Ben Browning
Founder, Resonant.
Founder of Resonant. 17+ years in recruitment, having helped generate £38M+ in new business and lift NFI by an average of 12% across 100+ recruitment firms.
Find out more →The Golden Thread
Recruitments hidden growth engine
Recorded live on 14 July 2026.
Prefer to talk it through with Ben?
Book 20 minutes →Hosted by
Kris Holland
Founder, Kitto.
A decade-plus in the sector — recruiter, solo marketer, manager, director, now founder — shapes Kitto's mission: ensure everybody knows recruitment is a marketing job.
What the session was really about
If you run or lead a recruitment firm, this bit's for you.
Most firms have activity. Calls being made, content going out, campaigns running. What they don't have is alignment: messaging that matches the conversation, content that earns the meeting, people who can convert the meeting into a fee.
More activity doesn't fix that. Aligning sales and marketing into one operating system does. That's the golden thread.
The session was about how to build it; this page is about what to do next.
What that looks like in practice
The firms pulling ahead aren't doing more. They're doing the same things in a way that compounds. Three moves.
1. Positioning that earns the conversation.
Sharp, defensible positioning that tells a buyer why you, not the next agency on the list. Marketing carries it into the market; sales walks into the meeting already having had half the conversation. Conversion goes up before anyone's worked harder.
2. Proof that shortens the cycle.
Case studies, data, and points of view that do the convincing for you. Marketing builds the proof; sales uses it in live conversations. The deal closes faster because the buyer's already seen the answer to the question they were about to ask.
3. Conversations that convert.
A sales conversation built on the same messaging the buyer's been reading for months. Same words, same proof, same point of view. The handover from marketing to sales stops being a handover at all — it's one continuous conversation.
Firms already doing this
Chris Jones, Loophire.
Insurance recruiter going up against twelve other providers for one piece of work — national agencies, PE-backed roll-ups, the lot. With sharper positioning and the proof to back it, Loophire won the exclusive: a two-year deal at full fee, against all twelve.
"They confirmed we were their number one choice after meeting with twelve other providers."
Chris Ryan, VGC.
Strong brand in their core market, watching margins fall and white-collar perm work go to firms with a sharper story. Rebuilt the value proposition off the firm's existing strengths, then armed the team to take it to market. Same desks, same people, new conversation. High-fee wins across the board; average fee up; margin slide halted.
Giancarlo Fiesco, Djup Search.
Built a paid Hiring Readiness sprint for newly funded start-ups — a productised offer that sits alongside placements. Within two weeks of finishing the design, closed his first five-figure consulting sale. Same engagement converted into a commitment to fill four roles over the following six months. One conversation, two revenue lines.
Adam Tiberius, Zenopa.
Personally billing over $1M a year. Built $2M of new business across a US market Zenopa had never operated in, in twelve months. 100 clients onboarded. The shift was simple: he stopped pitching jobs and started pitching the outcomes the client's board actually cared about — marketing and sales finally pointing at the same thing.
"Ben's advice and support changed how we approached new business, from outbound to pitching. Increased fill rates, exclusivity, and retained searches."
If you already know your firm needs to move, this is the work. If you're still figuring out whether it does, that's fine too — we usually start with a proper read of where things actually sit.
Twenty minutes with Ben
A twenty minute working conversation about where the golden thread - between sales and marketing - breaks in your firm and the simplest place to start fixing it. No deck, no pitch, no BS.
More activity doesn't fix the conversion problem. Alignment does.