Reb Risty Hi I’m Reb Risty, Head REBL at REBL Marketing and I am here today with my good friend, Amber Gough, and we’re here to talk a little bit about her business and how she uses her referral network to market herself. Thanks, Amber for joining me today.
Amber Gough Thank you for having me.
Reb Risty So, can you tell us a little bit about what your business is and what you do?
How to align your candidates with your company
Amber Gough I’m the founder of Talent Fusion Point which is a purpose driven recruiting and consulting firm. What I mean by purpose (which everyone always wants to know what that means and how that differentiates me from other recruiters and consultants in the talent acquisition space) is that I seek to align candidates that are not just with competency and skills that you need for the job but also character which means values alignment. So, who are you as a company? Do you know your value system and your mission in your higher purpose? And how do we find the right candidates and match that. The benefits of that are tremendous, including impacting your bottom line in many ways. So better retention, that people are happier, or they want to stay longer, they’re more loyal and more innovative and more creative because they’re bought into that higher purpose and the mission at hand and what you’re trying to do as a company. So, a lot of different benefits of doing that. That’s the main, main differentiator for me is that I really align people and on a deeper level.
Reb Risty Yeah, that’s great. I don’t really hear a lot of recruiters talking about that your skill set, skill set but, so how do you figure out if the potential employee candidate aligns with the company’s culture? Is it a test? Do you ask questions?
Skillset vs. Culture
Amber Gough That’s a great question. Recruiters always use behavioral style interview questions but what I do is, of course I get to know my clients. So, I do a culture assessment of them and their company. Who are they what makes them tick, what are their values and how do they show up in the workplace? So, I interview my clients in many ways. And then I match that with the candidate. So, I will take that shift the questions into what we’ll address and discover that and uncover that in a candidate. And then we take those and compare them, and determine whether or not they’re good, not only competency of course, competency must be there and that’s first,
Is the company the right fit for the candidate?
Reb Risty Okay.I feel it goes both ways, how do you find a good client? How do you know they’re the right culture and fit for a candidate that you’re looking for?
Amber Gough That’s a really good question, typically through referral. I mean I get most of my business comes through referral based in connecting with people they know, working well with my clients making a difference for them, and then they want to make a big impact for one of their friends who has a business or someone that they know in their network. So very much so through referral base.
How do you build a referral network?
Reb Risty Great, great. Well, so the marketing question for you is in your business obviously its very relationship based. How do you build your referral network? How are you going out in marketing yourself to grow your business?
Amber Gough I am a big believer in and connecting with people. And so when I am out networking whether it be through just socializing or in a formal networking setting I really strive to be very present. And so in the moment with the person – a matter of fact, my logo is a symbol for presence – and I believe so firmly I show up authentically and I, if I’m listening to someone, really hearing them, what’s what their concerns are, what they’re really – what their actual needs are, and connecting them with it as people. Then I’m able to serve them better, at whether that be through my business or referring to them to somebody else or what have you. So, I think that my ability to just show up and show someone that I care and that I’m really there with them in that moment, builds trust and people are more likely to refer people to me.
Reb Risty Yeah, yeah. You know another good way to build trust is through webinars. So Amber was just sharing with me, that you’ve had some success with that. I’d love to hear about what you’re doing, what your approach is with webinars.
Amber Gough Absolutely. I was fortunate enough that through networking and connecting with someone. One of my friends, I built that trust, and she said you know, and she does a lot of webinars speaker, author, and she said you need to be teaching webinars. And she connected me with a few organizations that are H.R. (human resources base) which is very big in my industry and my primary contact, and connected me in. And fortunately, they set it up. It’s very seamless and easy it only takes my time essentially in building out the PowerPoint presentation and the content in which I’m teaching, and then I’m able to present to as many as, my most recent webinar 800 people dialed in across the nation.
Reb Risty Wow.
Leverage Webinars and give free advise
Amber Gough Yeah. Huge, huge footprint. And then others can actually access that as well through going to their website. I can present that content. It’s fantastic. And through that typically at the end of the webinar throughout it you’re offering some sort of freebie so it might be a survey or some way of analyzing purpose, you know alignment with a candidate in a company and then they reach out to you. It opens the door to a conversation and you’re able to oftentimes convert that into clients. So, it’s really powerful. Plus, it’s fun. If you’re talking about something, you’re passionate about and enjoy it can be really, really fun as well. So, I love it.
Reb Risty That’s great, yeah. That’s some great advice. I know obviously video as we’re doing now podcasting, webinars are becoming more popular because people are just seeking information in a, I think in a different way, and they’re trying to educate themselves, first, before they make decisions. So that’s really, really neat. I love to hear that’s working.
Amber Gough Absolutely and it’s such a differentiator of being a subject matter expert too. Like this is what I know this is what I can do. I’m a subject matter expert so people are more likely to come to you, and it kind of builds that trust.
Amber Gough It’s really powerful.
Reb Risty Right. Well, you heard it here. Content, subject matter expert, referral network, are all very important, especially in professional services. Amber if somebody wants to contact you learn more about what you’re doing or how you’re doing, how, what’s the best way to reach you?
Amber Gough Number one for recruiters: LinkedIn, always. Just look up “Amber Gough | G-O-U-G-H” or of course my website and my email which is talentfusionpoint.com and my email is amber@talentfusionpoint.com.
