Business Development Analysis

for

High-Performing Recruiters ($1M+ Annual Billers)

By

Bob Marshall

July 1, 2025

Bob Marshall, TBMG, Int’l – Part Two

Question-by-Question Analysis

Part Two – Do Today’s Big Billers Still Use the MPC Approach?

Evidence-Based Conclusion: Yes. The Most Placeable Candidate (MPC) strategy remains a cornerstone for today’s top-producing recruiters.

What Is an MPC?

An MPC is a standout candidate—someone with a proven track record, outstanding qualifications, and the kind of impact potential that makes hiring managers take notice. These are the candidates your clients want before a job even opens.

What Sets an MPC Apart?

Top billers use clear criteria to identify their MPCs:

1. Performance-Proven – Quantifiable results (e.g., revenue generated, teams built, major projects delivered)
2. Deep Expertise – Industry insight, technical mastery, leadership capabilities
3. High Strategic Value – Future-forward thinking, innovation, and strong cultural alignment

How Big Billers Leverage MPCs

Here’s how today’s elite recruiters turn their MPCs into high-value business:

• Positioning: Tailoring each candidate’s message to resonate with target clients
• Branding: Presenting candidates as high-impact solutions, not just resumes
• Tech-Driven Targeting: Using data tools to pinpoint where these candidates will create the most value
• Storytelling: Highlighting wins, testimonials, and career narratives that build trust
• Proactive Marketing: Creating demand by taking top talent directly to decision-makers

The Business Case for MPCs

The MPC strategy sets top recruiters apart. It moves them from reactive to proactive, opening doors to exclusive searches and retained work. It also builds a reputation for solving problems—not just filling seats.

**Special Addition**

Your Editor’s ‘Take’ on The MPC and How This Approach Works

Why The MPC Approach Works

Lou Scott taught that the ‘primary goal’ of the MPC marketing presentation call was to arrange a Send Out for your MPC.  Everything else was secondary.  And you know what.  It worked!  But there were also ‘secondary goals’ inherent in this presentation.

Basically, a marketing or sales call is really a rapport building call.  Lou understood that, by using a “Most Placeable Candidate” (MPC) as a vehicle, you can open doors that would otherwise remain shut.  Or, at the very least, exhibit to your potential hiring authorities, the caliber of talent that you can present when called on to do so.  You can also avoid the “No Openings” box that so many of us face when we ask the ubiquitous question “Do you have any needs or anything I can help you with today?” 

Lou understood too that on each call you are also attempting to get between the 2 to 5-minute conversation mark.  Less than 2 minutes and the call is not long enough for rapport building.  Over 5 minutes and you run the risk of not being able to call all of the companies you need to call to ensure your “low risk operation” success.  Of course, the companies who give you job orders and who exhibit one of the three requisites for which you search (i.e., companies who have a sense of urgency; companies who have particularly difficult positions to fill; and companies who want to be kept apprised of top notch talent as that talent surfaces) and who are serious, will receive more and longer phone calls from you.  The other job order givers will not. 

The Detractors

Now this approach doesn’t come without detractors.  Some recruitment systems, recruiters and even so-called expert trainers all fall into the same trap when they lament that recruiters who employ the MPC marketing presentation approach are attempting to arrange send outs for their candidates when they don’t even know what positions the potential client company might have open for search.  And I would agree with that narrow view if I didn’t understand that this candidate/vehicle merely serves as a way to help the recruiter engage the hiring manager in conversation and to start the rapport building process.  You want your hiring managers to like, believe, trust and understand you.  All four of these elements of rapport must be operative in order for these people to buy from you.  Lou used to always say, “You sell what John Brown buys when you sell through John Brown’s eyes”.  So, at the end of the day, this MPC approach allows you to:

1. Start the rapport building process;
2. Fashion optimum length conversations;
3. Avoid the “No Openings” box;
4. Obtain alternate Job Orders.

You know, Lou loved our industry.  He would want you to keep the following in mind.  You offer the finest, most affordable service in the United States of America.  You will agree to keep all of your hiring managers apprised of the top talent available in their specialty area and near their geographical location and you will do that forever and you will do that for free.  You are only wagering that someday they will like someone that you present so much that they will bring that individual in for an interview, make them an offer, the candidate will accept and will start to work.  Only then will your service charge come in to play—the best service available anywhere.

Bottom Line:

MPCs are still very much part of the big biller playbook. Instead of waiting for job orders, million-dollar recruiters create opportunity by putting world-class candidates in front of the right people at the right time.

Sources: Top Echelon training, LinkedIn thought leaders, RecruiterFlow MPC materials

Next Week:

Part Three – Do Today’s Big Billers Use Appointment Setters Making 1,000+ Calls a Month and Following Up Four Times a Year?

My Best,

Bob

Bob Marshall began his recruiting career over 45 years ago at MR in Reno, NV.  In 1986 he established The Bob Marshall Group, International, where he has trained recruiters throughout the United States and also in the United Kingdom, Malta and Cyprus.  With a dedication to executive recruiting, he continues to offer his proven training systems to individuals, firms, and private corporations both domestic and in select international territories.  To learn more about his activities and descriptions of his products and services, contact him directly @770-898-5550/470-456-0386(cell); bob@themarshallplan.org; or visit his website @ www.TheMarshallPlan.org.

Bob Marshall

President

TBMG, International

247 Bryans Drive, Suite 100

McDonough, GA  30252-2513

770-898-5550

520-842-5550 (fax)

bob@themarshallplan.org

www.TheMarshallPlan.org