By Ardith Rademacher, Strategy Coach, The RecruiterU and President, Ardith Rademacher & Associates
I started working with Michael Gionta and The RecruiterU in 2013.
When recruiting firm owners talk about growth, the conversation often starts with numbers.
More clients. More recruiters. More placements. More revenue.
Those goals are important, but they aren’t a strategy.
After working with recruiting entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve found that one of the biggest differences between firms that plateau and firms that continue to grow is this:
The Business Changes and So Do You
One of the things I’ve learned over more than two decades of owning a recruiting firm is that there isn’t one definition of success.
Early in the business, success may mean making enough placements to pay yourself, and growth may include breaking a revenue goal you once thought impossible.
Later, it could include hiring your first employee, building a team, developing recurring clients, or creating systems so every decision doesn’t have to come through you.
Eventually, you may start asking a completely different question: What do I actually want this business to give me?
This is where the real work begins.
Bigger isn’t automatically better. More people aren’t automatically better. More revenue isn’t necessarily better if the business required to produce it isn’t one you enjoy running.
The goal is to intentionally build a business that supports your definition of success, without waking up one day and realizing you’ve built a business that owns you.
Why I Believe in Coaching Others in the Recruiting Industry
Mike Gionta has coached me since 2013, and one of the things I value most about that relationship is having someone willing to challenge my thinking, not simply someone who gives me answers. (Yep, he’s that guy who’s willing to tell me when I have spinach in my teeth!)
There have been times when I needed strategy.
Other times when I needed accountability or to change the way I was thinking about opportunities or challenges.
And then sometimes, I simply needed someone outside of my business to ask a question I wasn’t asking myself.
When I began coaching TRU clients in 2020, my coaching experience with Mike shaped how I approached it.
I don’t believe my job is to tell another recruiting business owner to build their company the way I built mine. My job is to understand what they’re trying to create, help them see what’s getting in the way, and challenge whether the things they’re doing every day actually support the business they say they want.
There Is No Finish Line
This may be the most important thing I’ve learned from Mike and something that’s at the core of how I coach: get comfortable being uncomfortable: There is no finish line.
I am still building my business. I’m still changing things and making mistakes. I’m still evaluating people and processes, deciding where I will and won’t spend my time, and learning from those decisions.
I’m still a TRU client, coaching with Mike and learning from the rest of the TRU team, often reconsidering something I was certain about when the conversation started.
That’s part of being a business owner. And maybe that’s why coaching other recruiting entrepreneurs has been and continues to inspire me. I’m not coaching from the other side of the finish line; I’m in it.
The challenges may look different depending on the size and stage of your business, but the questions are surprisingly similar:
-Where are you going?
-Why are you going there?
-Is the business you’re building actually taking you where you want to go?
After all these years, I still think these are some of the most important questions a business owner can ask. And I love helping other recruiting entrepreneurs find their own answers.
That’s what great coaching has done for me, and it’s what I hope to provide every TRU client I have the opportunity to coach.
Ready to Connect with Your Own Coach and Growth Strategy?
Whether you’re looking to scale your recruiting firm, improve your leadership, or create a roadmap for the future, you don’t have to do it alone.
Schedule a consultation with The RecruiterU and discover how our community, coaching, and proven business strategies can help you build a recruiting firm designed for long-term success.
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