$100M Valuation in 6 Years: The Metric Search Story | Joe Jani & John-Joe Walker
In this podcast, host Hishem Azzouz interviews Metric Search co‑founders Joe Jani and John‑Joe Walker to unpack how the recruitment firm grew from a two‑person startup in 2019 to a $100 million‑valued business in six years. The conversation covers the deliberate decision to take private‑equity capital (first BGF, then Southfield) and the upside it provided – board expertise, employee equity participation, and growth capital – versus reinvesting profits. They detail the foundational pillars that drove that growth: a micro‑niche go‑to‑market strategy (deep, highly specialized market segments within three core brands – Bio, Geo, DCX), a graduate‑centric hiring model and the “Metric Blueprint” that codifies recruitment best practices, and a strict perm‑only focus that proved forecastable despite common myths about needing a contract book. The hosts discuss key operating metrics (sendouts, time‑to‑first‑fee, productivity per head) that give investors confidence, and how these were used to demonstrate value during fundraising. They explain the governance structure with BGF and Southfield (board seats, consent matters, regular board meetings) and how the investors added value through challenge, governance, and network introductions rather than dictating day‑to‑day operations. The interview also explores cultural scaling across seven global offices, the importance of consistent standards, the role differentiation between CEO and CCO, and the diversification across brands that provides resilience. Finally, they reflect on the main value drivers that justified the $100 million valuation – rapid revenue growth, high retained‑business ratio, market resilience, staff and client retention, and increasing productivity per head – and how the business plans to 5× further under the new Southfield investment.
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Great, thanks Hishem. Thanks for having us today.
Thanks for having us, looking forward to it.
I know, I think it's fair to say there's going to be a lot of people who are excited to learn about this Metric journey. People outside looking in, in the industry, people I speak to, I think it's fair to say that your journey is inspiring a lot of people in the industry. And our goal of this conversation is to really delve into the how behind this $100 million valuation. So the way that we're gonna work through this together is we're gonna really talk about pre-metric, before we first brought on private equity, what that then looked like after, and then how we got to the point with announcing the Southfield investment, and then talking about what does that now mean moving forward, you guys cracking on and getting to work and what that looks like. So we've got our points that we're going to go through. So what's probably worth mentioning is, Joe, you start this business in 2019, and then when we're— where we're going to start this journey is more around pre-July 2024. But Jonjo, get— let me know if I got this wrong, but you joined the journey 2021, or you joined that year?
Yep, approaching 5 years now. Yeah, perfect.
So where, where I wanted to start, Joe, if it's okay with you, is what's been really clear in preparing for this is you guys have been very intentional. I think you've openly externally said about getting to this milestone that you've got to, what you wanted to achieve. So I just wanted to to first ask you, from your perspective, what are the main upsides that you've always seen on going down this private equity route that maybe you thought you wouldn't have got if you reinvested the profits of, of the business? What is it that you really saw on that private equity journey that really gives you the upside? What excited you? Why did you intentionally want to go down that versus reinvesting what you guys are making the company? Because you've been making profit, you've been doing well. So again, it's very intentional for you to take on that external investment. So talk us through what upside you really saw in going down that path.
Yeah, there's, there's a ton of reasons we, we chose to go down the private equity route, but ultimately it's added a ton of value to the business. So if you think I was 26 or 27 when I started Metric, I'd never run a search firm this big before. And as we continue to scale and go to 50 to 60 to 70 people and Then we fast forward to today where we're 150 across 7 offices. It's great to have people in the boardroom who can add value, who've been on this journey before. So I think having smart people in the boardroom has been imperative to our growth. So doing private equity has enabled us to do that. So that's been a big reason.
Mm-hmm.
Probably the main one was to create an opportunity for the people who work in the business to come on this equity journey with us. Right. So. I think the stat is 0.01% of recruitment businesses ever have an event, right? So when we got the opportunity and we were at the size and scale to, to be entertained by private equity, we wanted to do that to give people opportunity to, to make some money for, for all the effort that they've put into the business and, and growing it so far. So we were really proud that when we did the BGF deal, shareholders made some money, and when we did the Southfield deal, people made some money, and we're gonna cut another 30 people into the equity story of MetricNow. So again, it's an opportunity and it's a it's an equity story like no other. The fact that we've achieved this in 6 years already, and, and we've got so much more to go.
Okay, that's interesting. So you led with the expertise and help you would have got along the way, so you saw the upside there. And then I guess what you're also saying is achieve something great that so many don't.
Yeah, I think, I think from the expertise side, it is, is important. BGF helped us bring on Andy McCrae. Um, I remember our first meeting with Andy, who'd worked worked at some great businesses. He'd worked at Faden, he was at Oliver James, he'd had a great career himself in search. So the opportunity to add someone like that into the boardroom was massive for us. So having expertise there and Andy's guidance has been brilliant and he's still a great asset to the business today. And then in terms of the event and the equity journey for staff, it's a great retention tool and it's a great way to keep people motivated. And once you do one private equity deal, you know you're going to do another and Now we've done our second one, but we will, we will certainly do a third.
Yeah, and we're definitely gonna talk about in this conversation, because I know there will be assumptions on if you go down that route, what— there's always trade-offs, right? There's challenges, there's hard parts, and we'll definitely cover today what that's maybe looked like for you guys versus some people's assumptions versus reality of bringing that in, uh, and, and managing that. But what I wanted to really make sure we laid the foundations of, because you said to me, Joe, I'm prepared for this. Leading up to BGF, what I've got here, just to give people some context, by the time that BGF came in and we got to that first milestone of bringing in private equity, you was circa $16 million net fee income, dollars, around 65, 70 heads.
Yeah.
Um, and around that time you was valued at $35 million, there or thereabouts. But what you shared with me was in the years prior to that, you really laid the foundations. Yeah, that are also probably ringing true now and, um, contributing to your sex— uh, success today. So I wanted to make sure that we've spoken about that. So I'll come to you first, Joe, on that. Like, how firstly do we think about— when you say laying the foundations, what do you mean by that? Are we talking about the culture, the go-to-market strategy, our markets? Talk to us a bit about when you shared with me the foundations leading up to BGF. What were those and how you think about those?
Yeah, yeah, it was all of, all of the above, and, and we've been really intentional with all of those areas. So if I think about, right, what approach do we want to have? So we have a micro niche strategy, which is our go-to market. Everyone is in really, really tiny micro niches, so we go inch wide, mile deep. So they're super specialized in these markets. So when you think about some of our competitors in Exec Search, they will have a healthcare practice or an industrial practice. We would go way deeper than that, where we will have a CDMO team, a neurotech team, an infrastructure and engineering team. So, um, much more specialized, which is important. As you said, I, I launched the business in New York, so we've been hyperfocused on the US market, which has been massive for us. 92% of our NFI comes from US candidates, US clients. So again, that's something where we were very, very intentional. Then again, A lot of this is authentic, right? So when I launched Metric, I wanted us to be a high-performance business for high performers and for people to come and work at Metric who want to change their lives and accelerate their careers. So again, that was, that was key from the start. It was never set up to be a lifestyle business. It was always set up to be a scale-up with high performance where we are well known in our micro niches and our clients are proud to work with us. So we were really intentional about all of those things and If I think back to 2019, 2020, we were doing all of this. What we've done as the journey's gone on is we've turned this into a blueprint and a scalable process. But these are all authentic behaviours that come from myself and Jonjo where they come natural to us. So, and that's pretty much what's been the difference.
And then Jonjo, should we— would you mind helping us understand? Because when we prepared for this, you said one of the terms that you used over and over again in investor meetings is micro-niche. Let's just first define that for us. When we use that phrase within Metric, what are we saying? What do we mean? What is a micro-niche? How do we define that? Sure.
So it's a market that sits within one of our three core brands. So our brands being Bio, which is life sciences, Geo, which is engineering and infrastructure, and DCX, which is data centres. But it's really looking to niche those down further. I think we only tend to put recruiters in markets where they can ultimately work towards becoming the lead recruiter in that space and become embedded within that market, part of the ecosystem. We're very big on meeting clients in person, face to face, recording content like this with them, going to conferences. So it's important that any recruiter that works for Metric is part of that world and they're not on the outside looking in. They're part of it and the market's moving around them. And I think that really helps us deliver for our clients. So if we get a brief from a client, A great example would be within the CDMO space. If we take on a VP of Business Development role from one of our CDMO clients, the chances are we've got the shortlist already in mind because we're that well connected, we're that well networked within these spaces. You don't need to go and do a proactive search. Now you'll do a search in addition to help bulk up the shortlist, but the fact that the market and the network is that specialized is the real value add.
And then would we— would you mind if we just go granular for a second? How— just to take it a bit further, so if I'm in metric right now and I say this is my micro niche, like how, how expansive is that? Is it job title, location, that? Is it that an industry that I do? Like what actually— how do you break it down? Because I think that'll be helpful for people.
Sure, it would vary based upon, upon brands, so within the data centre brand, we're quite regional. So you would get a geographic area within the data centre space. You may also have a part of the end-to-end data centre build-out as well. Within the bio sector, it's very industry-specific, not necessarily functional-specific. So we're doing a lot of work in the digital pathology space at the moment. So we've got a recruiter who is looking to be the go-to guy within digital pathology. Naturally, we operate at director level, plus minus one. Generally across the banding. Um, so it's relatively senior hiring, um, sort of brand agnostic that that focuses. Um, but yeah, that would be okay.
So now it can vary, but that's good to break down because if you work in recruitment, you've heard the word niche before.
Yeah.
And but straight away when we were talking about doing this, that was a phrase that you guys said that you've, you've used and spoken about so many times because I know I had it written down here, but Jonjo, I think you said something like The— you have 48 micro niches, correct? For 3 brands.
Yep.
Sounds like a lot.
I guess a lot of them are adjacencies, right? So we're not just randomly going after anything that we see. Um, for us to launch a new micro niche, there has to be in-house expertise, there has to be an understanding of an adjacent market. So they generally sort of span off, off each other. Um, so it's, it's— there's a thoughtful approach around it. There also has to be investment dollars going into it, right? But we say niche, but a lot of these markets are multi-billion industries within themselves. They're not tiny, tiny markets where there are 5 companies, right? So it has to make business sense. And there's a very clear sort of micro-niche identification process that we go through prior to launching something where when someone comes into Metric and they are allocated a micro-niche, they are set up for success, right? That their manager has likely brought on business already in that market. They're coming onto a warm desk. We have an understanding of what that is about and it's related to our sectors that we're pretty sort of entrenched in already.
Yeah, and a couple of examples of that are in our water market. So we started out in water, then we moved into water and wastewater, then into water tech. So they're micro niches that are adjacent to that market. Same with CDMO, starting CDMO, then into CRDMO, then into drug discovery, then into preclinical CRO. So there's a number of micro niches that we've got mapped out that we're still wanting to move into further. But the important point is that we have expertise in all of those, we have contacts, and we can go and get vacancies and speak to clients in these these adjacencies very easily.
And then, Joe, how, how much time do you spend thinking about today, or over the years, how much time do you spend thinking about those adjacent markets, those evolutions? Because something that I've definitely found in the most successful companies that I've met, sat with over the last 2 years, is that I think personally— you can tell me what you think about this— that this has to be set top down. The, the, the micro niches, the ecosystems that you're putting people in.
Yeah.
Versus it being reliant on recruiters' shoulders to try and figure that out themselves. I think the best companies are looking at where the opportunities are, where the investment's going. Actually, this is really not performing as much as we thought it would. We need to sort of look at how else we can evolve that. How much time are you spending looking at those things, thinking about those things? Not about doing something completely brand new.
Yeah.
But recognising where the opportunities are.
So this has been such a key question through both of the private equity processes of how are you identifying these markets, right? So at the start, of course, it's me when we're a startup picking markets. But then what we realize is this has to be a process, this has to be institutionalized, and we need to be thoughtful around this. So it started coming from me, but now today we're 140+ recruiters. The managers are now tasked and incentivized to discover new micro niches, and it has to meet a certain criteria, which is investment dollars going into it. Have you got contacts? Have you got knowledge of this market? For a micro niche to get approved, there is a full process that has to happen because I think your point is exactly right. You have to be thoughtful and intentional about these markets that you're going into. So what we've done is turned it coming from top down to now it being a full process, which, which is scalable. And again, hence why we've got the next 40+ markets mapped out.
And something you shared with me as well, which is also why this is important, it might have looked different across the journey, but what we're then benefiting from is the power of diversification. Because I know you shared that with me. I sat down with the guys at LHI, and that's something that they really experienced as well. How they've found it— you can tell me how it's been for you guys— is one, you can be in moments in time where, uh, bio could be performing really well, but then geo may not be, and that's okay because we're diversified. We haven't got all our eggs in one basket. But then also what they shared, which I don't know if you guys have seen, is It's also a really great retention tool because you might bring someone in a micro niche and think they're absolutely made perfectly for that micro niche. They start working there and actually we figure out they're actually more better suited for this other micro niche. Let's put them there versus them thinking they have to leave the company to go somewhere else.
Yeah, our approach is probably slightly different to that. So I think we've definitely benefited from having the 3 different brands for sure, but we've grown every single brand every quarter, every year. So even though some of them have been more difficult at times, we've still grown every brand. Well, We don't like to move recruiters across brands because they lose their network then, and we're so big on them building out their network, both of candidates and clients, and then having expertise in the market. So we would probably pivot them within the brand into a different area or a different function rather than move them brand completely.
Yeah, definitely. And I think the resilience point is really important, that particularly going through the private equity processes that we have, they were very interested in testing the resilience of the business and the fact that we're not heavily reliant on one micro-niche or even one brand now is a real asset to the business. Because again, markets naturally are cyclical. Joe's right that we've performed incredibly well in down markets anyway, but still having that built-in resilience of the business is something that private equity look for.
And then Joe, as we talk about or get into some more particulars of leading up to the BGF piece, Why— a lot of people ask me this— why perm only? Because so many— you, I'm sure you've been in rooms with other recruitment leaders where you'll very quickly hear, if you want to get to some— if you want to get to that 1%, you've got to have contracts, you've got to have recurring revenue. I mean, talk later about what, uh, Private Equity were asking about you, how do we forecast revenue, what does that look like? But again, we're talking about laying the foundations here. Why Why perm only? Why have we not got contracting earlier? I don't know, you can tell us.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the biggest myth in recruitment, is that you can't do a private equity deal if you don't have contract book. So, and I think we've probably proved that.
Definitely.
What I would say is we don't know contract too well, right? So Andy makes a good point, Andy McCrae, the chairman. He says, stick to what you want to be famous for, stick to what you know. We're a great perm business, we're great at exec search, we know how to deliver. We don't have the expertise to build a massive contract book. There is certainly demand from our clients for that, and it's something we'd be open to do, but you have to have the right person who can lead that. So, so again, we've focused on perm, and it's, and it's worked really well for us.
So have we had any periods where you've tried it, or no? We've never even tried it?
We looked at, we looked into doing it, but I don't think we had the right people. And after 3 months, we decided not to move ahead with contract. Is Interestingly, we had a strategy day with Bennett at Houlihan Lokey, who ended up brokering the deal. And we sat down and talked about the strategy of the business. And I think contract was about 0.1% of NFI at that point. And Bennett said, look, you're not going to get any value for this unless you get contract at NFI to 30% of your overall NFI. And at that point, we looked around and we were growing 60% a year in perm. There was just no way on earth that we were going to be able to grow Contract at that pace. So we decided to close Contract and focus on Perm, which proved to be a great decision.
For sure. He gave us real confidence in that moment. We did the BGF deal as a Perm business anyway, but Hulahan Loki gave us real confidence in that moment that US private equity would back a Perm business if you are world-class at every component of what you do. And we firmly believed and continue to believe that we are. A world-class perm recruitment company. So it wasn't a sort of issue at all throughout the PE round.
And the growth that we were experiencing in what was a down market at the time, at 56% a year, it just made complete sense to focus on what we were doing that was working. And just probably worth me talking about the forecastability as well, which I think you mentioned, because that is again a key question that came up through the private equity processes.
So Both, you'd say, like BGF and Southfield, this came up a lot.
Yeah, of course, of course. It's a perm business, right? It came up, and we've been fortunate that we've never had a bad quarter. So every quarter we have grown consistently over, what, 6 and a half years now, which, which gives us something you can look back on and prove it, prove out. But for us, we look at this— so, so each interview we arrange at Metric is worth $2,700. So we know every time we get a first interview arranged, that is going to be worth $2,700 to the business. So that gives us some forecastability that if our interview metrics, which we call sendouts, are good, you have some forecastability through that. So I think that was really important for us. And the fact that we've got data to prove that Al was really impactful through this process.
Where did that $2,700 come from? Help us understand that. How do we get to the $2,700 number?
So interviews divided by place.
Reverse engineer it.
Yeah, reverse engineered. So from day one of the business, it will map to revenue.
Okay, let's just— we can just double-click into this for a second then, because I know it would have been, um, important. Would you say— so that's one of the mechanisms that— was that like a core mechanism that you would talk about to say, well, we can clearly say looking at the historic data that every interview has this value? So that, that you've got the history to look back to, so that's really helped. And then you've come up with certain numbers to figure out, well, we know that every time we do an interview it could be worth this. But I think the other thing that a lot of people asked me was, would we say that private equity were also like buying what the future could be because of the history? So like, was they also buying into what it could be versus just what you've done in the past?
They're mostly buying into what it can be in the future. Because I guess if you think when private equity come and make an investment, what you've done in the past is semi-irrelevant. They're buying future growth. So our goal is to 5x the business again now. From the Southfield investment. So they're absolutely buying into the future plan, but having data to prove out why and how you've been successful and having metrics that they can use to back up their investment thesis is absolutely paramount to get an investment.
Yeah, it is, because as I said, so many people will say you need a contract book to be in these sorts of rooms and be considered. So I think it is really interesting to hear how— it sounds like from what I'm hearing, just so much. What helped is you've got this 6-year track record.
Yeah, and we've got a lot of retained clients, right? So that there is some forecastability around that. We don't work contingent all of the time. We've got genuine client relationships. The percentage of retained businesses going up each year, so we've got real commitment from clients. Um, we're not just spraying and hoping, and I think our reputation is compounding within each micro niche, within each market, and we're just getting more client stickiness and more client buying from the year. So they can— you can assess forecastability through those metrics as well.
And I know it's like you say, continuing to grow, but the BGF period versus Southfield period, what do we think the rough percentage split was on like retained committed versus like contingent? If we were to look at the revenue, what do you reckon that would have been?
Yeah, we worked it out to be through the process. So 50% of our mandates are either retained or exclusive. And the other 50% will be contingent, but it would never be PSL work. It would be maybe you versus one or two other—
it'd be contingent with a view to transitioning into retained once you've proved yourself. Which, if I look at probably 3 or 4 of our top 10 retained accounts, started out contingent, did an amazing job. You're then able to win that account off a competing company and then transition them into a retained account.
And then, Joe, how— again, when we prepared for this, it sounded really intentional, but from the get-go, did you know you wanted to build metric with mainly entry-level talent. Was that also very intentional?
Yeah, I'm a huge believer in the, the grad and entry-level talent model. Um, that's how I started, it was how Jonjo started. I think that's a great way to bring people into the business, give them an opportunity, but it also enables you to shape them to work in the way we want to work, which is white glove service for clients and candidates. Sometimes it is more challenging bringing experienced recruiters in, so again, this was a huge part of us being able to secure investment, is that we've got an unlimited talent pool. People who graduate university is, is unlimited, essentially, in the UK and the US. So the fact that we have got a proven model where we can bring in a graduate from, from any university and, and teach them how to do this our way and get them billing on average £330K per year, that is really, really impactful. So that shows that we have got proven scalable blueprint. So I'm a big believer in the grad model, and I know a lot of businesses have maybe moved away from it because it can be challenging, and— but it's, it's something that we really, really believe in.
And I think for me, we, we really believe in the blueprint, which is why we believe in the grad model, right? We really— we're so passionate about, about the secret sauce at Metric, um, the playbook, the blueprint that we've developed, that we're convinced that if you you get your way through our talent acquisition process and you get a job at Metric, we can turn you into a million-dollar biller, right? So like, one of our top performers built a million dollars in his first year, he built a million dollars in his second year, he's currently on a million dollars now, and we've got 5 months left of the year. He came through our academy, learned the blueprint, right? Joe and I wrote the entire L&D platform from scratch, uh, obsessive over every single detail of what it takes to become a world-class recruiter. I think that's where our recruitment DNA kicks in, right? That we are customer-facing still. We have been top billers, both of us, in the past. So we know what it takes to be good. It's just trying to bottle that up and replicate it and teach it. So I think we're passionate about the grad model because, because we're passionate about what we can teach them.
But again, now we've got the data to prove this out, which is so impactful. So if we get someone through 12 months, Metric, the stats say they will bill on average £475K from, from month 12 to for the second year. But also the average person at Metric is taking home $150,000 a year excluding C-suite, which is amazing.
We're gonna have to— you won't be surprised to hear that a lot of the questions I had through was, because you talk about this a lot outwardly, what is this Metric Blueprint? You know, there's, there's secret sauce in there, but I think we'd, we'd have to cover what maybe those chapters are, what the important elements of it, because I do think this is absolutely clearly one of the, the backbones of the, the success so far in building that repeatable process, getting people through a journey and getting to these points. Because I had it written here, top 20, uh, of your top 20 billers, 16 of them are homegrown, right?
Yep.
And I can imagine, I mean, you can tell, as I'm assuming, uh, Joe, one of the big factors that impacted your multiple, the value of the business, was this repeatability of bringing people on and getting into a certain point and having these data points. How of this metric blueprint was built going into the BGF deal versus now? Has it continued to evolve, or how much of it was there at the BGF point?
Yeah, so, so this has been there from day one of the business, this— the, the model and the blueprint. What we've done more is formalized it and probably spruced it up a little, but the core fundamentals are still the same. But if I, if I look back to, to where we were pre-BGF to now, we now have LMX with a ton of online content on. It's got videos from me, from John Joe, from all of the top performers in the business— how to go on a client call, how to sell a retainer, how to navigate counter offers. Anything you could possibly imagine, there's a video on. So it's upgraded a lot in that sense. We've invested a lot into hiring L&D people to manage the cohorts and to run the cohorts, and we've improved our talent acquisition process a lot along the way. But the core fundamentals of what is good recruitment and how we want to work with our clients and being partnership-focused and trying to work with them long-term. My philosophy has always been I'd rather do 5 or 10 deals at 25% than 1 at 30%. We never charged a cancellation fee to a client ever, and we never will. They're from day one, but it's just been rolling those and making them, rolling those out and making them better and better as time's gone on.
Definitely. It's those ideals, those core principles that they existed in the business when I joined 5 years ago of, from a cultural perspective, everyone having a growth mindset, everyone wanting to win. There's a real competitive spirit in there, which I've seen and heard about in other companies. But I think the big thing here is that it's reinforced by leadership in office every single day without fail. And there was a moment, probably 2022, where there was a lot of clamour, sort of post-COVID. Everyone was doing well, right? Particularly in our life science brand. A lot of companies were having their best ever year, as were we. There was a lot of clamour then for hybrid work. There was a lot of clamour for work from home, a lot of people patting themselves on the back. I think in that moment we were so conscious that that great market and that boom wouldn't last forever and that we needed to be true to ourselves and be authentic, which I think if nothing else, we're certainly authentic. And we believe that you scale a world-class recruitment company by demonstrating world-class behaviours in office every day, which meant Jo and I still to this day are in office every single day. I think those little moments that you look back on that they're so formative in terms of what we've gone on to become. So it's the same culturally business today as it was 5 years ago. We believe in the same things.
Did you, did you feel like in the moment sometimes you would— because I know I had this down— that you really doubled down on that in terms of that approach and standing for what you believed in?
Yeah.
Did you get a lot of pushback?
At times, I think what I guess you're never going to please everyone. We probably lost a couple of people along the way because of that, but I think we got more buy-in than anything else. It helps when every quarter is your best ever quarter, right? So the results kind of proved that for us, this is the way to scale a recruitment company. Had we had sort of indifferent results, then I think people may start to question it. Again, this is where being leading from the front really comes into play. I'm not asking anyone to do anything that I'm not doing. We're completely clear with people when we bring them into the business that we believe for you to become a million-dollar biller, you should be surrounded by other million-dollar billers. We create world-class centres of L&D and centres of excellence. Like, I think us really believing in that and having the proof now that it works means very few people question it. It's not like we're selling something when people come into the business and delivering something else. We've never had to sort of undo bad culture or undo bad decision-making, really. And we've been pretty sort of consistent in our outlook from day one.
Yeah, I think as long as you are crystal clear about what you want to be and when you set that out, everyone knows. We've done that really well, right? So when you join Metric, they know it's going to be in office, it's going to be high performance, it's going to be high expectations. That, I think that's fine. I think the problems come when it's not clear, and that's when sometimes you can get issues with this. But, but we're crystal clear with everyone who comes into the business what, what this is going to be and what the expectations are and Again, we've had a growth journey like no other in the last 6 years, so it makes it a little easier as, as time goes on.
Let's just cover it now then, because we're speaking about it. I think a lot of people— we've mentioned around the Metric Blueprint, but what I'd be really interested to just delve into a bit more is some of the things that you've had to refine over time in terms of what you look at when you bring on, uh, someone new, what the expectations are. What metrics and data points you always look at, because I think this would be really helpful for people. So Joe, I'll come to you on it because we're talking about the grad model, bringing people on, leading by the front, all these things. So when— if we first talk about, let's just say, from I'm joining Metric and I haven't got any recruitment experience, yeah, what are the, the standards and expectations here? So when are you expecting me to do my first deal, or what are the milestones that you guys look at from a leadership perspective? The speed to competency, whatever you look at, what are those metrics that you look at? And then let's talk about what the expectations are in metric.
Yeah, so time to first fee has come down from over 100 days to 62 days, which is something that we've been tracking over the last 2 years, which clearly shows that the investment in L&D is working and that we're also hiring better. So that's, that's the expectation. I think then the next promotion and the next milestone for someone would be to, to bill their first £50K, which then leads to a promotion. And then the one following that is £195K build. Although my expectations are, for once you come into the business, you've got no recruitment experience, I'm mainly looking at attitude and effort and coachability. And I'm a big fan of the 10 Things That Require Zero Ability, right? So it's being on time, um, being coachable, having good body language. That's what's important to me. I understand that people will pick up recruitment at different paces. Some of the best people we've got in the business didn't score a fee for the first 6 months, some of them first 7 months. But, you know, when you can see they're developing, they're improving, they're getting better every day. So I'm, I'm much more focused on attitude and effort and coachability when we bring people into the business rather than you have to score a fee by day 62.
No, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I think it's what people are interested in, uh, because you guys clearly will be looking at this stuff, understanding there'll be different cases, and treat people like people. But I think it's interesting to understand how you think about the data and what things that you look at. So that's a really impressive data point, that in terms of how long it's taken to the first fee. Is that typically— would you— is that only counted if it's a 360 deal? Is it a split? Can that count?
We track all three, so time to first deal, time to first 360, and time to first retainer as well. So time to 360 is also, I think, under 90 days now as well, which is pretty good.
Okay. The other thing that I know a lot of people would be interested in will be What are, from your perspective, the lagging indicators? You might look at interviews, might look at meetings. What are the things that you really care about there in terms of if you know these things are in a good place or this stuff is happening, that things are around the corner, good things are to come? What, what do you look for there?
Yeah, we really try to simplify KPIs. I think recruitment's a simple job. We've always believed that recruitment is simple, and we try and make the lives of our consultants as easy and simple as possible and straightforward. For us, the key metric is sendouts. So for us, a first-stage interview scheduled, we live and die by sendouts, to be honest. Like, we see so much in them. Joe's already spoke about the value of an individual sendout. So an indicator that somebody is on track to push for a £100K period, which is something that we really champion as a business, is that they are trending in and around the 16 sendout mark per 4-week period. So arranging 16 first-stage interviews in a 4-week period is something that we, we really champion. We run a lot of sendout incentives, but It's not death by KPIs. It's not over-the-top pressure, micromanagement if they're not hitting it. It's building a culture where we support people to get there. We just had someone break the send-out record for a 4-week period by getting 50, which broke—
50?
50 send-outs in a period, which was done by one of our sort of office leaders. It was broken the period before that by the US managing director who got 47. So we're constantly breaking records. And again, that shows people that it can be done, right? People that are leading the business doing it.
And just, just to help us understand here, you may feel like this is really obvious, but what is it that you really like about that being a North Star metric? Like, I hear that a lot. If we were to break down all— I really like the point around making things simple.
Yeah.
Out of all the different metrics that you could look at, you really— you guys really like that one.
Yeah.
What is it that you— what is it that that signals to you? What is it that that tells you?
Sure. I mean, that forms your business sheet, right? Like But very simply, that forms your business sheet. The more sendouts that you get, naturally, the more chances of scoring fees you have. So again, trying to keep it as simple as possible, control the controllables. You know that if you are consistently setting up interviews, that you are getting clients bought into you, that you're finding good candidates for them. If you're not getting sendouts, you can then double-click into why, right? And there are a million reasons as to why that would be. But we would then look to support them from that point onwards. There are lots of KPIs that go into getting sendouts. If you look at business development, KPIs, etc., and the inputs, which will differ market to market in terms of what the expectations look like, but those send-out expectations are consistent throughout the entire business.
Yeah, it does just make it a lot more simpler, doesn't it?
I think people tend to complicate recruitment, and I've seen some other companies' dashboards at times, and it's a little overwhelming for me to even look at. I think If I was starting out in recruitment right now, I want someone to make my job laser-focused. I want the expectations on me to be crystal clear, which I think we make for people. And ultimately, we want people to have at least £100K in pipeline at all times. That's the goal. It's one of Joe's original golden rules of have £100K in your pipeline. You always want to have the chance of doing £100K within a 4-week period. So to do that, you need to get double-fingers send-outs.
It used to be 100K. A few of the guys have blown that out of the water recently, so it's looking more like 200K or 300K a period now.
We'll get into— we'll double-click into more of this private equity conversation. But just as we were talking about, when I've sat down with other people that have gone through maybe meetings like you guys have gone through, another metric that tends to come up to the top is then productivity per head. Did you guys— Joe, is that something that came up a lot in these meetings as well as another thing that they were interested in, or something that you guys again would put up there as a North Star metric?
Yeah, I mean, this was my favourite slide in the roadshow. It was slide 14. I can still remember now, is we doubled the size of the business, so we doubled the headcount whilst increasing the productivity per head. So productivity per head went from, I think, £230k to over £300k whilst we were going through the roadshow. So that was my favourite thing to talk about, was go to page 14, you can see here how we've doubled in headcount whilst increasing productivity per head. And the reason for that is we're such a young business, right? We're, we're only 6 and a half years in. Every single person in our room is getting better. All of the recruiters are improving, right? So they're getting more specialized knowledge, they're getting more clients, they're getting more candidates, they're getting better known in their industry. So every year we expect everyone to have their best year. I don't think you peak in recruitment until you're probably 9 or 10 years in. No one's 9 or 10 years in at Metric. So that's something that for me was, was a really impactful piece of the roadshow and that we really enjoy talking about. And that's something that we will continue to grow as we, as we, as we go.
I think that's part of the secret sauce again, that like, I think there's a bit of a myth in recruitment that when you get a few years in, you kind of get off the tools a little bit, you start to manage. We always found that to be a little— I was always confused by that concept because I was I was only getting better, right? My clients were compounding, my understanding of my market was getting better. You don't get worse at recruitment. Um, so for us, a lot of our performers are having their best year and then having their best year again, irrespective of their level of seniority within the business, which is why we've been able to scale the way we have.
Yeah, I know that's something that always see you talking about in terms of leading from the front. I think again with how much now market's changing, evolving, you've got to be really close to it. I think if you're telling people to do stuff that you're not doing yourself, or you're the nuances of what people have to navigate to get those send out for sure targets. It's hard, I think. Yeah, I've got some of your posts here, Jonjo, but I think because I always— I, I see your stuff and you've got a lot of these examples. I think one of the recent ones that I took was from Jason where he's leading Father Front, £780K in the last 12 months whilst also doubling the size of the London office. Yeah, I'm seeing this a lot now. Like you said, maybe historically it was almost champion to be like, I've been in recruitment for 5 years, I'm off the tools. That's like, that was something that was like a big achievement. But now I almost feel like it'd be really hard for you to lead, to really understand what your team are going through, how to help them, if you haven't got that client-facing, current market nuance understanding.
Yeah, the credibility that it buys you, right, when you, you are literally sat next to a grad Right. So I sit next to someone who's 6 months into the job. They are watching me do the job day in, day out. I think the opposite would be you're kind of telling someone how to be good at recruitment, right? That there's a, there's a place for that. But we are showing world-class behaviours day to day in real time. Right. So if, if I'm doing business development and I get a response to that, someone's watching that happen live. They're then watching how you react to that. They're watching, they're learning urgency within that moment. You're then showing them, right, I'm about to have a client call, listen to this. Like, all of those things wouldn't be possible if you had a leadership team that were off the tools.
I think great example of this is the day after we closed the Southfield deal, Jonjo and myself both sold a retainer and both had, both had our boarding songs come on. And, uh, everyone— I think that's good. I think that's important.
I know we've— what we're giving a real insight here. I know we had like a bit of a, a bit of a structure here, but I think we're getting a real inside view into the culture and what you guys have been building, which has been a big factor into achieving the things that you've achieved. Very quickly then, Joe, because I want to make sure that we double-click into post getting this private equity money first— what changed, what did we learn? Yeah, just so we maybe round it out, uh, and make it a bit clear— we've covered a lot. What would you say were the big factors to what BGF equated to you guys having enterprise value? Like, we've spoken a few things— the grad model, micro niches— what were the, the main value drivers? Yeah, what are the main value— let's just round that out from what you learned from that experience, and then we'll hear how that maybe changed or didn't with Southfield. What were the main value drivers, do you think, to get to that first milestone?
Yeah, yeah, good, good question. So, so growth, key one, obvious one. Are you growing year on year, and are you growing at a rapid rate? Yes. Retained business is important, massively important. Are you working in good and resilient end markets? There's a lot of focus on which markets you are working in. And again, it was overwhelmingly positively that we're bio, geo, DCX, infrastructure engineering, data centres, and life science, medtech. They're great end markets. So they were key. Client stickiness and retention. So how often are our clients using us? Are they continue— are they coming back to us even if they have a year out? Maybe they're not hiring. Are they still coming back? Staff retention, staff turnover, they were the key ones. Is there any I've missed there, Jonjo?
No, I mean, they obviously dig into client relationships. They take client references. I think that's important for them to hear from our customers as opposed to just hear from us. So being able to be in a position where you can send them 50, 60 client references and say, off you go. Um, that always helps.
So let's dig into post then. We've referenced a few different things, so what's probably worth mentioning here, because a few people ask me— so Joe, leading up to Southfield, up until that point, you was the majority shareholder of Metric, right? So when BGF came in, that was still very much the case. You've mentioned Andy McRae, which sounds like he had a big impact and a massive help. So how did it— what was this set up post-BGF then? Was it that they got a board seat? Did they have voting rights? What the, the sort of setup there in terms of what that then meant, uh, yeah, post them being involved and what, what changed there so we understand?
Yeah, so BGF come on to the board, Adam came on to our board, Adam Huckaby, who was great. I still had the majority of the business at that time, but, but it's not carte blanche, you can't just do what you want. So BGF are set up, uh, it's a great business where they are set up just to make minority investments. That's all they do, that's their business model. But what comes with those minority investments are you have consent matters, right? So if you want to hire people over a certain salary, you ask for consent. If you want to spend a certain amount, you ask for consent. If you want to make a big investment, move office, you run that by BGF, right? You have 12 board meetings a year with them. So it's a very open dialogue with them. So you're— I'm still running the business and I'm still in control. But out of courtesy, you, you speak to them and you take their advice and you take their guidance. And that is the point of having these board meetings and having intelligent people in the boardroom. So not a lot changed massively from prior to BGF, and I'm still the CEO, I'm still running the business, but it was more just great to have people in the boardroom to bounce ideas off and to work through. As people say, it's lonely being a CEO and being a founder. It's great to have people who cared equally as much as me in the boardroom of with John Joe, Andy McCrae, and Adam, who were, who were really, really invested in this being a success. It was, it was nice to have people to talk to and to verbalize ideas with.
What, from their perspective, what is it that they felt that you guys should really double down on, focus on, that would then result in getting to this Anfield moment? What is it from— what was— were there some clear messages that, guys, we're not going to massively interfere here, what you're doing is great, but if we do these things or continue to do these things, then we should be in an even better position in 20 months' time. What is it that they really dulged you guys into?
It was probably less that with BGF. They, they saw what we were doing and they believed in the business model, right? So they, they backed the existing business and we gave them a 3-year plan, right, to get to where we are today, and we achieved it in 20 months. So when you take outside capital, you, you will give them a 3-year plan and you'll tell them how you are going to get there. And then their job is to support you with delivering that plan. So it's less that they will come in and say, right, if you do X, Y, Z, you're going to triple this, quadruple the size of the business. It's more like, right, here's the plan, let's stick to it. Where can we add value along the way? So it might be with introductions, and at times they might suggest that it's, it's not— it is, it is wise to invest in L&D and in the platforms, but it's more to support us to deliver the plan that we've laid out. For them.
Yeah, and they help from a governance perspective as well. I think being in those consistent board meetings, reflecting upon the period more than we ever did. We're so forward-looking as individuals, and it's just our nature. I think working with them helped us to kind of reflect a little bit more on the why and the how, which we're obviously used to discussing now. So that when it came to deal number 2, we were in a much better position, probably as individuals, but also as a business in terms of, from a financial perspective, the governance that we've got, really understanding the value that we've got within the business and then being able to articulate that better the second time around.
Yeah, I think formalizing some of the processes and articulating the story have been really important. Yeah, I think they were, they were areas that Andy and BGF have helped add value for sure.
I mean, yeah, their, their strategy being monetary investment, they're not gonna have— make a monetary investment and then try and get in people's ways, right? The whole point is they wanted to get behind people that they thought would be successful.
Definitely. The same applies to Majority, right, which I'm we'll get on to, but I think private equity and investors invest in people, they invest in businesses, they understand that we're doing something right, like that neither private equity company came in and told us how to run a recruitment business. I think that again might be a slight misconception around investment or PE within recruitment is the same thing.
Yeah, that's a good point. I think there are a lot of misconceptions with private equity. I mean, ultimately they are coming in to back the management team to deliver a plan. So they're not recruitment experts. So they are there for guidance and support and to help shape thinking and to provide challenge. But they're absolutely not there to come in and start running the business. It's, okay, how can we help you guys deliver on this plan and can we accelerate? So, so I've really enjoyed my, both my experiences with private equity.
And then, Joe, how did the first deal even happen? How did that— that's always interesting for people. Was you out there starting conversations? Did you use someone? Like, how did we even get to the point where BGF was on the table?
Yeah, really interesting.
Interesting.
So my mindset was probably similar to yours where I was thinking we probably have to have a contract book if we want to do a private equity deal. And one of my friends who I used to play cricket with, James from Cowgirls, who was brilliant, uh, came down to see me and was asking about the size and the scale. And I thought he'd come to see me, but he was asking a lot about the business. Um, and I've got talking and he was saying, have you not thought about doing private equity? And, and I hadn't, to be truth be told. I was so focused on growing the business, so focused on scaling and growing and doing the right things. And he said in the first meeting, he's like, this would be a great business for a company like BGF. We were at the right size, we were on that growth curve, and we probably could have benefited from formalising a few things. So he said, oh, have you ever thought about it? The answer was no. We ended up engaging with James and Cowgills and ran a process, which was great, and then ended up doing the BGF deal. So that's interesting.
Yeah, because I know it's been a different experience this time round. But I think sometimes people are really interested in how those things even happen. What, what I, what I hear there, which I think is interesting— this came up recently with a conversation I had which I thought was really well put, which was great recruitment companies will get bought and not sold. Yeah, because what you're saying there is you within the business, she's already doing loads of great things, and then this opportunity came versus you out like going out there trying to hunt for it and who would be interested in getting us.
Well, well, I was so— so I was— when I set this up, I was so focused on it being a scale-up and growing the business and it being high performance and doing all the right things. I know I didn't want it to be a lifestyle business, I knew I wanted to scale it, but things happen so fast. You click your thing, click your fingers, and you're 3 or 4 years in and you're growing and you're 50, 60 people and multiple offices. So I was just so laser-focused on, on growth and growing and doing the right things every day, and then then these opportunities present, almost present themselves.
Yeah, I think it takes so much to be in the trenches building the business, particularly in year 2, 3, 4 of a business. But again, we never took our eyes off the prize. It was never, right, let's start thinking big picture and one day we're going to be this and we're going to be that. We were so in the moment, so locked in, so competitive as individuals and as a business about constantly trying to beat ourselves, right? Every quarter had to beat the last quarter. And that just compounds over time. And all of a sudden you've built the DNA of a business that is ultimately really scalable. I think taking on institutional investment then allows you to provide an infrastructure around that and be a little bit more thoughtful around that. Naturally, Deal 2, we had the luxury of being way more thoughtful and considered in the process itself. And it was probably a step beyond Deal 1. But yeah, like, had we from like year 2 and year 3 be sat around with each other on a beach thinking, right, one day we're going to be $100 million valuation, I don't think we would have got there, right? We were building the business, and that takes so much just executing.
Yeah, for sure, so much execution. And even when, when we did our podcast and I did the last one with Sean, I was still building a million a year and was so focused on— we had to think, we had a team of 60, 65, so I was managing, billing. You don't really have too much time to start thinking grand plans, but, but really enjoying—
I I'll speak for Joe in this— like loving every second, right? Like loving every second of executing, loving every second of being in the office every day. And so sort of convinced that we were building something really special, but never like big picture, or we're going to be this, we're going to be that. It was just— and before you know it, you're 3, 4 years in and people have got eyeballs on you at that point. And all of a sudden you look like a really scalable asset for an investor.
One of the things, Joe, I think if people were outside looking in that might have changed post-BGF, and then we'll get into Southfield stuff, was potentially— let me know if I have this wrong— but I feel like outside looking in, when, um, they came in, then maybe we also got things even more, uh, in place where John Joe became Chief Commercial Officer, was building the executive team.
Yeah.
Is that something that they maybe— was that driven by BGF, or was it just like, we now need to formalize our executive team and org design need to be a bit more intentional. Tell us a bit about that.
No, it was, it was driven by me, and on the way into BGF, I'd, I'd sat down and just felt that the structure wasn't quite right. So we made some difficult calls and made some changes around that time, and Jonjo had elevated himself above the other directors at, at that time, so it was clear he should move into the CCO role. And on the way into BGF, it was, it was also clear I I shouldn't be billing a million a year anymore. And, and they wanted me to be focusing on the business and on the value drivers and working with private equity and, and creating this vision and, and probably taking a step back off the tools. So it was setting up a structure that, that enabled us to grow in the way we did. So we made some— we moved a few people around and we made some tough calls, but ultimately that structure was, was perfect. And it's still the same structure we have today that enabled us to go really quickly from from 16 million to 24 million to 40+ million this year in NFI. So, so we were really intentional about that. But I was doing that as we were signing with BGF, which looking back might not have been the wisest thing to do. But I was talking to Adam saying, hey, I want to set the structure up this way, I'm thinking about moving it. But we'd not even signed with them at that point. And Adam was saying, well, just do what's right for the business, we'll support it. So most people probably would have waited and done the BGF deal before they start doing this, but but I was just so adamant that this structure— do you know when you write the structure down and you're excited about it and you can see the growth? So we just went ahead and pushed it.
Their response to that was probably quite indicative of them as an investor. Like, you could tell at that point that they are going to be partners here and that they have the best interest of Metric at heart. And it wasn't, uh, we're going to be telling you what to do. It was a real partnership throughout the 20 months that we were with them.
Do you want— would you mind sharing then, Joe, how You're talking about their org design. Tell us a bit about that, how you saw that in terms of how you're going to grow into it over the next couple of years, like from post-BGF. What is it that we change? And give us a bit of an idea on the sales org versus the operations side, how you thought about that.
Yeah, so for me it was very much, right, have we got the right people in the right seats on the bus here in all of our offices and in all of our brands who can lead from the front from a billing perspective, which, which I think is clearly a key fundamental of Metric. Like, so have we got people who can build, who can lead teams, who can inspire their teams, and also retain people? So from the billing side, it was making sure everyone was in the right role for them, which we did. Then from the operational side, it's like, right, have we got the financial infrastructure here? Have we got the L&D infrastructure? Have we got the TA infrastructure? Have we got the HR infrastructure to 3x the business? We had to make a couple of hires, but ultimately when we looked at it, we thought, yeah, we're ready to grow. And me and Jonjo both sat down and we looked ourselves when we, when we put this, we did the BGF deal and we said if all of these people are still here with the business in 3 years' time, we'll have hit this plan. And then if you, if you look, fast forward to 20 months, all of those people are still here. They've probably all been promoted and we've thought, we think we've hit the plan in 20 months.
And so, Junjo, how do you differ your role as a CCO versus Joe's CEO role? What are the main differences there, would you say, to help us understand that in terms of how you maybe divvy up some of the the key responsibilities? What are some of the differences, do you think? Sure.
So my focus is entirely commercial, which I think is twofold in the sense that it's external. So still very customer-facing. I go to conferences, I meet with clients, I'm on top of our sort of key clients and have good relationships with them across all brands, but also internal in the sense that I have office leaders report through me. I think the commercial success of a company is is both, that there's importance in both and making sure that the expectations and the standards are the same across all 7 offices is part of my role. I think that was the big thing when I stepped into the CCO role is I went from a UK-centric focused role where I was leading the offices in the UK to a global role. For us, it's so important when you walk into a Metric office, wherever it is in the world, it's a Metric office. The standards are institutionalized within the business that allows for true scale. So So I suppose that has been my role. I'm on the board, right? So I'm also involved in strategic decisions, but I'm probably, I don't want to say more roll your sleeves up than Joe. Yeah, I don't know how to take that, but certainly commercial focus. Joe is a little more big picture.
Can we just talk about, because that's something that a lot of people ask me, which I know is hard and you still may be perfecting it, and I don't know if it ever becomes absolutely perfect, but But when companies do have multiple offices, yeah, they're aware that they need to have those standards. I need to be able to walk in and it feel like a Metric office. But that can be hard, right? You're— we're in London today, you've got an office in Nottingham, you've got one in Leeds, then we're in the US.
Yeah.
So what has been firstly maybe hard about that, that you've experienced? What is it that can be— that you found to be quite hard about that? Because I'm sure it is— that isn't easy to do.
Sure, it's hard in its nature, naturally, particularly when we're across the time zones that we are. We've got San Diego, we've got Austin, we've got Miami, we've got New York, and then 3 offices in the UK. And I, and me and Joe can't be everywhere at once, naturally. I think it's helped by the fact that the leaders of those offices have generally come through the Metric way. We've hired a couple of them externally, but we've incubated them within a core Metric office for 6 to 12 months so they can really understand the tempo of the business. Right, that the, the way we do things and the why behind we do things. So we've been able to institutionalize some core fundamentals from an environment perspective, right? All of them, every office has got TVs on. When a, when a fee goes up, which is pretty sort of regular at the moment, the fee, the song comes on of the individual that scored the fee across all 7 offices. That drives a real collaboration, a real sense of collective within recruitment that we're really proud of. Um, so there are, there are core environmental things in each that are just part of the furniture, really. But again, that being driven by the leadership team who believe in the mission, have benefited individually from the way we do things, means that it's not really questioned. And we can now trust that the environments are, whilst respecting cultural differences in some parts, are the same.
Yeah, LinkedIn gave us some good feedback. They've been to every single one of our offices and unprompted, our account manager, she said to me, 'Every single Metric office feels the same. I've been to them all and you can just tell it's a Metric office when you walk in,' which I was really delighted to hear, actually. It's great feedback to get. And that's been really challenging, trying to get them all the same. As you say, they're all around the world, it's different people managing them, but to have core fundamentals that are the same is important.
High standards, right, across all.
What do you think I'd fail? Let's just try and bring that to life a bit, because you said— I think it's helpful for people to hear. So I get the standards piece. Yeah, yeah. What would I maybe— there's certain elements that would feel like furniture across all the different offices. I really like that. But what, what do you think if I was to walk into the San Diego office versus the Leeds office versus Nottingham office, what would be some of the things that I would feel?
I think, like, I can tell you what the thing— the consistent things throughout all would be an intensity, I think, right? An intensity to everything, an urgency to the way that people are operating, people taking themselves really seriously and wanting to be world-class at what they do. We've hired a few people over the years from other companies in different roles. And the one consistent comment that they all make, and they've worked in great recruitment businesses and great environments, is I thought I knew a fast-paced environment until I walked in the door at Metric. I thought I knew what fast-paced was, right? Things move quick at Metric. We are getting a lot done within a short timeframe. We're working with real purpose and intensity. So I'd like to think you would walk in and feel that, but I think you'd also feel a sense of of being in a room where people want to be in the room. I think, but for me, I've always been passionate about— I never want someone on a Sunday night to be dreading work on the Monday because you're not going to get the best out of them. So for us, making sure that, yes, the standards are high and they're being set by Joe and the leadership team, but people want to be high performing. It's not me forcing someone to be that, it's them wanting to be part of it. So that's really— you can't scale the way we have if people aren't happy at work.
And again, a great example of this, we, we took Southfield to 3 of our officers and their feedback was really high energy, love the buzz, everyone's on the phone. They came in and they were like really enthused by the energy that they felt walking into those spaces. So, so that was a really recent example of how, how they felt walking into a, to a Metric office. And I think we took them to New York, London, and Nottingham.
And where Joe, maybe I'll ask you this just to try and really make this helpful for people. Where do you think this all— experiencing those things, feeling those things when I go to a Metric office, that culture— where do you think that all starts from? Is it the standards that we absolutely upheld when we hire people that everyone has to meet? Is it the standards that our leadership team and top-down set? Because there's low— there'll be loads of different things that contribute to those feelings. I'm just trying make sure we make it really clear for people that maybe have struggled with this. And if we were to bring it back to maybe a couple of things that have a big domino effect, is it— you've mentioned standards— is it the standards of the, the hire and your non-negotiables when you bring people in? Is it the standards that you really make sure everyone adheres to in the business? Is it— do we come back to that, do we think? If we get that right, the rest should take care of itself?
I think it's partly that, and I think definitely those, those are two key areas. But I think probably the third is is just being quite unapologetic about what we're all here to do. I think we're all here to give a great service to our clients, which then in turn leads to the consultants making money, right? They, they are set up and they know what they are working towards, and we're quite open about that, of like, right, it's a leaderboard-driven business, it's quite competitive, but if you come in here and you, you absolutely smash it, you can make as much money as you want. And I think we're quite open and we remind people quite frequently of like what we're doing this for here, like why would you join Metric? High-performing business, we're on a growth journey, you get to work with great clients, but ultimately you can change your life through the money you can earn here. And I think we're quite unapologetic about that. And I know some people prefer, prefer not to talk about that side of the job, but for me it was— that was always important, and I still think that's important at Metric.
So being clear, yeah, I like that. And then Jonjo, what about just talking about this? Have you had to balance Is there a balancing act here of standards and making people feel like if I join Metric, that if I don't meet those standards one month, then I'm gonna be cut, I'm not gonna make it? Yeah, I don't know. I feel like when I— being honest with you, when I have maybe sometimes spoken to people about Metric, I think you've done a really good job of that. You also externally seeing the high performance stuff, and you can tell me, has that been something maybe that has come up when people that you meet is, wow, okay, the standards are so high here, what happens if I, I don't meet them? Is there a bit of a balance there?
To an extent. I think we champion consistency above all else. I think that's been a really important sort of value that we introduced a few years ago, where I'm not expecting world-class performance from an end result every single month. I'm expecting a consistency of attitude and of energy. Um, so if, if someone is unable to meet those expectations in terms of the things that require zero skill that Joe referred to earlier, then Metric isn't the right environment for them. And I think we're pretty firm on that. We understand that there's context within recruitment, right? And you can't control the end goal at all times. So we're not walking around saying, right, you've not scored a fee in X amount of days, so you're not cutting it today, right? But certainly if individuals are comfortable being late regularly, have bad body language, don't want to buy into what we're doing here, and that then it's not the right environment for them, clearly. Um, so we've got high expectations on, on those things, but we work with people to make them world-class. It doesn't just happen like that.
Yeah, I think that's a good question that you ask because it is so openly high performance, but, but we're also really aware that you are not just going to come in in month 2 and start doing 100K periods. The, the whole business is set up to be aspirational, right? So when people come in, and we hire a lot of new people into recruitment every month, every year, there's a ton As long as you are trying your best and you are improving and you are working as hard as you possibly can, you will stay with the business because it's set up to be aspirational. I talked earlier about everyone's getting better every single year, everyone's improving every single year. It's, it's meant to be motivating. And when you've got people in the room who are billing a million, 2 million a year, and, and they're really nice people and they're humble and they will come and help you, that's a motivating place to be. So it isn't cutthroat at all. It's very much like, if you want to learn, we will help you get to this point. And it's— and it— yeah, it's completely aspirational. So I, I don't think there would ever be a world where someone would be feeling like they're not going to be part of this because they're working towards it. We know it's not a click your fingers and you get there straight away.
Yeah, I think you've broken that down really well. What about— Joe, I'll come to you on this— as we're talking about the, the different teams' cultures has it been really beneficial? You mentioned that it's a leaderboard business, so has that been one of the, the big positive effects of different offices, the competitiveness? Has that had a really positive impact on culture performance, is the overall competitiveness across the different brands, different offices?
Yeah, and it helps bring them together, right? I think that's really important that everyone can see where everyone is in every office. So the competitiveness piece is, is important, but I probably want to emphasize that it's never toxic competitiveness. I When I founded the business, I was adamant that this would be friendly competition. And one of the things I'm most proud of at Metric is how collaboratively the team works together with each other. So very, very frequently you will have an inter-office split fee where it's maybe it's Texas's client and Nottingham's candidate, or London and New York, or Florida and San Diego. I love that, and I love to see the collaboration. I think we, at the minute, we're boarding probably about 40 splits per period.
Yeah.
Yeah, which is great.
Yeah, all right.
Okay, so yeah, but that's—
but that for me is really important. So yes, be competitive, but absolutely there's a line with that, and it would never be at the expense of someone's enjoyment for the job. So first and foremost, we work together as a team, and what that enables us to do is to deliver great service to clients where they can have all of our offices working on a project if they want, across multiple time zones. So That's how we've been able to win a lot of big projects that we've delivered on recently, is because the team are working together on that. So I'm very much a rising tide raises all ships person, and I want everyone to succeed rather than it all just be about one or two people.
Yeah, and I think, again, referring to a few experience hires that we've made that have come in, I think maybe people from the outside, and they've spoken about their perception of Metric prior to joining, was, well, clearly the results are there, clearly the growth is there, but at what cost? And I think they've been quite surprised coming in at generally how the lack of ego within the company when it, when you look at the top performers and the fact that everyone is helping everyone and it isn't a boiler room and no one is getting dressed down and it isn't like micromanagement, it is genuine autonomy to go and be world-class with proper world-class support in and around you where again, the top billers in the business are spending time out of their day to help the newest people in the business every day. That is the culture of the company, which in recruitment is so hard to find, it's so hard to build and create.
Um, but this has got, this has got so much easier over time. Yeah, because we've got so many people now who are great at their job, they're down to earth, they're really good billers, but because they got helped on the way and they're now passing that on to the next generation and they're helping them and they're being supportive and they're jumping on client calls with them. So if I look at the rookies we have in the business this year this is the best group of rookies we've ever had. They're breaking all the records we've ever seen. But, but I'm so sure that's because the rookies before them had a good experience, and then there's more high performers in the room. So it's momentum and a bit of a snowball effect where this is getting easier as years go on because there's just so many people who are great culture carriers now.
And you guys define rookies someone who's in their first 12 months, right?
Yes.
So I was just going to say, so Jonjo, is it something that you actively incentivize the splits, the collaboration massively, massively.
Yeah, yeah. We've devised a, like, commission breakdown for split fees, which is really clear. So there's never any issues over ownership or infighting ever. Genuinely can say that in 5 years we've had no, well, that's my client, that's my candidate. Everyone benefits through the commission breakdown that, that we developed. So we actively encourage collaboration at all times. I mean, if I look at one of the big data centre accounts that we brought on, that's been our top client this this year. So our year runs September, September. Um, we've made over 100 placements with them. If that was only the individual that brought the account on that was able to deliver on that, we would have made a fraction of that, right? So he's benefited from the 27 consultants who have helped him on that project. So there is— he's— he makes more money, the company grows, the consultants that are newer get great experience by working on this great account. They can then convert that into something else. So they take that project and go and win new business. So So everyone wins in that environment. And again, it goes back to we've never had to undo bad practice. I'll give Joe credit here that when he set the business up, he was really intentional about a lot of these things and forward-thinking in a way that we've never had infighting. It's never been, well, that's my client, which again, I don't sense is the case in recruitment companies generally. But back to your initial point about leaderboards being part of the culture, we joke a lot, Joe would leaderboard anything. Right, like if there is any topic, I do like a leaderboard. Honestly, it's like proper out of context at times, and he's like, I should do a leaderboard for it. I'm like, right, okay. But, uh, even though I'm near the bottom of it, but, but that is important, right? We want competitive people, not toxic, but, but competitive people that are motivated to become the best version of themselves. Like, that is the DNA of the company. And again, being unapologetic about that, I think, is liberating in a way.
If you don't mind sharing, John, I think people are going to hate me if I don't at least ask it. It might— you can just tell me, there might be caveats, asterisks, depending on the brand. But there's something I've spoken about recently on the pod around splits. Do they incentivize the right, uh, behaviors? Do people end up not wanting to bring people in because they know they're gonna have to split the deals?
Sure.
So just if you don't mind sharing, what, what can that potentially look like? How have you thought about breaking that down where maybe we have we feel like we've got the balance right of people not being like, well, I'm not going to bring Jonjo on this because I think I can do it myself, and then that's going to mean I'm going to have to give him 10% of the fee or whatever. How have we got creative with that? Have you kept it simple?
Kept— I mean, as anything at Backtrade, we're not capable of much creative thinking, but, but no. So we broke down the split, right? So if you sign the account, so you sign the logo, that equates to 25% of the fee. If you manage that client throughout the process, that equates for 25% of the fee. If you bring the candidate, if you find a candidate, that equates to 25% of the fee. And if you manage the candidate, you get 25% of the fee. Okay, really simple, right? So you get a fee is either 100% someone's fee, 50/50, or 75/25. Simple as that. It's defined already as to what it is, but we don't have to encourage people to want to do that because there are so many examples of people benefiting from that, right? Like, let's say within one of our geo brands, you pick up a role, the chances are someone has already got a candidate in that market. It. That's an instant opportunity to score revenue. People are incentivized to split fees, like, and it's just— there are split fees going up every day. So it just, it just—
is there something that, uh, is there anything tactical there that you guys do? Is it maybe one of the guys in the Geo brand brings on account straight away? One of the things they're going to be doing is emailing people across the, uh, business saying, just brought this on account.
Yeah, they'll put that in the chat and say, hey, anyone got this type of profile. And yeah, I normally get a few, but, but the client gets such, such a good level of service because of that. Quite often they'll put the phone down and then next day there's 2 or 3 candidates coming in.
Definitely. And we— I think again, consultants don't guard accounts because we don't guard accounts, right? So Joe and I have had some real big accounts whilst at Metric. We're not filling all the roles, we're sharing with the team. And I think those behaviors have just been learned from the way that we've been. So no one I don't think it had occurred to someone to guard an account at Metric. I don't think that thought process would go through their head of, well, I need everything here. They've seen so many people benefit from split fees.
So, um, but also when they come in, they will have been given split fees and they'll have had access to great accounts. So then again, when they start managing people, they'll always— they'll, they'll pass on roles and give people splits.
And then, Joe, as we're talking about some of the, the setup here, just curious to— I feel like this conversation's been done to death, but I want to hear how you guys think about it. From outside looking in, it looks like you've got someone in the business who's head of BD. I don't know if you've got someone who's head of delivery, I don't know. But how do you think about 360, 180? How have we thought about that across the businesses in terms of the, the sell? We're talking about splits here, so I feel like there's a good time to ask it. How have you thought through that and what does that look like at Metric? What are your philosophies around that?
Yeah, so traditionally we've been a full 360 business. Everyone's been 360. I'm a massive believer in if you're working on splits, you still, you still should turn that into your own clients down the line. But recently, Jonjo's building out a client services team which is just focused on bringing on clients, making sure that— so we have a lot of clients where we maybe do 1 or 2 or 3 deals a year with them, trying to turn them into accounts where we're doing 10 or 20 placements with them. So that's something Jonjo's building out, but it won't be— we'll never hire anyone to do just purely delivery. Because we'll be bringing in enough graduate talent, entry-level talent every year to fill those roles anyway, and then hopefully do BD on the side. So we will have people doing 180 just on the client side, which I think is important if we're going to 5x, but we will always fundamentally be a 360 business.
We see so much opportunity in when you're filling a role in not viewing someone exclusively as a client or a candidate. Again, we operate in such micro niche markets that everyone is a contact. To us. So I think you'd be missing a trick if you hired a team whose sole job it is, is to fill a position, because there's so much opportunity in that conversation with that candidate. We operate at senior levels. If you're working on a, a CTO hire and you speak throughout that process to 10, 15 CTOs as candidates, if you're just a delivery consultant and you're on a different comms structure and you've not been trained and taught day to day on how to convert something, you're missing opportunities with 15 CTOs that should really snowball into new business. So for us, we view everyone at Metric that comes in— everyone's got to have the ability to business develop and to be effective at bringing on and winning business. I think that 180 model, whilst there are benefits to it, just isn't really in our way of thinking. Um, but yes, client services, yes, we want high-quality customer service and someone with a bird's-eye view ensuring that they get that. But again, just too much missed opportunity for me with that 180/180 model.
So do your entry-level hires come in Do they— are they— how do you approach that then? Is it they're not just focused on the quote-unquote candidate side? I guess because of your micro niches, you're speaking to potential to recruit conversations, people that could be in your network at some point. We don't really say you're just doing the candidate side now for the first— do you not think about it?
No, no, no. Everyone is a 360 from day one. We teach people how to win clients from day one, um, so they're speaking to candidates to begin with, right? Particularly if you're building a new micro niche out, you're not just going to have loads of clients that want to speak to So you speak into candidates, you learn in the market, you're then effectively business developing with those candidates into clients or contacts. Um, but everything is with a view to being a full 360 go-to recruiter within your market.
If you think time to 360 deal is around 90 days, they're, they're getting there fairly quick.
Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that. And then, John, as you're building this out— and then I'll go into some of the things with you, John, leading up to the Southfield piece— but just as we're talking about it, might still be figuring this out now, but But obviously we're just talking about splits. How are you thinking about incentivizing this client services team? Because that is interesting. You sounds like there's a really good opportunity there where there— I got it written down— there's a good number of clients that you transacted with.
Sure.
And there's going to be some really great opportunities to turn some of those 1s and 2s accounts to 10, 20, as you said, uh, Joe.
Yeah.
You've almost got, from the conversations I've had, you've probably got to think about how we're going to incentivize that, because these people are going to be connecting the dots, they're being maybe more commercial. Because I've had conversations recently where they have— a company has like a commercial director in seat, they call it a commercial team. And what she was saying, which I found quite interesting, and tell me what you think about this, which is if you've got someone who's in a micro niche, they're really thinking about their world, their ecosystem. So to then also at the same time get them thinking about potentially the wider metric opportunity can sometimes be hard.
Yeah.
So how are you thinking about incentivizing that client services team? You're going to again keep it really simple, just have the 20/25 split, or are you thinking about that a bit differently?
Yeah, I mean, we've started it already, right? So we launched it back in September. We've got a VP of client services based out of New York, and he is— we've already scored 15 split fees with the client services team already, and that he's leading. We've got a, a way of structuring the, the commission that really incentivizes the consultants to bring him in. Okay. Right. And to leverage him. Right now it's a focus on converting those onesie-twosie accounts into sort of more legacy accounts to begin with. That's the focus. So a lot of these accounts we've not worked with since 2024, say 2023, 2024. But again, this is the cultural piece where no one at Metric thinks, that's my account, no one's touching it. That thought process doesn't really go through their head. It's a Metric account, right? So they will benefit from it. So generally what we're trying to reactivate accounts that have gone a little dormant over time. So in theory, the consultant's not placing with them anyway, but they still take home the lion's share of the commission. They get to board the full fee, the consultant. So, so yeah, they've really bought into it. Everyone's really bought into it in the business.
Are you incentivising client spend then maybe for the client services team? So X spend with clients, if they increase that, then they get a percentage of that. Is that what you're then thinking about incentivising instead?
No, they've, they've just got a revenue target for overall NFI.
Yeah, fair. Okay, so Joe, going into what is it that we really took going into the Southfield experience from the BGF experience? Just give us that. What were some of the main lessons maybe that you guys then really took into the Southfield piece? Is it maybe worth— because I know they are, uh, have a really, um, great reputation. Do you want to talk a bit about the process of even getting to the point of being in front of Southfield? Because I know you worked, you worked with a company, didn't you? So do you want to tell us a bit about who you worked with, what did that mean, what did they help you with, and then we can go through, yeah, what was the mindset going into these conversations, what we've learned previously.
Yeah, really different process-wise from the BGF process to the Southfield process. So I'll focus on the, the Southfield one. So, so we engaged Houlihan Lokey, who are an investment bank. We worked with Bennett and Jack on the team there who were brilliant, right? So we'd been working with them for maybe 12 months, and we had a strategy day with them, and they, they'd really, really got to understand our business, and they'd been impressed by the growth and the momentum that we had. And then ultimately it was sitting down with them about, okay, what's our go-to-market strategy here? I was really intentional that I wanted to do US private equity this time, so we were, we were focused on targeting the US market. All of our clients were over there. I'm moving over there. It's worked well with BGF, me being close to Adam. So I wanted to be close to the new partners. So we set out with pretty clear goals in mind of, right, we want to do US private equity. Given our size, it was always going to be mid-market, lower mid-market. So Hulahan are really, really well networked in that space. So we sat down, put together like key facts of the business, which are all the points you've asked about today. So like what what are the key value drivers, what is the data that makes this business good, right? It's all well and good saying this and we're growing and these are the markets. We have to— you have to be able to prove it out, right? So we put all that together and then ultimately it was a roadshow. Um, me and Jonjo went out to New York, we met with 21 different private equity businesses over the course of a week.
Whoa, it was an intense week.
Yeah, it was an intense week but good week.
So they got you those meetings?
Yes, they arranged the meetings.
Um, and then they get some sort of percentage, I'm assuming, of the deal being done?
Yes, they do. They get a good— they get a good—
they get looked after.
Yeah, yeah, they do. But they don't— they earn everything.
So how did you get— did you get on the radar of them? Did you get recommended into them? I'm assuming they don't work with everyone.
Into HulaHan?
Yeah.
Yeah, so we talked to a ton of advisors. HulaHan were the ones that we, that we really wanted to work with. They they have got the best credentials I felt in the sector for recruitment. I felt Bennett and his team really understood our business and what our secret sauce was and what made us unique. So we went ahead with them, but yeah, we talked to probably 10 other advisors through, through the process. So eventually engaged with them, and then they went ahead and set up the 21 meetings in New York.
Anything worth sharing there very quickly? Anything that you just said there that maybe it sounded like you just resonated with them more, or you really felt like they could could sell you guys effectively because they understood it. Is there anything worth sharing there that's for people maybe considering that or might go for that to be mindful of, or partnering with the right, uh, people to take them to market? Is anything really important there that you felt?
Yeah, I think, I think it's so important because you end up spending so much time with those people.
They—
I probably spoke to Bennett more than I ended up speaking to my wife over the course of like the couple of months we were in process. So I think it's important that you like those people and you get on with them and they really understand your business, right? Bennett had a great lens on what made Metric unique, and that was the micro-niche approach, being hyper-specialised. He understood how we were winning in the market versus the boutiques and versus the shrek firms. He wasn't worried the fact that we didn't have contracts. He had a great network with US private equity. So getting the right advisor is really, really important. But I also felt he really wanted to take us to market, and he really believed in the story. So again, I think that's important. A lot of these investment banks and advisors, they might want you to grow a little further before they take you, or it might seem like they're doing you a favour by taking you to market. I really didn't feel like that with Bennett.
Agreed. And I think he and Hulihan generally played such a positive role in shaping the story and shaping the narrative around what we are and who we are, and probably were able to articulate that at times better than Joe and I. So played a real proactive role. and sitting down and deep diving into every aspect of the business. It's hard to do a PE deal, right? The growth alone certainly nowhere near guarantees that you even get in the room with a private equity company. So them understanding the drivers, them understanding the staffing industry inside out, meant that they were a value add. They weren't just a company that set some meetings up. They were a value add in terms of shaping our thinking, shaping our approach. Again, we had those 21 sort of fireside chats in the Houlihan office in Midtown in New York whilst I was living in New York. And their sort of presence and support was invaluable, which is why they're regarded as number one in that space.
So just so I understand, you did— you worked with them prior to that week with all the fireside chats. You worked with them for nearly 12 months, did you say?
So they did a strategy day almost as an intro. Hey, good to meet you guys. And then we formally engaged with them. It must have been around September, October time before we went into the market.
Okay. Yeah, and then that— okay, so let's just talk us through, I guess, Joe, what happens in these fireside chats. Is it we walk in, you guys sit down, it's just you two?
It's kind of like this.
Yeah, so is it you sit down, it's like, right then guys, tell us about Metric, why should we invest? Is it that type of vibe? It might be really varied, but what do these look like?
Yeah, so you will have— we'll have a deck, right? I think it's 20-25 page deck of who we are, what we do, what we've done, why we do it, um, with all the data. And each— the cadence of each meeting is slightly different, but you will meet a partner, a managing director, and probably an analyst from a private equity firm. You'll sit in a room with them. Each meeting was an hour. The format of each was a little different. Some wanted us to just read through the slides, some were a little more conversational where they wanted to focus in on certain pieces. But it was very similar to the questions you've asked today. Time to first fee, how's this blueprint work, how are you getting these graduates out of college billing £330K a year, what, what's the secret sauce, how are you doing this? And, and ultimately you are articulating the, articulating the full story of the business, um, over the past 6 and a half years. And then they'll— then it's quite two-way. And I think what, what I really enjoyed about those meetings is you're meeting really impressive and intelligent people who are very, very complimentary about what you've built and and have a real understanding of it. So, so yeah, I think that's probably the short version. I don't know if you'd add anything, Jonjo.
Yeah, no, it was that they all differed in format, right? But I think they were all trying to impress us at the same time. And I think that's what we were looking for, right? We're not desperate to part way with the business or we're not desperate for a new investor. Like, it had to be right for us. We had to work with a company that we had great rapport with, that believed in us and believed in what we'd done. So I think that probably took away any sort of nervousness going into it because it's a true partnership that we're looking for here. And all 21 were unbelievably engaging, great experiences. Again, it was Joe and I in Midtown with these PE guys. But yeah, like a genuinely enjoyable experience from start to finish.
Joe, what would it have been if I was a fly on the wall in your first meeting versus the 21st? What would we have maybe improved? What do we think would have been some of the things? It might be only small things. You obviously had the intention, the deck. Week, but what would have I maybe seen that you would have gone, yeah, I'll change that because I learned this from the first couple?
Yeah, good question. I did the first couple on my own, so John Joe was at a conference, so it was easier with two of us because we can naturally bounce off each other. Yeah, I think in terms of what, what would we improve, I think we just grew in confidence as the week went on is, is the reality. I think the first one is, right, we're not sure how this is going to go, and it goes, and then as the week goes on you just get experience answering the same questions. Generally they're all fair, looking for something but wording it a different way. But I think you just get more confident as the week goes on, for sure.
I was saying, I heard Joe say micro niche identification process over 1,000 times in a 5-day, uh, 5-day period.
So yeah, fair. No, yeah, that, that's— I appreciate you sharing that. And how, how did they like end? Was it like, right, thanks guys, that was really interesting, we'll let you know Because like you said, it was— you're not there because with your hand out like, please help us, we want to grow. It's like, we want the right partner to take us on this next part of the journey. So I really like that you said that. How do these things—
they're so, so varied, so varied. Generally, the ones who were going to be moving forward, you could tell because they were like, right, really enjoyed this, we're going to see you again. No one obviously says no in the room, but Generally, they were all— yeah, they varied, is the reality. I think some you got buying signals from, some just kind of closed the book and went away, and then you heard back from them. It probably varies from fund to fund. I don't think there was a one set rule.
But they had a sort of deadline for feedback to provide to Hula Han Loki. So the process was already sort of predetermined as to how it would run. And then it was a case of, right, move towards offers. And then you meet again with another round of companies that I continue to have an interest in you.
Yeah, which was less formal. And then the second round after the 21 is, okay, so who's interested in moving forward? You go for dinner with them. So yeah, we have a meeting and you go for dinner, and it's a little less formal, and they probably trying to learn a little bit more about you and still probe and ask questions. And at that point, they're definitely selling to you just as much as you're selling to them.
What was like the conversion then? 21, how many people did we get to the next point?
I think we did about 7 or 8 dinners, and then I think we ended up with about 6 or so offers.
Okay. Yeah, because that is interesting. It sounds like they just run a really good recruitment process.
I know. Yeah, yeah, honestly, it was good. Yeah, it was good. It was definitely—
what, uh, because I know people be interested in this, what— we might have already covered it, but just to make sure that we hear from your experience, what is it that most of these companies really pressed you guys on consistently? On what is it that you felt like they really cared most about? One or two, three things, we might have covered it, but what is it that they always pressed you on, dug into with you guys?
Yeah, micro niche identification process was, was one. Retention blueprint.
Retention of people.
Retention of people. Yeah, well, retention, retention of productive people.
Okay. Yeah, I think a big one was, um, was what are we gonna do? Like, what's our plan moving forward and future-looking things, right? And I think that they all got the sense during the meetings that we're both unbelievably brought into the business and proactively want to, want to be part of the next step and the next few steps in the business. So that was one that they tended to end on, of what are your plans assuming we go ahead and do this deal with you? How long are you in for? Do you want to grow this? Do you, do you want out? Um, so it was being really intentional about, about the way we feel about Metric and what we see the future being was probably consistent throughout all of them.
Yeah, and, and they ultimately want to understand how you are going to deliver on, on this 3-year plan, right? So, okay, so How are you going to do this? How are you going to 3x the business? Are there levers we could pull to go faster? So it's quite collaborative, but yeah, there's a ton of questions throughout.
And Joe, what did you— what did you— like Jonjo said, it was a— it's a partnership. So what is it that you also sold that you guys wanted? What is it that you guys wanted from the, the deal and the partnership? What did you guys want this private equity firm to bring to the table? What was important for you guys?
Yeah, there's— again, there was, there was a lot, and, and we'd reached we'd reached what I would say is an inflection point in size where it was right to do a deal. And again, we wanted them in the US. We want networks, we want introductions. Southford have already been brilliant at making introductions to us for potential clients, expertise in the boardroom. But also importantly, it's we want to work with good people and we want to work with a team that we like and people who see the world the same way as us. And what we liked about Southford is They're very founder-friendly, but they've got pace. They work quickly. They're really, really driven to grow this, and they really believed in us. So I think I love recruitment. I love my job, and I love being the CEO of Metric, and I wanted that to continue. And that was really important for me and Jonjo. And I think after we had the first meeting with Southfield, Jonjo said pretty quick, he's like, they were really good guys. Like, I'd love to work with them, which turned out to be right.
And then after— talk us through from fireside chat with Southfield to signing the deal. I'm assuming there's due diligence. Just talk to us a bit about— because I'm assuming they would have met more than just you guys. Yeah, for them to make a decision.
Yeah, they met some of the leaders in the business as well. Okay, so managing directors, directors. Um, but yeah, you signed the deal and then it's a ton of diligence.
And Zach, after you signed the deal?
Yeah, yeah. So, well, so, so you'll sign like a letter of intent. Yeah. And then, then it's diligence ramps up big time, then working to full close. But, but Zach, our finance director, was brilliant in that he delivered the BGF deal and again has delivered 2 private equity deals now at 34, which is brilliant. So, so he did a great job in navigating that process and managing that and, um, had a ton of requests and worked some long days. So, uh, so yeah, there was, there was a lot involved in that.
33, by the way, not 34. Looked—
so how, so how long from end to end do you reckon that, that, that took? From first time meeting Southfield to Dilby?
And yeah, so we met end of November, was the first meeting, and then closed out what, 5 weeks ago?
Yeah, yeah. We then had meetings in December with them, we had meetings in January where we went out to New York again, and then they flew over to the UK to meet with us to see our London office. We took them to Nottingham Lovely Nottingham. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, we took them out in London, we took them out in New York, took them out in Nottingham.
Yeah, exactly. And got to know them probably on a more personal level during those meetings when you're traveling with them from London to Nottingham and you're seeing them socially quite a lot and you get to know them as people. And we just became more convinced by the week that this is right for Metric, right? I think we both care so much about Metric as a business. We want to do what's right for Metric. I don't think we'd be doing ourselves justice or Metric justice if we didn't go ahead with this deal because We want to supercharge the growth. Like, we're both so ambitious. We're just getting started. Again, we're 32 and 33 respectively. So we're, um, we want to take it to the next level, and I think we want to do it properly. The credibility you get from doing a deal with a Southfield is, you can't really quantify, um, is my sense.
So, yeah, and I think doing the first private equity deal helped us with getting better clients. So BGF are backed by the four British banks, major British banks. So there's credibility that comes with that. And then what I think we've built at Metric is just massive momentum over the last 20 months, whereas do private equity deal, sign loads of great clients, grow at 50+%, then do another private equity deal. I'm a big, big believer that recruitment as an industry is, is all about momentum. And at the minute, ours is unstoppable. It's record period after record period. And even since we did the Southfield deal, what, 5 weeks ago, where the last 2 weeks have been record weeks for Metric. So there's no sign of that stopping. So the team in the business are just fully energised, and, and as am I, to deliver another 5x growth for Southfield and the team.
And then, Joe, help us understand a bit of like post then, because I know people will be interested in this. I said it to you yesterday, don't care about numbers, what money did we walk away with, but so people understand the, the dynamic and what this means for Metric, because there's a functions, but by— you're no longer the majority shareholder, and then by doing this deal, you, uh, that meant that you was able to walk away with X amount of money, and then now they're still going to be equity in the, in the pot for the team. Just help us understand, uh, like post what that's actually resulted in and what that means for you guys and who is involved in that, and then what that's going to mean for future people at Metric in terms of the setup.
Up?
Yeah, yeah. So, so as I mentioned, everyone who— I think there was 12 shareholders who made money on this deal who we cut in at the time of BGF. I think there's over 30 this time who are going to be cut in or have the opportunity to get cut into the equity pool. So there's, there's a set amount of equity aside for people who are going to deliver growth into Metric. So whether, whether they get that right away or over time, that's going to be there for them. So what it means for the equity journey is if you come and join Metric, we are going to do another private equity deal. Southfield invested in us to take this to the next level, to 5x this. So all of the shareholders still have shares, everyone stayed with us, so we're going to continue to do that. And they've got the opportunity to, to take more money off the table as, as we continue through this journey. Is there anything you want to add to that?
And I think that's just one of the most rewarding parts of this, is those individuals that have scaled this with us, because it's certainly not a one-person or two-person effort, this, that there are so many people that have that have stepped up and delivered and put a lot into this. I think to sort of sit opposite them when we closed the deal and sort of tell them what that means for them financially in that moment was, again, just really gratifying and really rewarding knowing what they've put into it. And you hear a lot about people in recruitment. Again, I did a LinkedIn post. I think I've probably met and spoke with thousands of people now in the recruitment industry. A lot of them talk about having equity. I can count on one hand the amount that have made any money from it that don't work for Metric. And again, to have sort of 12 people go through that journey with us and make money in 20 months is satisfying for us because I know how much they give. And this, this is a vehicle to create wealth and to help change people's lives. So we're excited to get more people on that journey and we want to go again and then we want to go again.
Yeah, real buzz. That must have been a real buzz. Meetings you're definitely looking forward to.
Yeah, they're good meetings, right? They were for sure. Some of them were, yeah, some of them were emotional.
Emotional, yeah.
People were really moved by the fact that they'd been recognized and they, they'd made their equity worth something. And I really loved that as a moment. But then also talking to the, the people who are the new shareholders, they're so proud and they're so energized.
So I think when Joe gave me equity a few years back now, I was so conscious that I wanted to make it worth something, right? Like, it, it's nice to have, right? Everyone wants to have equity, but then And I was sort of very aware at that moment it didn't really mean anything unless we really grew and we really gave everything to this. So again, to look back on 2 PE deals within the last 20 months is like, it shows that all of those hard yards have been worth it and that we've created value from equity massively.
And probably back to your question, so my role almost changes a bit now from being founder to CEO, right? So now I'm I'm a proper CEO.
What does that mean?
Well, I'm excited that— I'm excited that it's like, so founder mode is, is done and we're into CEO mode now for me. And I want to be the best CEO in the industry, and I want to show I can deliver as a CEO, not just a founder. So whether I'm the majority or minority shareholder, it doesn't matter. I'm still equally as driven to 5x this business. And I almost see it as a new challenge now to, to deliver value for Southfield and our team, as we've done for BGF and the team so far. So I just see it as a new challenge, and I like to challenge myself every couple of years, so it's going to be exciting.
And what, what have been the things— I know we're very much early on here, but what have you found to be already really helpful in this partnership in the first couple of weeks? What have you already sort of noticed, felt?
Yeah, we're early days, right? But I think these guys have got some really, really smart ideas. There's, there's an AI play that we are looking at that I can't share too much about, but it's going to revolutionize what we can do for our clients and And I think Metric will be going to market to our clients with a world-leading AI platform, which is— we're working with a company already in the Southfield portfolio, so they're known, they're trusted, they're really, really smart guys. So the turnaround on that could be quick. And they're thinking about new ways to add revenue and to add value to the business aside from just the recruitment, right? I know recruitment inside out, as does John Jarvis, as does the leadership team. But these guys have got new ideas of how we take our service to our clients to a completely different level. And if we can integrate some AI platforms to Metric, it could supercharge it beyond, beyond what I could even imagine.
And, uh, do you think you're moving over to the US, Joe? Is that a prerequisite, or is that just something that you as a family wanted to do? Because I know, like, that's where a lot of the growth is going to be going as well on the US side, right? So do you just feel like close proximity, what you guys are about, you being on the, the ground there, is just going to massively help increase the success of that?
Yeah, I was moving anyway to the US, so I think, I think it's certainly helpful for USPE for me to be in the US, but I was going to move anyway. I've been to the US 12 times in the last 12 months, so being out there, being close to the team and close to customers importantly, is, is important to me. So, so I was going to go out anyway, so I don't think it's a prerequisite, but but I'm sure they're pleased about it.
And then just final thing, Jonjo, I'll just come to you on this to end on this. What have we then communicated internally? Because we want to make sure that the message is right, people continue to see what the opportunity is. So post this, what has been the communication internally to the teams, to the team leads, that we want to make sure we get really clear and through to the guys?
Sure, I mean, firstly, a sense of collective pride. I think when the news broke, everyone was genuinely buzzing that they were part of of such a unique success story in the world of recruitment. So, so first of all, genuinely everyone contributed towards that and we thanked everyone for their efforts in getting us there. In terms of getting their buy-in, we've been PE-backed for the last 20 months anyway, and we've quadrupled the size of the business in 20 months. So like, they have seen the— they've only seen the benefits of PE. So it isn't a case where we're having to try and defend PE or on the— we're on the back foot But we've been PE-backed, look at what's happened, right? A lot of people have stepped up and a lot of people have made serious money in that timeframe. So I think having that success story there is great, but then it's a call to arms of like, who wants to be part of this, right? We aren't slowing down. Like, we want to take over and we want to 5x the size of the business over the next few years. Who wants to be part of it? Who wants to go again? So huge opportunity genuinely for those in the business and for people considering joining Metric, humongous opportunity for them to be part of the next step. and doing that in person, right? So Joe was in New York, I was down in London in the UK, Joe was in the US, delivering that in person to people. I think it was vital. And that was the very next week, right? We were, we were on the road delivering that to the team in person. So, so yeah, and obviously an open platform if anyone has, has questions. Um, but everyone's fully bought into it.
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, look, Joe, John Joe, I think it's been like you said, feel like you're just getting started. Which is pretty crazy to say despite what we've achieved. But I know there are so many people genuinely, and hopefully you guys feel this, rooting for you guys. I think what a great success story of, uh, what you guys have built so far, what you're building. And have no doubt at all, you know, be sitting down in the future talking about how we 5x'd it, what did we do, what did we learn. So really appreciate you joining me and coming on the pod.
Brilliant. Yeah, thanks so much for having us. I've really enjoyed it. So, um, yeah, massive thanks, Hishem.
Thank you.
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