The Anatomy of a $100K Placement in Top Echelon

There are many interesting facets and intriguing intricacies involved with the largest split placement fee in the history of Top Echelon Network.

The first interesting and intriguing aspect is the size of the fee: more than $100K.

In addition, the split placement in question involved both the last Charter Member in Top Echelon Network and a new member.

And not only that, but the split placement also just happened to be the new member’s first-ever placement in the Network.

And perhaps what might be considered unsurprising, in addition to interesting and intriguing, is the fact that the placement—and the fee—are the direct result of following Top Echelon’s best practices and executing the Network fundamentals.

No silver bullet. No black magic. No crystal ball. Just best practices, basics, and fundamentals. Boring? Maybe. Profitable? Ridiculously so.

As reported in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog last month, Steve Brody of Executive Resource Systems and Trish Kuykendall of Source Financial Staffing were recently responsible for the largest split placement fee in the history of Top Echelon Network. (Which is more than 35 years, if you’re curious.)

Steve and Trish placed a Tax Partner to earn a placement fee of $100,917. After Top Echelon’s 6% brokerage fee, each recruiter took home the tidy sum of $47,431. Both Executive Resource Systems and Source Financial Staffing will pay $1,620 in membership dues this year. That’s quite a return on their investment in Network membership, based upon this split placement alone.

So where do best practices and the fundamentals enter the picture? Right about the time that Steve and Trish first met during an Accounting & Finance Virtual Core Group (VCG) meeting. VCG meetings are monthly teleconference call meetings that involve Network members who work in the same industry and/or niche.

One of the things that members do during these meetings is share hot job orders and candidates. Although you may have already guessed, Steve shared his Tax Partner job order. “I think the first time that Trish and I ever met was during one of those [Virtual Core Group] meetings,” said Steve. “I recommend to recruiters in the Network to join those monthly meetings. I’ve made several placements with many recruiters who I never met or communicated with, prior to attending the meetings.”

However, the VCG meetings are just Exhibit A in terms of the basics and fundamentals integral to this historic split placement. Exhibit B is Top Echelon Connect 2023, the Network’s training and networking event held in New Orleans earlier this year. Steve attended the event, as did Ron Thomason of Source Financial Staffing.

“What else that was helpful was that the president of our firm went to New Orleans and decided that our agencies were similar,” said Trish. “So he pointed me to Steve’s jobs, and we met during the Accounting & Finance meeting that same month. That meeting was helpful in determining the top priorities for Steve’s search. So we started doing some dedicated recruiting in California and got connected with the gentleman who was eventually placed. He was not actively looking for a new job; he didn’t even have his resume together when I presented him to Steve.”

So for this placement that resulted in a $100K fee, Steve presented the candidate’s LinkedIn profile to his client. Chalk up another interesting and intriguing aspect to this placement.

And that brings us to Exhibit C in terms of the best practices and fundamentals of Network membership. Steve and Trish worked together over the course of multiple months to help the candidate navigate the recruiting, hiring, and onboarding process. The result: resounding success.

“With searches at this level, you have to be patient,” said Trish, “but it was certainly worth it. And Steve was great to work with. Each partner determines how they like to work, and Steve was great at keeping me in the loop and telling me what was going on. We were able to work efficiently with one another.”

“Trish and I certainly worked well together during this process,” agreed Steve. “The [Virtual] Core Group meetings are important for Network success and so is finding great partners with whom you can make splits.”

Something else that may not be surprising is that a recruiter who has made 143 placements in Top Echelon Network and a recruiter who has made one placement in the Network have similar advice for how to be successful as a Top Echelon member.

“Just get involved,” said Trish. “Set up your alerts and keep an eye out for what other people have going on. So many people are looking for remote work, other recruiters might have clients that are a fit for your candidates and vice-versa. We all have so much going on that the Network is sometimes not the first stop, so to speak, in our recruiting process, but it should be. If it isn’t, then you could be leaving money on the table.”

“Not only are the Core Groups important, but so are the training and the conferences,” echoed Steve, “especially the well-known speakers like [Greg] Doersching and [Barb] Bruno. I’ve learned quite a bit from these trainers that have resulted in additional placements. I’d also say to be proactive and put all of your job orders in the Network or send them directly to other recruiters who specialize in your area.

“Finally, pick up the phone and ask for help.”

And thus, this perhaps best illustrates that the best practices and fundamentals for making placements—split or otherwise—have never changed and quite possibly never will.