Login with GoogleSales isn’t separate from marketing anymore and that’s where most recruitment agencies go wrong
There’s a mistake I keep seeing recruitment business owners make — and it’s quietly killing growth.
They treat sales and marketing like two different departments.
Or worse… they treat marketing like a “nice to have” that someone junior can do alongside Canva, Mailchimp, CRM cleansing, podcast editing, PPC, SEO, and “whatever else we need”.
Then 12 months later, they say:
“Marketing doesn’t work.”
It’s not that marketing doesn’t work.
It’s that most recruitment agencies never build a marketing system — they hire a person and hope for miracles.
This episode of RecTalk (recorded at KTO Towers with Chris Holland and Rich Evans) went deep on exactly that: the top mistakes recruitment business owners are making, and what you need to do differently if you want a predictable engine for jobs, candidates, and revenue.
The big idea: Sales is part of marketing, not the other way around
This one line sums up the entire shift:
Picking up the phone is a top-of-funnel marketing tactic.
That might sting if you’re a traditional 360 biller who built a business on volume dials and fast closes — but it’s the truth in 2026.
Back in the 2000–2005 era (and even for many agencies up to the mid-2010s), you could:
- call a prospect cold
- spark a conversation
- spec in a candidate
- and sometimes win a role… on the first call
A lot of recruiters were trained in that mentality. And it worked.
But buyer behaviour has changed.
Today, even in B2B, most decision-makers will:
- ask their network first
- check you online
- look for proof you’re credible
- see if they recognise your name
- and only then decide whether you’re worth a conversation
So yes — the opening call is still top-of-funnel.
It’s just that you no longer jump from top-of-funnel to middle-of-funnel quickly unless you’ve done the marketing groundwork.
Which leads us to the first (and most common) mistake.
Mistake #1: Hiring a £28k marketer and expecting a CMO
Recruitment agencies repeatedly hire a junior marketer and expect them to be:
- a graphic designer
- a copywriter
- a strategist
- a campaign manager
- a CRM expert
- a video editor
- a podcast producer
- an SEO specialist
- a PPC expert
Then when it doesn’t magically produce inbound revenue they conclude marketing is pointless.
This is the “unicorn hire” trap.
And it’s made worse by a very recruiter-specific mindset:
Recruiters grow up being told: “Your desk is your business. You eat what you kill.”
So when they become founders, they carry that thinking into every hire — even when that hire is supposed to build a marketing engine (which is a different skill set entirely).
The reality: if you’re paying £28k, your options are:
- hire someone junior and scope ruthlessly
- or get fractional / outsourced support from a team that already has multiple skill sets
Because marketing isn’t one job. It’s a department.
Why agency owners struggle with marketing leadership (and it’s not your fault)
Most recruitment business owners are:
- brilliant billers
- strong operators
- commercially sharp
- great at winning work through relationships and hustle
But the leap from “good recruiter” to “building a business” hits a ceiling when you realise you need:
- a go-to-market strategy
- a marketing system
- consistent positioning
- brand awareness
- content, campaigns, nurture, retargeting
- and a way to measure what actually influences jobs and revenue
And if you’ve never led marketing before, you can’t train it.
Which is why control becomes a dangerous illusion:
“I want them in-house so I can control what they do daily.”
But if you don’t understand marketing properly, controlling it daily just means micro-managing tactics with no strategy.
You’ll burn out the marketer… and you’ll stay stuck.
Mistake #2: Treating marketing as a tick-box, not a revenue system
There’s another pattern that shows up constantly:
An agency hires an external marketing agency and thinks:
“Marketing is sorted now.”
But the truth is, outsourcing doesn’t fix anything unless you’ve answered:
- Why are we doing this?
- What’s the strategy?
- What part of the revenue engine is this supporting?
- What does success look like in 90 days?
- What does “good” look like in 12 months?
Marketing isn’t a decoration. It’s not a “nice website” and a few posts.
It’s a go-to-market system that supports business development.
Without that, you just get random activity — and random results.
Mistake #3: Measuring marketing like recruitment sales (and then getting disappointed)
Recruitment is used to a very direct model:
Inputs → outputs.
More calls → more leads.
More vacancies → more fees.
Marketing doesn’t work that cleanly.
Because a client might:
- see your content three times
- hear your name in a WhatsApp group
- watch a clip
- notice you at an event
- then finally reply to a DM weeks later
And when they reply, they’ll say:
“Yeah, I know you. I’ve seen you about.”
That’s marketing ROI.
It’s just harder to attribute.
So what should you measure?
In recruitment, marketing’s best “final metric” is usually jobs / vacancies
Not revenue. Not placements.
Because marketing influences the pipeline before the placement exists.
If you measure marketing solely on fees, you’ll kill it too early.
Instead, track:
- inbound job enquiries
- discovery calls booked
- reply rates to outbound
- event/webinar registrations
- “heard of you” mentions
- source of job leads (where possible)
Then connect that back to revenue over time.
The shift you need to make: KPIs can’t be “calls only” anymore
One of the smartest lines in the episode was basically this:
If you’re KPI’ing recruiters on outbound calls but not on things like:
- LinkedIn connections made
- meaningful DMs started
- content posted within brand guidelines
- community engagement
- event invites
…you’re running your business like it’s 2010.
The modern model is business development, not “sales vs marketing”.
And BD now includes:
- one-to-one conversations (sales)
- one-to-many influence (marketing)
- trust-building (content + proof)
- being front-of-mind (brand + presence)
How marketing should work in a recruitment agency: it makes sales easier
Here’s the cleanest way to think about it:
Marketing exists to make sales easier.
Your sales process is basically:
- target the right people
- start conversations
- identify who has the problem you solve
- build trust
- help them solve it
You can still win business quickly sometimes.
But more often, you win because you were already credible before the call started.
That’s what a real marketing engine does:
- warms the market
- shortens the trust gap
- improves reply rates
- increases “stickiness” in conversations
- reduces reliance on cold volume
And when marketing and sales work together, outbound becomes easier, not harder.
Should recruiters be trained in marketing skills?
Yes — but with a boundary.
Recruiters should be able to contribute to marketing without becoming part-time editors.
What works is:
- recruiters provide the insight (talking points, market commentary, quick videos)
- marketing turns it into assets (edit, publish, distribute, keep brand consistency)
Because the truth is: only 5–10% of recruiters will naturally feel confident posting and recording content regularly.
Your job is to create a system that makes it easy for more people to participate — and keeps them focused on what they’re best at: conversations.
So what should an agency owner do next?
If you’re serious about growth in 2026, here are the non-negotiables:
1) Build a go-to-market plan
Even a one-page plan beats “we’ll do more marketing”.
Define:
- ICP
- message
- channels
- 90-day goals
- what campaigns support BD
2) Fix resourcing
Stop hiring unicorns.
Either:
- scope a junior marketer properly
- or use fractional/agency specialists like you do for accounting and legal
3) Measure marketing the right way
Track:
- vacancies influenced
- reply rates
- meetings booked
- inbound signals
- qualitative feedback (“heard of you”)
4) Modernise recruiter KPIs
Calls still matter — but so do:
- connections
- content
- conversations
- community presence
5) Use marketing to support outbound
Events, podcasts, reports, webinars, niche insights — not random posting.
The bottom line
Recruitment agencies used to win by calling harder.
Now you win by being known before you call.
And that means marketing can’t be a person you hire and hope.