Stephanie welcomes special guest Jonathan McIntosh, Partner and Recruiter with ThinkingAhead, to discuss the "recipe" for conduct on a call, the beauty and the terror of a cold call, getting off "the ladder", and why the words should never outshine the feeling.

Discover what sets ThinkingAhead apart, hear stories from recruiters, and browse opportunities by clicking here.

Hi, and welcome to The Talent Trade. I'm

Stephanie Maas, partner with ThinkingAhead executive search.

Today I am super excited to bring to the talent trade a

guest. Today's guest has one of probably, I think one of the

most non traditional backgrounds before joining the world of

recruiting, which I will let him share with us. And then also

from a topic perspective, he is going to share with us a little

bit about the value of being yourself as soon as possible

when you start out in executive search. So before I bring him on

a couple of fun little nuggets that you should know, Jonathan

has been with our firm seven years, one of my favorite

stories about Jonathan, because we went through training, and

after gosh, probably about six months, he came to me and said,

hey, you know, I really promise I was paying attention. I was in

tune to your training. But I just need some clarity about the

timing behind this marketing plan that we had put together.

Because Jonathan, he was so incredibly teachable, he was

executing our drip marketing plan incredibly well, with one

exception, the exception that he missed was the timing. So this

is a seven step drip marketing plan that when executed

accordingly, should happen over about a four month period with

Jonathan and his eagerness to get things rolling. He was doing

it over the course of about seven days. So he'd gotten a

little feedback from the market that it was a smidge much. So he

came back and said, I don't think this was a response we're

going for anyway, I really appreciate his humility in

approaching and asking what he was doing wrong. But I also

really the enthusiasm to which he wanted to get started and do

things the right way speaks a lot to his character while at

thinking ahead. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome

Jonathan McIntosh. Welcome to The Talent Trade.

Thank you, Stephanie. Great to be here.

So I alluded to this interesting background that

you had, I would love to hear just a little bit of your story

how you found your way to thinking ahead.

I actually responded to I remember now and

indeed posting I had been in professional ministry for 20

years. That's all I knew. I didn't know the world of sales

at all. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a

headhunter. I needed to make a midlife career change. And I'm,

I'm living proof that you can do that even at 3035 4045 5055. And

a friend said, Hey, have you ever considered becoming a

headhunter? And I didn't even know what that was. And I said,

people get paid to help make connections professionally for

people. She said, Yes, I think you'd be good at it, or

responded to an ad in indeed, for a nonprofit headhunter. And

because I knew the world loosely of nonprofits having worked in

ministry for 20 years, I felt like it'd be a good fit. And

thankfully, thinking ahead, belts think it would be a good

fit to so I'm very grateful to have, as I say, washed up on the

kind shores of thinking ahead executive search.

Well tell us a little bit about the niche that

you serve now.

So we have a boutique team under 10

recruiters at any point in time, that works solely with nonprofit

organizations across the country, Health and Human

Services, environmental conservation, the performing

arts culture museums, we do it all primarily director level and

above primarily C suite roles. Now I'm going to be speaking to

areas of success I see across different niches and thinking

ahead, but really what I know most are most well as the

nonprofit industry.

Okay, so Jonathan is a partner with

thinking ahead consistently, one of our top performers, what has

been your best year to date billings wise?

2022; somewhere between that and cash

in half a million somewhere near there.

So for many of our listeners, the idea of being

a consistent 350 to 550, a no revenue producer would create

quite an incredible career and lifestyle. So we've got one live

here. So Jonathan, again, the idea here is we could talk about

a lot of the different things that have made you successful,

but there's one in particular you brought to the table for our

time today. And this was the idea of being yourself as

quickly as possible. So put some legs under that table for us.

Yeah, thank you, Stephanie. Our trainings

and thinking ahead, I think are excellent. And any new recruiter

is going to come on to any new team. And they're going to have

a book of scripts that we're always refining, and

specializing for each practice and niche, but I like to remind

recruiters early on that they're not robotic script machines,

that they're a human being on a phone or a zoom call with

another human being. And don't forget to be a human. And when I

think about and I don't know if you've seen this in your niche,

but when I think about the nonprofit team, there's a lot of

churn and a lot of turnover through new hires, and you

always want everyone to make it but not everyone makes it

sometimes that's a that's a work effort issue. Sometimes that's a

phone aversion issue. But I've seen often, people with the

right work habits, they're making the number of dials every

day that they should, but somehow they're not able to put

it together. And I think they still, when it comes to making

connections with people, whether that's a bizdev, or marketing

approach, or if that's a candidate recruiting approach,

they still are very bound by their scripts and don't know how

to find clothes that fit, they don't know how to find language

that feels like them. They don't know how to stop and recognize,

hey, I'm actually talking to another human, I'm actually

listening to another human and they're giving me wonderful

things about their life that I should be curious about. And I'm

just moving on to the next question here on my outline. So

that's kind of the overall thing I if I can emphasize anything to

new recruiters that thinking had or and I don't know how helpful

this will be across the industry, it's a stop and be a

human being on the phone.

Any backdrop that led you to this kind of

realization? Or can you remember when this became your aha

moment?

I think it started initially from I have

ADD, and a lot of the high performers and thinking ahead,

are very process driven. You are Stephanie, a lot of members of

my own team that I respect the hell out of. For me, though, I

needed to find my own voice, first and foremost, just so I

wasn't bored all the time. Like, I'm literally leaving the same

voicemail 30 times in one day, if that's my life, I want to

kill myself. But if I can find my own way, if I can find my own

voice, if I can make it unique, then it becomes fun, and it

becomes a game. So that was kind of one Aha. Number two was after

I'd had some success and hearing from people like, Hey, this is

not like the standard recruiting call that I get, or hey, that

wasn't like the standard cold call that I get. This felt real

different, unique. Three, the third kind of aha, I was

thinking about pattern interrupt, and we can talk about

Pattern Interrupt in a minute. And then for it was watching

people on my team, with great work habits, not put it together

and not make it work. And we go on, they were doing all the

right things that leadership was telling them to do. They went

through the training, they had the scripts, why weren't they

able to make it work in our business. So it was those kind

of four pieces that came together.

So for you, and again, you came from a

background where you know, public speaking, talking to

folks, etc, that that came pretty natural. So when you

joined thinking ahead, you talk about hey, I had to find my own

voice. And yet you still talk about using scripts. So how did

you mesh those worlds together? I think that's something that

for a lot of our listeners, that is the challenge is, hey, I know

I need to be scripted. But I also need to use my own

language. I need to be professional, but I want people

to see me as a human. Talk to me about your journey with that.

That is such a delicate balance. And that's

one reason that this job requires such high emotional

intelligence, EQ. And I think about the the high performers in

any team, I think an ad they're off the charts when it comes to

emotional intelligence, because you're reading the person on the

other end of the phone all the time, and you're making

adjustments. As I think about scripts, to me a script is a

recipe. And if you've cooked or if you've made cocktails, you

need to stick to the recipe as closely as possible, until you

start to learn the basics. Until you you really become

proficient. For example, I had a friend once who said, Hey, I'm

gonna, I'm going to start to make cocktails, I'm gonna buy

some stuff and start to throw some stuff together. But he

didn't know any of the classic recipes. And why citrus works

with a bitter and you need a sweetening agent. And then you

need a base spirit. He didn't know any of these classic

combinations that bartenders for 150 years had been proving out.

And so he was trying to break rules before he even knew the

rules and why the rules worked. So yes, absolutely, to the new

recruiter go by the scripts, that the people who have been

successful in this business for 20 years are using, learn why

they work, learn the basics, and that's the same thing with any

cooking recipe. But then as you start to become proficient in

the kitchen, you know why Saul, fat, eat and acid work together?

And then you know how to adjust those dials. You can start to

break the rules only after you learn why the rules work.

Super insightful. I have never heard

it put that way. I love that scripture recipes. That's a

great example. Talk to us a little bit about this idea of

high emotional intelligence. Is it something that you have and

develop? Can you be taught it?

I think it's both. I think at the end of the

day, it is a trait that not everybody has. I think everybody

can get it better. But we all have an indifferent amounts.

There are these amazingly charismatic people rule that you

just meet. And when you run into them like I want you in my life,

your smile lights up whatever room that you're in, you make

everyone feel like they are the most important person in the

world. But you don't have to have that off the charts. This

off the charts charisma in order to make it work in search. There

are plenty of people that are just pay, I'm a good listener, I

bring a lot of empathy to the table. I'm kind. And then I know

my work. I work my routine. I work my my daily calls. But

yeah, I think you can I think to answer your question more

bluntly, I think you can we all can get better at emotional

intelligence. I think that the entry point to that is

listening. I think when I'm distracted, when I'm my mind is

somewhere else. When I have another app pulled up. And I'm

not fully invested in the call, I miss opportunities to

interject to ask a clarifying question to double click on

something to go tell me more about that.

And again, I like your phraseology here, you

said you miss opportunities.

I think the key especially on the recruiting

side, when we're talking about candidate recruiting calls, the

key to being yourself, and sometimes you may need to go off

script is when the person you're talking to on the other end of

the line, this i This certainly works for marketing bizdev, as

well gives you this wonderful, beautiful thing. They've

entrusted you with something, they're opening up. They're

divulging something either about themselves or about their

company. And it's in a requires, it's asking of you a certain

response to go, Wait a second, that's really curious. Wait a

second, what did you mean by that? Wait a second, can we

circle back do you mind, you just said something very, very

interesting to me. And when we're in this call with a person

is this almost sacred space, and you're navigating these very

interesting waters, where you're talking to them about some of

the most personal items in their lives, their interests, their

passions, what they make on a yearly basis, what they think

they should make, why they are undervalued in the market.

Sometimes you're talking about racial dynamics, sometimes

you're talking about office culture dynamics, sometimes

you're you're working through the most difficult and painful

things of their lives right now this toxic thing that I had to

deal with at work, and should I leave? Should I be looking for

something else, but I've given this company or this

organization my entire life? And now I've got a boss that doesn't

see my value? And what should I do in that situation? Jonathan,

it's not like what we do is super difficult. I'm not trying

to overinflate the recruiters role. But human beings are

important, and their stories are important. And do we treat them

as such?

Okay, so with that talk to me about this idea

behind pattern interrupt.

The basics of pattern interrupt is, first of

all, let's be honest, we are at least the way we set up our

practice that thinking and we cold call people. And I think I

believe in the cold call, I believe one. My opinion is no

one loves making cold calls, and no one loves receiving a cold

call. But I will tell you, some of my best clients, most of my

best clients, and some really close friendships have come from

a cold call, I believe in pushing through the fear. And

there can be beauty on the other side. But as soon as someone

picks up the phone, and they did not let it roll to voicemail,

whether it's a bizdev or recruiting call, the very first

thing they're thinking when they hear Jonathan McIntosh thinking

I had executive searches, how the hell can I get off this

call? As soon as possible? The only thing they're thinking is,

gosh, this was not the number I thought it was right. Oh, I was

expecting call from a donor colleague, friend, board member

boss. I was not expecting a cold call today. And so you got to

realize they're like a scared horse because they're just like,

they're in their amygdala at that point in time. And all

they're thinking is, how do Why hang up and not seem like an a

hole right now? And you've got to come in and be like, sheesh,

it's okay. It's gonna be alright, we're gonna get through

this together. Let me just calm you down for one second. I'm not

a salesperson. I'm not here to try to sell you something. I'm

not really right now trying to even recruit you for anything.

You can tell me to go pound sand anytime you want. Can I just

tell you why I'm reaching out today. And generally people are

like, okay, I can listen, you sound like a human being. You

sound like you know that this is potentially awkward for me to

calm people down bringing them out of their amygdala so they

can pause long enough to actually hear what you're

saying. Because all they want to do is go nope, not for me. Nope,

not at this time. Note. We don't hire recruiters. No, I'm not

looking right. And so pattern interrupt is any way that you

can kind of stop that. Hey, I'm a recruiter. No thanks. Click.

That's the pattern. How do you interrupt?

Okay, so show us how you do it. What do you say?

I had someone that we're potentially

recruiting to our team A nonprofit shout me the other

day. And I was expecting to leave a voicemail because I just

wanted to show like, hey, it's easy. You just leave these

voicemails let me show you. And the person picked up the phone.

And it was a surprise to me. I was not call I was planning on

making that day, I was making it just to literally show someone

in an interview setting how we do it. And I found myself saying

Jonathan McIntosh thinking I had executive search, I could hear

you know, you could sense these things like you can feel someone

tensing up over the phone, and I said, Look, I'm not trying to

sell you anything. In fact, I'm going to tell you, I'm calling

if that's okay. And you can tell me afterwards to go pound sand

if you like, is that okay? And she laughed. He said, Yeah, I

said, I'm gonna I'm gonna Headhunter This is a cold. So

I'll say that, like, I'm a headhunter. This is a cold call,

no one likes to get these. But here we are. But my point is,

don't take my phraseology, experiment with what sounds good

coming out of your mouth. Once again, be yourself on the phone,

I'm not going to apologize for making a cold call. In fact,

sometimes I will say, I'm sorry, I'm just now reaching out to

you, man, we've been in the same circles for five years. And I've

never called you, I'm sorry, I don't apologize for it's taken

me this long to call you. But however, in your voicemail, feel

free to be just a little bit weird. I'm not saying be

completely off the charts goofy, and unprofessional. But at the

same time you're talking to a human being, maybe they're at

home, wearing something professional of top in their

underwear, and they're about to jump to a zoom call, you can

acknowledge just kind of the craziness that just is all of

this, like everyone is just playing pretend and anything

they do. And just kind of take the mask off for a second. And

let some of your your humaneness come through. I think that's

attractive. I think that's what people respond to.

What do you think, causes people hesitation

from being themselves getting to that point where they'll risk

being goofy or a little weird? Or going off script a smidge?

What's the mental hurdle there for folks?

That's a fantastic question. I think

there's a handful of mental hurdles, at least for me, one,

especially when I'm calling someone high up like a CEO of an

organization, big nonprofit that I really respect, I want to

appear buttoned up professional, I want them to respect me, a lot

of that is on the ladder in my head. And the ladder is a phrase

I got from some therapists one time, it's when you are in

constant comparison, and ranking yourself and where you think you

stand either above or below others based on wealth, social

status. And so I can put myself mentally on the ladder below the

CEOs. And so I've become either totally obsequious meaning like,

whatever you want to become a Yes, man, or they become almost

too cold, you do have to read people, that high EQ thing is

you've got to be a bit of a social chameleon. So when I'm

calling into the New York market, I know that most of

those people that I'm reaching out to talk fast, don't have

time for BS, and the moving really quickly. And my syrupy

southern charm can be lost on them. So I can boom, get right

down to business when necessary. And you're trying to like, hey,

how much tolerance can't even tell this person has written

for? So yeah, we want to look good. We want to look

professional, we want to look buttoned up. Also, when you're

New Earth is you want to do it, right. I mean, I go through most

of my life, as far as work, parenting and marriage, how am I

doing it right? Am I failing? Or not? How do I even know. And so

the scripts and the familiarity feels good, because it provides

us with a sense, like, Hey, I made my calls, and I did it on

script. And I can check the box at the end of the day, and

that's fine. But I think if you want to grow your billings, and

you really want to make a memorable impression in the

markets, it's not did I make my calls ended up follow the

script, it's to make a meaningful connection today.

Correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of what I'm

hearing is, hey, in the beginning, get your recipe and

thinking ahead, we give it to you, hey, this is what it's

gonna take from a work perspective to be successful.

Put the work in, and then as you do the work and start applying

these things, again, the best chefs in the world, they all

have something unique. They make the same dish. What makes their

dish outstanding, isn't that it tasted exactly like everybody

else's. It's that they put their twist on it. If I hear you,

right, that's where you go from connection to meaningful

connection.

Yes, that's it, Stephanie. But that does

take time. You can be patient with yourself and it takes lots

of repetition. To go back to our our volume piece. You know,

you've heard the story many times about the photography

students, one group of students had to go out and by the end of

the semester, produced 500 photographs, the others only had

to produce one really high quality photograph, but the

students who worried about volume You more than quality, by

the last set of photographs are making, their quality was

higher, your quality only gets better as you practice as you

get into it. That's why what we say around here is, and I remind

myself of this because I make bad bizdev and marketing calls

all the time. They're awkward, they can't, I try to not make

them awkward intentionally. But I mean, I remember the first

marketing call I made to someone in the nonprofit space in a, in

a performing arts organization that I wanted to work with. I

was nervously reading back my script and and I said, and give

me a call and I read, I read the number aloud. And I was like,

Oh, I'm sorry, that's your number that I just couldn't

practice you. I am a professional, I promise. I will

tell you later, I ended up placing that person at another

organization. And I've worked with them since so it wasn't the

end of the world. My point is a good marketing call is one that

is made good marketing call is one that's made, it can be

perfect. And over time, with volume, you get better and you

learn to become yourself.

Any thing else from your perspective, tips,

tricks of the trade, etc. that help you kind of push past the

fear of not sounding professional. The concern of

again, I love the latter reference, anything else that

you would recommend to our listeners just to help bridge

that gap from, you know, hey, we know you have these concerns,

but just get there anyway or counsel on developing their

emotional intelligence?

Well, once again, lots of fantastic

recruiters that really do follow scripts really closely. And a

lot of them bill a lot more than me. And they're, they're

wonderful. I would ask them, when's the last time you you

freshened up your scripts, because for me, it's like, hey,

or do the words coming out of my mouth for me, they got to feel

authentic. One of the best things I heard about sales early

on is that it's this transference of energy. That's

what's happening. It's more than the words being said, it's the

feeling and the emotional freight and weight of that the

energy that's coming through. That's why we are phone people

more than than email people. Because you can have those,

those that delicate interchanges of energy on the phone, so much

better than you can be email, it's got to feel authentic. In

order for me to feel like I'm actually doing something of

good. And to leaving voicemails or making calls that matter.

It's got to feel authentic. So when's the last time you freshen

up your scripts? You know, one thing right now that we're doing

our team, basically, we set dream target lists for

marketing, our fantastic assistant put together

basically, a vision board for each of us with these target

organizations. And I've been leaving voicemails telling

people at those organizations like, Hey, I just want you to

know, I may not be on your dream list to work with, but you're on

my dream list to work with. And, you know, that may not mean

anything to you or not. But I'm gonna keep keep calling me

because I really do want us to work together at some point in

time

That is awesome. This has been incredibly

insightful and helpful. And I think whether you're just

starting out or if you've been in it for a while, again,

whether your next level is just learning the practice or

learning to get to the next level. I think this is some key

information. So thank you so much for your willingness to

share and bring us along on this idea of finding your way to

being yourself and making meaningful connections.

Yeah, thank you, Stephanie. What an honor. I

really am grateful to be here.