Diane Prince didn’t come to the Top Echelon webinar to inspire recruiters with vague platitudes about “posting more” or “being a thought leader.” She came with something far more useful: a repeatable way to create sales content that actually converts, without staring at a blank screen wondering what to write about.

Her promise was simple. “My goal today is to leave you with at least one nugget that you are excited to use immediately,” she told attendees. And throughout the session, she kept returning to the same idea: effective content isn’t about clever writing. It’s about accurate listening.

Prince is not new to the staffing business, and she doesn’t speak about growth as theory. As Todd, the webinar host, noted in his introduction, she started a recruiting and staffing firm right out of college, ran it for six years, and sold it for $28 million. She later built another staffing business and exited again. Today, she coaches and consults recruiting agency owners and runs a virtual assistant agency that helps firms implement the very marketing and operational systems she teaches.

But her method for content isn’t built on hype. It’s built on what she calls the “Customer Copy Code,” the exact words your ideal buyers use when they describe their problems, emotions, desires, and objections. When you use their language, your message lands differently. It feels familiar. It feels specific. It feels like you’re reading their mind.

And, as Prince points out, that feeling is what converts.

Why Sales Copy Falls Flat

Prince began with a question: Why doesn’t sales copy work? Attendees flooded the chat with answers: too many emails, everything sounds the same, it’s not relevant to the reader, people assume it’s AI, subject lines are hard, content is bloated.

Prince agreed with much of it, then layered in a deeper diagnosis. Sales copy fails when it’s centered on the seller instead of the buyer.

“We talk about ourselves, we guess, we try to figure out what to write about,” she said. In other words: we use our own perspective as the source of content, not the customer’s reality.

She listed several common mistakes:

• We talk about ourselves instead of the buyer.
  Recruiters lead with credentials, services, and process without anchoring in the reader’s pain.

• We guess what to write about.
  When you’re guessing, your content becomes generic, inconsistent, and disconnected from urgency.

• We pitch instead of listen.
  Content becomes a megaphone rather than a mirror.

• We “talk to each other.”
  A recruiter may have 100,000 LinkedIn followers, Prince noted, but still get no business because they’re attracting recruiters, not hiring managers.

• We don’t give it time.
  A single post doesn’t “work.” Systems work. Habits work. Consistency works.

• We follow templates that aren’t us.
  “Every time I’ve done that, it has fallen flat because it’s just not me,” she said.

• We’re afraid of being annoying.
  But fear of annoyance can actually become a limiter on growth.

She offered a perspective shift that many salespeople need: people who worry about being annoying are usually not the ones who are annoying.

“I heard that people who are afraid of being annoying are generally the ones that are not annoying,” Prince said. Then she added a practical mental exercise: consider the best-case and worst-case outcomes before sending a message. The worst is you might annoy someone you don’t even know. The best is you might gain a client for life.

More importantly, she reminded attendees of something recruiting professionals sometimes forget when they get timid about marketing: you’re in sales. Being visible is part of the job.

“We are salespeople,” she said. “If you are here on this webinar, you are selling something… and it is expected of people who are selling something… that we are going to send content and talk to people.”

But being visible isn’t the same as being valuable. And that’s where the Customer Copy Code comes in.

The Core Principle: Great Copy is Mirrored Language

Prince distilled her entire framework into a single core principle: great copy is mirrored language. You don’t need to invent brilliant phrases. You need to find the words your audience already uses and reflect them back with clarity and direction.

“If it sounds like them, it feels like them,” she said.

That’s the difference between content that earns “nice post!” comments and content that drives conversations with buyers.

Prince’s favorite proof point was a reply she once received from a cold email: a prospect told her they felt like she was hiding in their Alexa and reading their mind. That’s what happens when content stops sounding like a pitch and starts sounding like the customer’s internal dialogue.

“We want to say exactly what your buyer is already thinking,” she said.

The obvious question is: where do you find that language?

Where to Find Customer Copy Code

Prince’s answer: don’t pull language from polished platforms where people curate their image. Pull it from places where people speak candidly.

The best Customer Copy Code is unfiltered. It’s emotionally honest. It includes frustration, confusion, annoyance, fear, impatience: real human signals that reveal what people care about.

She pointed to several high-value sources.

1) Sales Calls and Call Transcripts

If you’re speaking to prospects and clients, you’re already sitting on your best content. You just need to capture it.

Prince asked attendees if they had an AI note taker and explained how powerful recorded calls can be for extracting exact phrases. She mentioned tools like Fireflies (which she uses) and noted that in recruiting, solutions like Quill can be strong as well.

If you’re not on Zoom/Teams, you can still record calls the old-fashioned way. “If I’m talking to a prospect on the phone, I’ll just say, ‘Hey, do you mind if I record this?’” Prince said. She frames it as a way to follow up accurately and serve the prospect better.

The point isn’t surveillance, but precision. When you capture the prospect’s language, you stop guessing.

2) Private Groups and Closed Communities

Public LinkedIn posts are often too polished, too performative, and increasingly AI-generated. Prince advised going where people speak more honestly, and that includes private Slack groups, closed communities, specialized forums.

She gave an example from her own recruiting days: when she was doing tech recruiting in Los Angeles, she discovered a CTO Slack group and immediately wanted in. That’s where the real talk happened.

She also referenced product communities like “Lenny’s” group, closed spaces where professionals discuss challenges and strategies candidly.

Her broader point: if you don’t know where your people talk, plant the question. Make it a strategic mission to find out.

3) Reddit

For many recruiters, Reddit is not a familiar place. Prince called it a “great place to start” because of one key feature: anonymity.

Because users are anonymous, they tend to speak more honestly about problems, frustrations, and decision-making realities. They’re less concerned with personal brand. That makes Reddit a gold mine for copy.

Prince emphasized that you don’t have to join a specific subreddit to start. You can simply search patterns like:

• “problems hiring [job title] Reddit”

• “interview feedback [role] Reddit”

• “why we stopped using recruiters Reddit”

• “agency fees too high Reddit”

She said Reddit is especially valuable for finding pain points in the language people naturally use when they’re venting or asking for help.

4) LinkedIn Reviews and Employee Feedback

One of Prince’s most tactical suggestions was to look at what hiring managers say about employees, especially in LinkedIn recommendations and reviews.

If you’re targeting a specific company or leader, those reviews can reveal what they value: culture change, compassion, decisiveness, accountability, urgency. Those keywords can become the core of your outreach and content.

When you use their words, you signal: I understand what matters here.

5) Amazon Book Reviews, Blog Comments, and ‘Hidden’ Feedback

Prince also encouraged recruiters to look beyond obvious platforms. What books are your prospects reading? What do they say in reviews? Where do they leave comments?

Her standard: the best sources are where people are not “expecting” their words to be captured for marketing. That’s where you find the most candid language.

Where Not to Listen

Prince also offered a clear “do not” list. Avoid sources where people are over-editing themselves:

• AI-written comments and posts

• Highly scripted content

• Tweets (character limits force editing)

• Anywhere your ideal prospect isn’t sharing real problems

She also warned against summarizing what others are saying. Don’t become an echo. Become a translator: reflect the customer’s reality back in a way that creates clarity.

The Content Engine: Objections are Content

Prince shifted from sources to strategy: one of the easiest ways to decide what to write is to write content that answers objections.

She asked attendees: “What is the last objection that you heard from a client?”

The chat lit up with classic objections:

• “Your fee is too high.”

• “No needs right now.”

• “We use internal recruiters.”

• “We don’t use agencies.”

Prince’s response: those objections are the content.

“These are the types of things to write content about,” she said. And not in your own polished explanation, but use their exact words.

When you answer objections publicly, you reduce resistance privately. Prospects start to feel like you “get it” before you even speak to them.

This is especially important because many recruiting agency owners fall into a trap: they write content aimed at peers instead of buyers. They post advice, opinions, thought leadership and then wonder why it doesn’t convert.

Prince was blunt about one common mistake: trying too hard to be an influencer.

“I really don’t recommend… feeling like you have an opinion on everything or be a thought leader,” she said. “Probably nobody cares what your opinion is on AI and recruiting.”

What people care about is whether you understand their problem and can solve it.

The Conversion Formula: Pain, Emotion, Desire, Language, Positioning

To turn raw customer language into copy, Prince offered a practical structure. When you find a strong quote or problem statement, you should be able to identify:

1. The problem: what’s in their way

2. The emotion: how it feels (frustrated, overwhelmed, burned, anxious, skeptical)

3. The desire: what they want instead

4. The language: the exact words they used

5. The positioning: how you become the solution

This framework prevents content from becoming generic because it forces specificity.

Prince also shared how she operationalized this in her own business. Once her content started attracting inbound leads, her team created a system: even when prospects book calls through Calendly, they ask questions. The answers become future content. DMs on LinkedIn become future content. Audience questions become future content.

It becomes a flywheel: the more you listen, the better your content; the better your content, the more conversations you attract; the more conversations you attract, the more Customer Copy Code you collect.

Getting Started When You Don’t Know What to Write

Many recruiters can’t create consistent content because they don’t have a reliable topic engine. Prince described exactly what she did when she started.

She used ChatGPT as a starting point carefully.

“You can get started with ChatGPT by asking… ‘What are 25 things that keep hospital CEOs up at night?’” she said.

She stressed that you must be careful not to publish content that sounds “ChatGPT generated.” But as a seed tool, it can help generate a starting list of concerns that you can then validate with real customer language.

Prince said she wrote 20 posts, scheduled them out, and repeated the process for three months. The result surprised her: her followers shifted. Her connection requests changed. The audience became more aligned with her ideal client profile, almost overnight.

“It almost happened overnight,” she said, “and what I did was I got really consistent.”

That consistency solved a second problem: the emotional cost of inconsistency. Prince described the feeling many recruiters know when they’re going to bed thinking, “I didn’t post today. I’ll do it tomorrow.” The issue isn’t laziness. It’s lack of clarity. When you don’t know what to write, you avoid writing.

Once you have a plan, posting becomes simpler.

Ask for Opinions, Not Problems

A subtle but powerful tactic Prince shared: don’t ask your audience to share their problems publicly. Most people don’t want to do that on LinkedIn.

“Don’t ask people to share their problems on LinkedIn,” she said. “Nobody wants to share their problems. Everybody wants to share their advice.”

Instead, post scenarios that invite opinions, especially scenarios pulled from real customer language.

For example, she described using a hiring manager scenario from Reddit: a manager hired a referral who “everyone liked,” but the employee turned out to be rude, interrupting people and speaking badly about coworkers. That kind of scenario gets hiring managers talking because they can comment with advice without admitting vulnerability.

This approach does two things at once:

• It makes your content more engaging (people like giving advice).

• It makes your content more targeted (only the right personas will care).

‘Sticky’ Copy: Natural, Unpolished, and Honest

Prince also challenged a common misconception: that effective copy needs to be polished.

“You want to sound natural,” she said. “You want to be unpolished.”

In her view, the worst copy often comes from two places:

• Copy that is heavily templated, because it doesn’t sound like you

• Copy that is heavily AI-generated, because it sounds like everybody

She encouraged recruiters to do something their competitors won’t: be honest, even a little controversial, and avoid repeating what everyone else is saying.

“Dare to say things that your competitors won’t say,” she told the audience. “Don’t just put out there what everybody else is saying. It’s boring. Nobody cares.”

The goal isn’t provocation for its own sake. It’s differentiation through truth. If your content sounds like the same recycled recruiting advice, it becomes invisible.

The Patience Problem: Content Doesn’t Work Overnight

Prince repeatedly returned to consistency, but she also addressed the emotional reality: content takes time. Many recruiters post sporadically, don’t see immediate leads, and quit.

She warned against that cycle.

“This is not gonna happen overnight,” she said. “It’s the consistency.”

One way she frames consistency is not just as a marketing tactic, but as self-trust. When you commit to a habit and follow through, you build confidence in yourself.

“When you know that you’re going to do something, you start trusting yourself,” Prince said. “It’s a great feeling when you know that you can count on yourself.”

That internal trust matters because it prevents the stop-start pattern that keeps many agencies stuck.

Distribution Matters: LinkedIn is Not the Enemy, But It’s Not Enough

During Q&A, an attendee asked an important question: if everyone is posting on LinkedIn, is there another, more effective way to be known? He mentioned getting thousands of views but no leads.

Prince’s answer was nuanced: LinkedIn isn’t necessarily the problem. If views aren’t converting, it’s often because the content isn’t speaking to the right persona or solving a real problem. It may be entertaining or broadly appealing, but not buyer-relevant.

She also mentioned that conversion sometimes happens quietly. People may read without engaging, then reach out later. That’s why tracking attribution is important: ask new leads how they heard about you.

Prince also stressed that consistent outreach isn’t only content. Email matters too. She sends a Friday email every week. Nurture matters.

And engagement matters. Her team has a system:

• Engage for 30 minutes

• Post

• Engage for another 30 minutes

She also offered a simple tactic: engage with people who interacted with your post yesterday. It’s manageable and reinforces relationships.

Her rule was clear: don’t ghost your prospects. If you disappear, you become forgettable.

The Four Sales Elements: Offer, Attraction, Nurturing, Closing

One of Prince’s most practical frameworks was her breakdown of sales into four elements:

1. Offer: What do you do? What is your niche? Is it needed now?

2. Attraction: Are you bringing the right people into your world?

3. Nurturing: Are you staying top-of-mind and building trust over time?

4. Closing: Are you converting interest into business?

She suggested “ranking yourself” across these elements to identify where you’re strong and where you need help. Many agencies focus heavily on attraction (posting) without strengthening offer clarity, nurture systems, or closing process.

Content is not a magic wand. It is one part of a larger sales engine.

Niche Focus: Tighter is Bigger

Prince emphasized niche focus repeatedly and challenged the fear many recruiters carry: the fear that narrowing your message will eliminate opportunity.

She believes the opposite happens.

“The tighter I go in my niches, the bigger I grow,” she said.

She used her own experience as proof. Her $28 million staffing exit started with an extremely specific niche: title insurance examiners, plus related roles like escrow and loan processors. That niche focus created deep expertise, strong brand association, and word-of-mouth momentum.

She also explained that niche messaging doesn’t mean you only serve one niche. It means your content speaks to one ideal client profile consistently. You can still attract adjacent business, often more than you expect.

Today, her niche is recruiting and staffing agency owners, but she still serves lawyers, real estate agents, consultants, coaches, marketing agencies, and more. The focused content creates authority; authority attracts broader demand.

Her advice was simple: decide who you’re talking to and talk only to them in your content.

The ‘Truth’ Principle: Why Copy Works

Prince ended one section with a line that could serve as the thesis of her entire approach:

“Copy works, not because it’s clever, but because it’s true.”

She compared great copy to comedy and novels. The lines that hit are the lines that feel relatable, the ones that make a reader think, Yes. That’s exactly it.

That relatability is what signals understanding. And in sales, understanding becomes credibility.

“If people believe that you understand their problems, they see you as someone who can solve their problems,” she said.

A Recruiting Operations Bonus: Stay on the Interview

In a moment that wasn’t strictly about copywriting, Prince shared a tactical process improvement her team implemented that dramatically improved placements: the recruiter stays on the interview.

Instead of doing the intro and disappearing, the recruiter remains in the background during a Zoom/Teams interview, then returns at the end to debrief immediately with the client.

“Totally works. Just try it,” she said, noting that when they implemented it, they saw five out of five placements in one week. The big advantage is speed: you don’t have to wait for feedback or chase the hiring manager. You capture impressions while they’re fresh.

It’s a reminder of Prince’s overall approach: systems beat hope. Listening beats guessing. Structure beats scrambling.

Reddit Explained: Not Sourcing, But ‘Sourcing for Copy’

When Todd asked for a simple tutorial on Reddit, Prince broke it down clearly for recruiters who had never used it.

You don’t need an account. You’re not posting. You’re not soliciting. You’re listening.

You search a role or a topic plus the word “Reddit,” and you’ll find threads where anonymous people share unfiltered realities. And because Reddit communities are quick to reject spam, much of what remains is “real talk.”

Todd summarized it perfectly: “It’s not a sourcing platform, but it’s sourcing for copy.”

Prince agreed. That’s the essence of Customer Copy Code: you’re sourcing language.

Competitors: Don’t Watch Them, Outlisten Your Customers

One attendee asked how much time recruiters should spend monitoring competitors in a crowded niche. Prince’s answer was immediate: none.

“Competitors are going to drain your creativeness,” she said, referencing the book Rework and its take on how competitor obsession stifles innovation.

Prince’s philosophy is to pay minimal attention—just enough to be aware—but keep your focus on what you control: your voice, your service, your customer understanding.

She also offered an interesting insight: sometimes people with the least industry experience become the best recruiters because they’re willing to do things differently. They aren’t trapped by “how it’s always done.”

Her conclusion: be you.

“You can’t pretend to be something you’re not,” she said. “Just be you.”

Using Customer Copy Code for Candidate Outreach

Recruiters often focus content on clients, but Prince said the same approach applies to candidate solicitation. In fact, it may be easier because candidates talk openly online about job searching.

Her advice:

• Use Reddit to find how candidates describe frustrations and goals.

• Capture language from interviews using AI notes.

• Use LinkedIn profiles, especially the candidate’s About section, to mirror their own wording when reaching out.

She described a practical tactic: take a candidate’s About section, use ChatGPT to extract their language, then craft a message about the role using those exact words. That helps the outreach feel relevant and personal even if the recruiter isn’t deeply fluent in the technical details.

The Simplest Takeaway: Stop Guessing, Start Listening

At its heart, Diane Prince’s approach is a rejection of random posting and generic templates. It is a system for turning real customer language into content that attracts the right people, builds trust, and starts sales conversations.

It starts with a mindset shift:

• You don’t need to be clever.

• You need to be accurate.

• You don’t need to post more.

• You need to listen better.

• You don’t need to sound like an influencer.

• You need to sound like your customer.

Or, as Prince put it with refreshing simplicity: “If it sounds like them, it feels like them.”

When recruiters adopt this approach, content becomes less stressful because the ideas are everywhere, including inside objections, inside calls, inside reviews, inside unfiltered online conversations. The work shifts from inventing topics to capturing truth.

And that truth—pain, emotion, desire, language—is what drives conversion.

Put Your Content Strategy into Action with TE Recruit

Creating powerful, client-focused content is only half the equation. To consistently attract, nurture, and convert prospects, you need the right system behind it.

That’s where TE Recruit by Top Echelon comes in.

TE Recruit is an all-in-one ATS and CRM built specifically for growing recruiting agencies. It helps you manage candidates, clients, job orders, and communications—all in one centralized platform—so nothing slips through the cracks.

Once you start applying strategies like the Customer Copy Code, TE Recruit makes it easy to operationalize your outreach with built-in email marketing tools that allow you to:

• Send targeted email campaigns to clients and candidates

• Create segmented lists based on niche, industry, or activity

• Nurture prospects with consistent, value-driven messaging

• Stay top-of-mind without manually tracking every follow-up

• Track engagement to see who’s opening and responding

Instead of guessing who to contact next, you can build repeatable workflows that support attraction and nurturing, which are two of the most critical elements of a successful recruiting sales process.

Whether you’re sending objection-handling emails to hiring managers, sharing job opportunities with candidates, or running ongoing newsletter campaigns, TE Recruit gives you the structure to execute consistently and professionally.

If you’re ready to combine smarter messaging with smarter systems, it’s time to see TE Recruit in action.

Request a live demo of TE Recruit today and discover how an all-in-one ATS and CRM can help you scale your recruiting business with confidence.