surprises uh as you went through the program um that kind of came up anything that kind of caught you off guard or anything's positively surprising or good question good question surprised that some of the folks still stand in program that longer than the program was actually uh allowed that was surprising because it's a fairly easy program right but it was it was a surprise but it wasn't like wow why i understand some people takes longer right now that was one of the things that was kind of just like oh because i always it was it was a certain date that we had to get down by so we busted our butt working extra right but it's good to know that something can go over or not but uh it's it's good to stay within the guidelines because then you can faster and implement those tools and to take them to the market yeah but uh you know it's it's one of those things but we completed it on time a little bit earlier and we're able to stick around a little bit and work with other folks it was great yeah that's awesome that's awesome so and you know give that opportunity and that flexibility so and another one it's a big one that was really surprising and uh i can say this one that not everybody offers that you release an updated course because stuff updates right right their stuff changes there's things that happen in background right so you released an updated course and you gave access to everybody that went to the course that was huge that was huge i love that almost like you're out there to add value to us versus just uh going after the the the revenue right and it means a lot and uh and that's how you build trust and that's how people come back is that because my wife and i went through your course number of times right look at the first one look at the second when you compare because you know you go to the course but you want to go back and kind of review a couple of things right your messaging changes uh a lot of things change so we will go back and say oh we need to make an adjustment here oh danny's got the new course out let's see what's different oh man this is a new tool that we didn't know about that was huge that was huge for us that's good i appreciate that feedback that's that's definitely certainly what i was trying to do and it's something i really drive home um with you know people that are considering the program is that you're always going to get updated content you know the market's always shifting there's always changes linkedin's always making changes email's always making changes so i'm glad that's been helpful for you i mean if somebody was considering working with me what would you say alex i would say go for it i mean it's uh honestly i mean it's not one of these where um we've experienced it and like i said we didn't just get four clients right well actually there's there was a revenue brought in from these four clients uh not all four at once but there were some that we actually made placements some we're still working with right now that that uh candidates are going through the interview process and uh you know if you're like for example one of our non-negotiables and i'll say one of them i could see all three it doesn't matter but we don't work below 20 so if you're out there working below 20 you know there's a lot of candidates i mean there's a lot of clients out there that will work with you if you're starting out you know you're like okay i work for uh 17 15 i'm just trying to get up you know i make some placements get some clientele going until i can build myself there's a lot of clients out there that will work 15 and below it kind of depends but our one of our non-negotiables is nothing below 20 right so right love it love it what are you most excited about next i mean you've got your business is thriving you guys have added on some new people i mean what's next for you and the team growth i mean it's uh growth we're really looking forward to it we've uh you know we've been up in revenue every year since we've started well the first two were kind of slow but we still uh made placements but it's it's all about growth and uh and actually creating a star team we want to create a star team i mean i it depends uh there's a lot of the recruiting is one of the one of the best businesses to be in honestly because one you could you could work from anywhere you know you could be somewhere in uh out of state or even other country in able to work two is that you have the flexibility right do i want to be like a solopreneur don't want to run this with with just my wife and i don't want to have this group of people right what are you looking to do a year right it all depends i make what i make i can travel the world i don't want the stress i don't want to have the problems i have enough and here's what i got we're looking to build a star team and grow this thing into our enterprise that's what we're looking to do we're excited about that that's awesome that's a fun little fun little vision to have right there and i think you brought it up before is you know right now you've got the high paying job and now you're transitioning into making it a a profitable business so i think that's i think that's what everybody's after correct and there's nothing wrong with having a high-paying job right right i mean when i look at the business um a business is where you build it up you have your team and you don't have to be in a day-to-day operations right you're not then doing the sales calls you're not creating content you have a team of people doing that you still always see it but you're not in the day-to-day operations right and like i said there's nothing wrong with that i have a friend that owns a multi-multi-million dollar trucking company he still drives a truck yeah he does just how he likes there's nothing wrong with that but that's just what we want to do in our organization right right that's awesome that's awesome well thank you for hanging with me today alex and sharon you know your journey sharing your experience you know with our work together um for those that are listening i mean where can they connect with you at i like find me on linkedin i'm really active on linkedin um facebook i'm not much on twitter um um not much on uh yeah i say probably if uh linkedin and facebook big top ones all right cool go check alex out on uh linkedin and i know he's got a good uh good presence there and creating some good content that you can check out you know alex a lot of people are looking to you know have the same success you're having i mean what is one piece of advice uh you can leave with the listeners today oh great question great question i would say focus i would say is number one you have to stay focused love it love it that's that was the best advice i can i see a lot of folks even some of uh some i know really close they're trying to do different things they're trying to uh you know uh different industries different kind of businesses this works stocks you know everything just pick one thing and focus on it if it doesn't work um you know get rid of it but you have to be like we spoke about before the meeting i mean you always have to be thinking about doing uh things different ways you know you're in the shower you're thinking about you know the market the sales you know what are the different strategies you study the market you started the trends but you have to stay focused that's one of the most important things yeah because you have to understand that uh your energy flows where your attention goes so what is your focus yep love it man love that last piece of advice thank you again for coming and hanging out with me today on the relevant recruiter show relevant recruiter audience listeners we will be back here soon with another live episode you can catch all of the what are they called recorded episodes on the podcast on all major chapel uh channels including apple spotify uh you can go to donniegupton.com podcast and see and listen to all
episodes alex again thank you again for hanging with me we will see you all really really soon
2021-09-28 23:50
