Six conversations, one concerning narrative

Let me tell you a little story, well six little stories, actually!

All eerily similar, all equally frustrating.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself excitedly reacting to the daily scenario of recruitment business owners and leaders sliding into our DM’s and mailbox at Halt., wanting to enquire and discuss outsourcing their marketing needs.

However, despite all of these inbound enquiries coming from different recruitment businesses, working in different sectors, with different stories, a handful (six in two weeks in fact) all recently suffered from the exact same affliction.

It starts with an initial virtual discovery meeting. We have a detailed chat, unpick who they are, what makes them unique, and what they need marketing to achieve for them. We look under the bonnet at what they’ve done so far, where they’ve invested, what worked and what flopped.

And then it happens, the penny drops like déjà vu with a hangover.

They’ve all worked with the same outsourced recruitment marketing agency.

And all of them, without exception, binned the marketing agency after the initial 3-month agreement or at the earliest opportunity due to not delivering what they committed to in their work-order.

They’ve come to us looking battered, bruised and battle-worn. Not just skint on budget but skint on belief. Belief in marketing, belief in outsourcing, belief in anyone outside their own four walls. And who could blame them?

Because what they were sold was the dream. The “don’t worry, we’re the experts and we’ve got you” pitch. The promise of instant results, game-changing ROI, and mystical marketing mastery. But what they got was a glorified tick-box exercise from an agency owner and their team who were clearly writing cheques their actual skills and experience couldn’t cash.

Here’s what these clients all experienced:

• It took months to get anything live. After 8 weeks, there’s barely a LinkedIn post or email automation to show for it.
• When things did land, the quality was average at best and the content was generic, business waffle.
• Strategy? More like a half-arsed checklist downloaded from some outdated HubSpot blog.
• Promises of email campaigns, database activations, automations, videos, SEO, PPC, brand building, “We do it all!”. Except they didn’t and have been winging it to ensure they got month 2’s invoice paid.

They committed to deliverables with the same confidence as someone who’s “a scratch golfer”, only to then confess a few months in that they didn’t have the clubs in the bag to make the green.

What followed was inevitable, the fallout, and it’s UGLY!

• While still regarded as important, marketing is now seen as an expensive exercise.
• Outsourcing is now a dirty word in the boardroom.
• Their budget? Spent. Burnt. Blown. Without a shred of commercial impact to show for it.
• The trusted industry advisors and NEDs who recommended that agency now look like unreliable advocates (unless they are taking a cut of the deal value for the introduction of course).
• The peer networks and owners’ groups where referrals were shared and endorsed? Tainted.

And here we are, picking up the pieces. Again!

So self-proclaimed, disruptive recruitment marketing agency that will guarantee thousands in ROI overnight, a word, if I may…

You’re making life harder for the recruitment marketing agencies that actually give a toss. The ones who obsess over quality, performance, and long-term relationships with the recruitment businesses we support.

Worse, you are not just damaging your reputation in the pursuit of a quick win and short-term financial gain. You are actively harming the performance, potential, and progress of the recruitment businesses that you should be elevating and supporting.

Every time one of your “victims” crawls into our inbox, we have to spend hours deconstructing the mess you’ve left behind, convincing them we’re not all like you, that marketing can deliver, and that not every outsourced recruitment marketing agency operates like you do.

You’ve made it harder for genuine, talented marketers to do good work. You’ve bred cynicism where there used to be ambition.

And quite frankly, you and your teams should be ashamed!

If you plan to make a big pitch and sell dreams, you must possess the ability to deliver.

Recruitment businesses don’t need more outlandish promises. They require excellent execution, tangible outcomes, integrity, and a team that understands the bloody difference between brand positioning and a Mailchimp template.