Achieving a 100% Fill Rate, The Power Of No & Lessons From Being 12 Months Im Business Calum Lyle

But if someone walked through this door and offered me £50 million for Zest right now, I wouldn't take it. And it wouldn't, it wouldn't scratch the sides. I genuinely believe that. Whereas actually, when I sat with you before, I don't think I would have said that.

Callum Lyle, the founder of Add Some Zest. After 8 years of working for somebody else, becoming an MD at just 24 years old, and successfully scaling the business to 20+ people, in October 2022, he decided to launch his very own recruitment business.

There's a funny thing in recruitment where people try and be a bigger business than they are. Yeah, where we're this huge business. What's the advantage of that?

In the first year of trading, they did just over £500K worth of revenue. They achieved a +89 NPS score, 100% fill rate, and grew the team to 5. So how did he do it?

First thing on my CV when I went into my first job, to do a TED Talk and make 2 people millionaires overnight. The only thing I think that's changed in that, I want to make more people millionaires overnight.

This is what you're going to learn in this week's episode. The power of productizing your service and how to do it. How he achieved a 100% fill rate. Why Callum says no to working with more clients and he does say yes. Why is Callum so passionate about measuring customer experience and why you should be too. Let's get into this week's episode. Callum, welcome to the podcast.

Good to be here. Good to be here. Good to be back.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, uh, we last sat down 3 years ago.

Was it 3 years? Yeah, 3 years.

I've listened back to it.

Oh, I should have listened before coming back on. But no, it's, uh, I'm back with far less hair than I had last time. That's all I know.

Well, I think obviously we've known each other for a little while now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we're here today to talk about this entrepreneurial journey that you started, which is, uh, your own recruitment business called Add Some Zest.

Yeah.

And when we last sat down, you was a young director of a business that you helped scale to like 20+ people Yeah, and you've now kick-started this, this business journey. So in this conversation, I'm really excited to break down these first 12, 13 months because you, you've hit that first year milestone. Yeah, yeah, you often hear first year recruitment is hard. Starting your own recruitment business first year is also really hard. So a couple of things, obviously, when we prepared for this, a couple of things I think just to give people some immediate context. So before you started your own recruitment business. I think we put down here you had like 10 years of experience.

Yeah, just, just shy of 10 years, so probably like 9 years of experience. 7 of that was leadership and not bidding at all.

Yeah, because when we sat down, I think I remember saying you was like, or you became director like 24, or you was in a quite senior position quite young, right?

Yeah, and it was an odd journey. So yeah, so like now going back to doing something from the ground up is something I've never done before.

So a couple of things I know you're, um, proud of, but You, you, uh, finished with a +89 NPS score. Yeah, I'm gonna talk a lot about that customer experience. I know that's a huge passion of yours. Yeah, you're able to be profitable month for month, which is something to be really proud of. Um, I think you just broke the $500K revenue mark for the first year. Uh, I think we're gonna talk about this, but in the first 5 weeks you're able to retain your first 3 customers. Yeah, that's definitely something to be proud of because I know when we we're chatting, you was like, I'm gonna get back on the tools and haven't properly been on the tools for a while. So I think that's absolutely awesome. And, uh, you're now— so how many of you are there now in the team?

There's 5 of us now.

5. So yeah, so first year, I think kudos, sir.

Yeah, no, no, sir. And I wasn't expecting, if I'm honest, when I launched the business in October and left the previous business in July, for the market to kind of completely, completely crash. So I think it's been the best, um, best 12 months to kick things off. And I am really pleased with where we've got to and the team we've managed to put together.

So just give us a bit of context on— so all of the type of recruitment that you do has been perm this year, right?

So all perm, 90% is UK, a bit across EMEA, but everything kind of commercial within tech, so sales, marketing, operations with any sort of technology business, mainly software.

So let's just start with just have a bit of a reflection point on we've hit the 12-month mark, first year milestone. Like, what— I know you've done a couple of posts on this, but if I was to say to you, what was your biggest lesson from that first year, what would you say? Let's just start there.

It's really a biggest lesson. It's a really good question, but there's, there's so many lessons that I've learned, it being completely my own business. Um, I think in some ways it's been harder than I imagined, especially considering the, the market. But I think the biggest lesson that I've learned this year, but throughout every element of my recruitment experience is if you have the right team and you put the right people together and you collaborate efficiently and effectively, anything is possible. Like, that, that is, that is the most important thing within recruitment to me. People talk about it being your own business within a business and it being so quite like a selfish and standalone job, but I don't necessarily agree with that. I think the right people in the right places the right collaboration and anything is possible. So that, that's kind of been my biggest— or it's just backed up that belief this year. But it's certainly harder than I think I thought it would be in some senses.

And I feel like when you go out on your own, those— the relationships and the people that you believe you have, I guess, yeah, good relationships with, I feel like is really shown. Because I've seen you post multiple times just being really grateful for all the people that have helped you along the way. And I think that's always something interesting you experience is when you go out on your own, you really do see a lot of people come out of the woodwork, or people that you might have built relationships with but you're really not sure exactly, you know, how strong the relationship is. But it sounds like you've had a lot of people just help you on this journey as well, which I'm sure have been so many relationships you've built over time, which is quite cool to experience as well.

Well, I, I have— I stupidly didn't listen to the episode that we did however many years ago, but I remember seeing the caption of that not too long ago, and it focus on relationships over money. And, uh, I've always had that philosophy. I've never burnt a bridge with anyone. Um, and whether it's an internal stakeholder, so an employee, whether it's a customer, whether it's someone that we can't do business with, um, for whatever reason, just never burn a bridge. And you'd be surprised how many people will help and how many people will be there to support. And, and we all had non-competes, we all had covenants, starting an ethical recruitment business, you don't want to kind of— you want to tread on the right side of all of that. So it's difficult generating 100% new business. But I tell you, if you have the right people in the right places and you do right by people, it's— yeah, it's hard, but it's so many joyous kind of moments and experiences on the way where people have kind of given you a leg up and tried to help.

I think one of the things that I saw you write about which I really resonated with, and it's something I've been thinking about recently, is I think you— it was one— it was one of your posts around listing some of the— it was like 12 months from leaving my high-paid job to go out on your own. One of the bullet points you put on there was the, the growth opportunity that you get by starting your own business. And, and that's something that really resonated with me, which I think sometimes people maybe underestimate or don't think about that by going on this entrepreneurial journey, the personal development and the self-development, like, journey you have to go on, it sort of accelerates that, doesn't it? Like, you being on your own, it really just accelerates that self-development. Yeah, because you have to evolve, you have to grow. Yeah. And you're in so many situations which you're in for the first time that you have to learn. So if, you know, you're someone that really wants to, yeah, do more for yourself, maximize your own potential, going on this entrepreneurial journey can be a real catalyst for that. It's not easy, but—

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. There's so many. I remember, I don't know if I mentioned it on our last episode, but one of the first things I ever did in the first kind of year and a half that I was billing before I kind of went into this odd early position of management and leading a team was try and, and it's a weird thing to say, try and do 5 things a day, ideally before lunchtime, that make me anxious. Like those hard decisions, those really, whether it's giving the feedback you don't really want to give, whether it's, knocking on someone's door, a new business opportunity, whatever that looks like. And I think in a funny way, like, starting your own business forces you to make all these really hard decisions, and there's no other way. It's only— before, I had a team of 25 people that I could lean on, collaborate with, bash heads together with. For the first 3 months, it was only me, and then there was only 3 of us. So kind of going from not billing for 7 years back to that being the only way to survive, but also the so many, many opportunities to kind of thrive in those decisions and in those experiences. It's always looking for the, the hard things that you can do, and again, there'll be so many joyous moments out of that.

So let— we're talking a bit about here looking back, so I want to go into how you've built this business over the last 12 months. But just to remind you, I know you didn't listen to it, maybe I should have listed it, but the only thing I want to bring up— I thought I'm going to put you on the spot here, but I thought let me just bring it up and, and see if you've achieved any of these things. So you said when we were talking 3 years ago, you were just talking about the importance of having a why. So that still rings true today and something you've always been an advocate for in terms of understanding your employees' whys. They have a real driver. And you said it when we sat down, your why was to do— do you remember what it was?

To do a TED Talk and make 2 people millionaires overnight.

Have you gotten with that?

Not yet, but it's happening. Yeah, no, it's, uh, yeah, no, it's the first thing on my CV when I've went into my first job to do a TED Talk. And make 2 people millionaires overnight. The only thing I think that's changed in that, I want to make more people millionaires overnight, but I'm probably less focused in making myself money. The evolution from kind of, I don't know, going into recruit— I'm so, so, so, so, so lucky for what recruitment's given me. It kind of— I've earned more money than I ever thought I would earn. I've bought— wow, I've got everything that you think you want. And that's, that's what— that's kind of the decision that I found myself in, in starting Zest. I was earning an incredibly good salary, had a team of people who trusted me implicitly, were incredibly bought into kind of the vision and what we wanted to do. And I had everything. I bought a house, nice car, all these lovely things. But there was something missing. And I think turning 30 was quite like a pivotal moment. And I just thought, I could keep going, I could earn a very good amount of money, I could live a lovely life, but I wouldn't make the impact on the world that I wanted to make. It wasn't purposeful enough, it wasn't impactful enough. And that's what really sort of started this es journey. And if anything, I'm not going to say I'm a recruiter. I've been ridiculously fortunate and I'm in a ridiculously fortunate position to say this. But kind of the more money I earned, the less happy I was. And, um, the goal is still to scale Zest, um, but if someone walked through this door and offered me £50 million for Zest right now, I wouldn't take it, and it wouldn't, it wouldn't scratch the sides. Um, I genuinely believe that, whereas actually when I sat with you before, I don't think I would have said that. So it's, it's, it's like, it's maybe a slightly different approach, but this, the, the same, the same principles definitely still sing true.

So what, what I really enjoyed learning about this, the way that you've approached your business, is a lot of people— I sit down with a lot of recruitment founders, and oftentimes what you'll hear is they, they want to do things differently. But I think there's the best way to really showcase you're doing things differently is by actually showing it with actions, right? So this is some of the things that I really want to break down with you, which I think you've done a really good job of, of actually being different and enabling you to, to gain good traction in the first year. Particularly considering, like you said, you haven't been on the tool selling for, for a good amount of time. So of course, that— why wouldn't you feel, um, a bit daunted by that? Like, going on the tools, am I going to be able to do it still? These things. So I want, I want us to come on to— we're going to talk about customer experience and why that's been, I feel like, at the, the center of how you've approached things. But what I think you've done a really good job of, which I wanted to break down, is really you've productized your services, I feel like, right? Um, and I think that's something that more and more recruitment companies, recruiters should, should be doing. So I think some of the, the highlights here— and we'll break this down— but I think in the first year— correct me if any of this is wrong, by the way— I think you said 23 out of the 25 customers that you worked with in the first year all worked in a retained basis.

Yeah.

Um, and then, um, so that's a fundamental. And then because of that, that's enabled you to reinvest in, in the business. Your job-to-fill ratio and your fill rates are much higher. And I think what would be really cool is just to break down how you've approached that service, because I think it'd be really useful for people, and it also showcases how your— what you're doing is different. So do you mind if we break that down a bit, right, in terms of actual service? So what you shared with me then is— so how did you initially frame this up? Was it Did you call it a retainer when you started speaking to customers? Like, how do you map this out?

It's an interesting one. We talk about productizing our services. If I'm honest, the first year, we only really have one service, and it's retained. And I will just say we don't do anything else, partly because we're incredibly fortunate. And the goal is still to sort of carry on on this journey, but to only have experienced consultants. I think one of my bugbears, potentially around kind of customer experience, is a lot of recruitment agencies have some really, like, just experienced, successful, credible, charismatic directors who go out and win retained business and then might pass it to a graduate who's only 6 months into the job to fill. And actually, that's nothing to do with the— that's really unfair on the graduate, but the, the customer experience for that customer won't be great. So I, I kind of just said, we're only going to work retained work. We don't, we don't even call it retained. It's just, it's just our model and what we do.

Um, this is how all that works.

That's just how this works. And if you can do it, great. If you can't, that's absolutely fine. And I really hope there'll be an opportunity for us to work together in the future. But for the moment, because it's kind of like, I feel like most recruitment agencies will say they do something and then when someone says no, we can't do that, they'll change it. It's like being working in Louis Vuitton. Someone comes in and asks for a bag and they ask for 5, I don't know how much Louis Vuitton bag is, £1,000, and they say I don't have £1,000. And they're like, okay, wait, £100. That never happens. Like, if you're proud about your service, if you're proud about what you offer, we charge, we charge what we charge.

You have to say no to a lot of people.

We say, we say no still to far more businesses than we say yes to. And it's a hard thing to do, but it's, uh, I think it's a really powerful thing to do. And you'd be surprised when you say no how many people want to work with you.

Just curious, spitballing here, but I, I really, I really respect that. And then that shows in your customer experience, the roles that you win, like the, the fill ratios. Then that means your team are going to be paid more often. Like, you can predict like the future a lot more. You can have more consistent performances. How many clients do you reckon you say no to to get one?

Yeah, it's about 1 in 5.

Really?

So, so we will, out of those 25 customers, we'll probably have spoken to maybe just over 100. I think, and we've only worked with 25.

And you said, this is how we work. And they said, look, Callum, could— look, we don't really work— we haven't worked this way with other companies. Can you work this way?

There's been the two clients that we, that we worked with out— so those 20, 25 customers, 23 were saying the two clients that we worked with outside of that agreement, one of which spent over six figures with us, and they just couldn't— they couldn't get it signed off. But they absolutely— it was someone that I knew through someone I could qualify out, really. Thoroughly and had a really good assurance that it was 100% exclusive and we were going to fill the role. And we continued to go on to fill over 10 business development directors for that business. But everyone else, just say, if you can't do it, that's absolutely fine. But this is the way that we work and we can prove that if you do, if you do sort of move forward, or you can get the sign-off and you can try something different, that you can, that you can trust us because we've got a +89 NPS score. We've got every customer that we've worked with, we filled their role, 100% fill rate, and every customer that we've worked with have given us a positive review. So it's, again, it's a joyous position to be in, but you don't need a huge amount of customers in recruitment. You just need customers that want to go on the same journey as you do and that feel that they want a true partner. And that's what we are. If you want a contingent recruiter, there are so many other options and I'm sure so many great options that they can go to, but that's just not us.

I feel like you've just explained it there, but I think it'd be helpful for people. You said at the beginning of this you don't like to burn bridges. What's Callum's thoughts and advice on saying no to business without burning a bridge? Like, what does that, what does that sound like? You were talking about it there, but I think that's interesting for people because I think people underestimate how much power there is in saying no. But maybe sometimes people, they don't want to, they don't want to feel like the client— they put the client on the pedestal, they don't want them to feel rejected. But how, how do you say no without burning a bridge?

You can still add a huge amount of value to a, to a relationship. There's a whole host of— and if you say no, you've got more time. So what most recruiters will do is out of those 100 and say 5 companies and then they have 25 spending customers, imagine how much time and energy goes into working those 80 roles that they're probably going to fill 20% of contingently. So the amount of time that you have, you can still— you can— I go for roughly 3 coffees a day. I'll meet so many people, I'll give a ridiculous amount of value or try and help people wherever I possibly can. I'll try and offer free intros and, and help anyone that I can. But am I going to put the time and resource into a search unless they pay me upfront or pay us upfront? Absolutely not. And exactly the same with our team. So we're a service-first business. So there's, there's of course ways that you can politely— and my background is hospitality, we can go into that in a bit more detail— but you can politely, um, say it's just not right. It's the Louis Vuitton example. If someone can afford it, there's nothing wrong. There's plenty more bags that they can go and buy, but it's just not right at the moment. But we really hope that you come back and one day buy a Louis Vuitton bag.

Does that happen often?

Yeah, it happens. It does happen quite often. And people need to experience a pain. Like, yeah, unless someone's— our vision is to radically change the perception of how a recruitment agency serves its people, customers, and communities. And unless people have unless their perception is bad or they've had a crap experience with a recruiter, which most people have, or a bad hiring experience, or someone who's joined and then left early on, there might not be enough of a pain for them to trust us enough to pay us a third upfront. And I'm very conscious as well with our fees. Our average fee is over 12 grand. To pay 4K to someone that you don't know from Adam is a big decision. So again, it's making sure that we're very clear with what we do, very clear with the value it brings. And if someone can use us today, great. If they can't, kill them with kindness. Make sure you're adding value. Make sure that you're continually checking in and trying to provide as much value as you can so that when they have enough pain or when they want to use us, we're the first people they think of. Yeah.

And I want to go into what this service looks like, but I think people might be thinking it because of what you mentioned earlier, starting on this journey, you said you have all this evidence to point out to say, look, this is how we work, this is how it's worked for those companies. But what, what did you have to point out when you first started? Because that can often be a bit—

so it's a really good question. Background, um, reputation, and, um, people, like referrals, build— building bridges, like building relationships with people. And people think building a relationship has to do with your CEO, senior sales director or whatever. Build relationships with everyone. Just be a nice person. Just try and add value. And I'll say add some zest to every interaction. And that's what I'm constantly trying to do, whether it's buying a coffee, whether it's speaking to a candidate. Of course, exactly the same philosophy. A recruiter can't help every candidate find a job, but they can help every candidate so they can add value to that interaction. Can I help with your CV? Can I actually— have you thought about this avenue? Have you thought about that? You're still spending the same time with that person, but instead of being that boring person who takes a list of questions and does the qualification, just add value. Add value to the conversation. And the first, the first 3 customers— actually, I've never thought about this— were candidates who I will have spoken to when I first started, and I've just kept a relationship. And actually, LinkedIn is a great tool to do that. And I know you're a big advocate of like a personal brand, but people, they feel like they know you because even if I haven't spoken to them, popped up in their LinkedIn inbox, given them a call, they feel like they know you.

It sounds like you leveraged your track record of just the journey you've been on, the experience you had. And was you upfront and honest of like, did you— was there where that they're probably gonna be the first couple of clients that you're working with?

Yeah. And I also— I don't know, you, you'll have a much better lens of this than I will, There's a funny thing in recruitment where people try and be a bigger business than they are perceived. Yeah, where we're this huge business, what's the advantage of that? Like, I, I don't understand.

Like, I think people are worried about what other people like, how are they going to be perceived, which is why I'm asking you, because yeah, journey. But it just sounds like you was honest. You obviously— a lot of people that start their own business oftentimes they do have a track record, so you pointed at that, and then you've got those searches underway. You obviously did everything that you can to fill them, deliver a good service, and then you have evidence to point out.

Yeah, recruitment it's all about time and resource. And if you put enough time and resource and you're skilled enough and there's still capability there— but I was always confident. There's always that kind of imposter syndrome insecurity of, I haven't built for 7 years, will I be good enough? But if you put enough time and resource in and you update people and you kill them with kindness and you try and provide a bloody phenomenal service, people will be thrilled. But yeah, it's funny. So the first customer who ended up spending over 6 figures with us. I put a post out on LinkedIn saying, I've just launched the business, give me a call, put my mobile number. And I was surprised that no, no one tried to call me to sell me anything. Um, but yeah, 11 people popped up in my LinkedIn inbox saying, we're a service provider or whatever, we can, we can do your it. No one called me. Yeah, an old contact called me and said, Callum, I've seen your post. I thought I'd give you a call. We're recruiting for a business development director. Can I intro you to our, to our sales director? And that, that business ended up spending over, over 6 figures with us.

So that's like the perfect story in line with what we're talking about earlier, not burning bridges, relationships. So let's just break down the service because I think this is, this is something that has been key about how you've been able to, to grow and how you're going to be able to continue to grow, right? And it's also at the center of your mission around the, the customer experience. So you, you tell me parts if I miss any of this. So in terms of like this service, how it's broken down, because I feel like not everyone has the same perception of what Retend is. Some people just feel like in order to initiate a search, then, uh, you know, I have to put down a deposit, or it's just me paying for the commitment of time, and then we start working together But you've built out a proper process around this, which I think is really great and I think is going to give you and your team a competitive advantage in, in the marketplace for sure. So if you don't mind breaking this down with us, so if me and you were to start working together in this way that you were talking about, so the Zestaway, this is our service, then at the beginning of that journey we're going to have a job qualification and that's going to be, I'm assuming, a fairly deep dive when I go for everything. Yeah. And then what you're telling me— I'll let you go through it— but what you're telling me then is you're going to get a shortlist of people, but you do that in a slightly different way. And then after that, you've also invested in some tools to give me as a hiring manager more science-based insights into what this person might be like.

Yeah.

Um, and then there's some other interview elements. But why don't you talk us through this? Because I feel like this is something that you've obviously thought about and is, is a really nice service that you've built, uh, which is obviously delivering great results. I'm not just customer experience, but actual results of of actually making these placements as well?

Yeah, no, no. So, um, we, as part of our process— so you're, you're absolutely right, we'll of course take a job qualification, but we'll do that in far more detail. So we'll try and do that face to face, we'll try and do that and meet a few of the team. Um, and I guess in your, in your example there, if you were to start working with us, we'd come down to your office, we'd get to know you in, in a good amount of detail, we'd obviously make sure you were comfortable and summarize back exactly our understanding of the job. From that point, we'd ask for 4 to 6 questions that you typically ask at first stage interview. I'd always recommend them to be around your mission, vision, and values. But equally, it could just be something that you always ask. It could be a fun, wacky question that you always ask so that you can see someone's personality. The reason that we do that is we bring that into our video interview. So we will do a 30-minute screening call with every candidate that we speak to. And we'll do a really targeted search, so kind of open, passive, and competitive market candidates. Within the first 2 weeks, that will be mainly kind of in the background. So we'll be doing that, we'll be generating that long list of candidates and people that are interested in working for Hector or whoever.

And do you showcase that to the client?

Showcase that. So we do a 48-hour update, a first week update, and then a middle of second week update with the goal to get the start of that shortlist, which is video interviews uploaded and ready for the client to see within the first 2 weeks.

Sorry, and then is the update just on a video call we jump on? Is there anything visual that you show them?

I tend to end of the first week, I personally, for everyone's customers, will go on and do a video myself because I want to know exactly where we are and I want to deliver an audio capture, Loom, Vidyard, whatever you're using. But to go over exactly the amount of people that we've reached out to, exactly the amount of people we've spoken to, exactly the amount of people that are interested and any potential hurdles, obstacles that we found in getting those candidates to the kind of virtual hiring table, which in this instance is the first stage video interview. During that video interview, we'll ask 4 to 6 questions that you've decided that you want to ask. So we're assessing that candidate against your role and not just a generic sales, marketing, or operations role. And especially within our kind of our candidate context, I guess salespeople or marketing people, anyone commercial, their personality, how they carry themselves, how they come across to you is how they're going to come across or how they come across to us. It's how they're going to come across to your customers, your internal teams, all incredibly important stuff. So we package that up on our video shortlist alongside their CV. From that point, we try to get 5 to 8 people onto that shortlist. That's quite a good number. I feel that has enough variety, enables people to see a kind of wide barometer of the market, allows us to get a good amount of diversity onto that shortlist. Um, but, but also then, then, well, then they move forward to a face-to-face.

So I would then obviously— I, I'm assuming you're like, right, we've given you the shortlist, um, to give me everything I need, and then I have a time window to review those, and then do I have to give feedback on it?

So you, you give feedback on each person, and we, we need— and hence why the, the retained relationship is there— we need feedback on everyone, and we need some decent feedback on everyone. And I'll hold people to account to give that because again, if we— it's a customer experience, but it's also the candidate experience. So we want to make sure that we're getting as much feedback as we can from every candidate, whether they are successful or not successful. From that point, you will typically pick your best 3 or 4 to move forward to a face-to-face. By that point, you kind of already feel like you know the people as well because you've seen a good kind of 5, 10-minute video of them asking, answering questions that you would typically ask. Um, then finally, after that second interview, which— so, or final interview, we run a cultural assessment. So we look at after the— so typically do that after the first interview, reason being we don't want to kind of bring in any bias at that stage. However, what we find is the cultural assessment, which is effectively a tool which gives you and maybe we might get a few of your, your sales team to fill out 50 questions which give you your kind of just general preferences. But then it matches up the candidate who will do the same against their fit against the role. So a good, great, or needs exploring fit against the role, but also good, great, or needs exploring fit against your culture. And that's just a direct correlation between the candidate's results and your results.

So the candidate fills out as well?

Candidate fills out as well. All 3 or 4 candidates, whoever you're bringing forward to second interview. And the reason we do it a second interview, don't want it to be that much of a bias in the first interview, but what it does, the report spits out questions that you should ask in order to explore anything. So it's kind of like that rubber stamp type questions or the, the final little things that we need or we'd advise you to ask to mitigate as much risk as we can as a team through that hiring, hiring process. To make sure you're ultimately hiring not only the best available candidate, but a candidate who's a match for your business as well.

So for the client, it's typically two stages then. So you pretty much do the first stage for me. I just have to invest the time in watching the videos and then giving feedback. But then I'm just spending time with then, yeah, the like short, short list of face-to-face. And then there might be one or two people that don't make it to the second stage. But then in between first and second stage, I'm getting even more insight into, right, what are the things that I need to make sure I try and ask this person and understand that's going to give me more confidence that they're going to be a good fit.

Well, it will also do— and I don't know if other recruitment agencies do this, but not, not many from, from what our customers tell us, but we haven't got the biggest sample size— we'll give areas where even at first stage the client should explore further as well, and maybe perhaps any reservations that the candidate might have, any any kind of, any reservations that we might have on the candidate, which again is alien. Like I always think, and that's what's funny about using some sort of cultural assessment because it could come back and say the candidates are rubbish fit from a cultural perspective. But actually that's still good because we might— we're always looking at the long-term, the long-term goal. And I always found it funny when especially junior recruiters come in, they present a candidate, which is typically just a CV that they pop into someone's inbox. And they say everyone's brilliant, but not everyone's brilliant. Like, there'll be, there'll be areas where everyone's brilliant. I'm brilliant in some areas. I'm also terrible in others. So being able to give a very honest assessment, even if it's not in your best interest, and if your best interest is just get the fee, it's really important to make sure you're, you're presenting people what you like.

Even, but even more in the— you'll know better than me, but hiring salespeople, a lot of it typically isn't done on science-based data types, pieces, right? It's a lot of it is off like, yeah, I think it's a lot of it's off intuition and you getting along with the person and those types of things. So I think I can imagine that being so helpful.

It's trying to strip that out as much as you can and also understanding in exactly the same way as in recruitment, a great recruiter somewhere might be a terrible recruitment somewhere else through lack of kind of value alignment, whatever that looks like. Exactly the same within sales. Someone might be a great salesperson within one business, but terrible within another because perhaps the first business is more transactional, one's more consultative, whatever that looks like, or they just wouldn't get on with the team, whatever that is. And actually we would much prefer to mitigate that risk pre-hire than post-hire. It's all good and well getting someone through the door and then after 8 weeks or 12 weeks or 6 months, that candidate drops out. But that's not a, that's not a great experience for the, for the customer or for the candidate. So actually, we'd much rather, we'd much rather experience pain before a decision is made and make sure all our customers are thrilled making a hire rather than a bit of a shot in the dark.

We'll get back to the episode in just one minute, but today I wanted to tell you about our partners, Sourcewell, the industry-leading biz development and headhunting platform. I'm a Sourcewell user myself, and it's been an absolute game changer when it comes to crafting personalized outreach. It's not only quick and easy, but you can tap into custom variables, automate follow-ups, and use multiple channels like the phone, LinkedIn, email, and more to accelerate results. Users report an average increase of 56% in qualified response rates, and when you're using it, it's easy to see why. AI-powered tools like Content Coach and WhaleGPT improve your chances of not ending up in spam, something that's become increasingly challenging with Google's recent deliverability changes. It also tracks all of your activity into your CRM, keeps your data clean, and lets you know who you need to reach out to and when, so you can spend more time on what you're good at—recruiting, not admin. So if you're serious about being the best at what you do, join me and thousands of recruiters who have chosen Sourcewell to revolutionize their outreach approach. Book a demo with Sourcewell and mention the Recruitment Mentors podcast to enjoy an extra 50 phone and 50 email credits per user. And this exclusive offer will save you circa £1,200 and more, and it's only available until March 31st. Click the link in the episode description, or you can head to sourcer.com/demo. Obviously, let's talk about the customer experience then. What's— besides getting— being more confident that Zest is going to be able to get me the outcome that I want, which is the right person in the right seat, because of this approach, you're— you've got a great track record now of of, yeah, really high fill rates, all those types of things. But what is often the feedback you get from these customers saying around the actual experience? What is it they value the most? Is it the video shortlist because it saves them loads of time? Like, I know it might vary, but what's often ended up being at the core of like, "Callum, this service is great because..." It's a really good question.

I think that the one word that sort of shoots to mind is feedback, and feedback from both sides. Being able to be brave enough to share all feedback as quickly as possible, no matter how good, bad, or ugly that feedback is, and make sure that people are fully up to date. As you say, like, we've got 100% fill rate, we will find really good people, but lots of recruitment agencies can find really good people. Can they deliver it in a way that's exceptional? Can they deliver it in a way that truly is creating, putting service at the forefront and not their best interest. So, Hishem, I'm going to introduce this candidate. Actually, I'm going to pull this person out because I've got a really bad reference, rather than just waiting and seeing how it goes. I, I don't think many recruitment agents or consultants are brave enough to do that, whereas we are very focused on the long-term, long-term, um, nature of this business, long-term nature of relationships that we'll be— we're building. And I'm very be honest in saying if someone offered me 50 million for Zest now, I wouldn't, because, because I want to see out this journey. I genuinely want to change the perception of recruitment. And anyone on our— I'm so, so, so, so, so fortunate with the team that we've got, that they share the same, the same vision, the same values.

What about then, what about the— often, what about the common feedback you get from the— on the candidate side? Like, what is it that you often hear? Again, um, I might— if I'm a candidate, I might work with Zest and I'm actually getting in front of companies that they talk to me about and I'm getting interviews, like you delivered the outcomes, but what's often the feedback on that side that you, that again contributes to this customer experience that you often have?

So again, feedback was kind of general to both, but, um, what one thing I will say there is, is a lot of people's reservation around using some sort of video technology is time and it delays things. But you'd be surprised how, how much feedback we get that we're a true extension of our clients. And how much value the video aspect brings. It's not a hindrance in a lot of senses. It's a way that a candidate can get their best self across, their best, most authentic selves across to the businesses that they want to be working with. And again, one joy in us not having a ridiculous amount of customers and saying no to more customers than we say yes to is we truly know our customers. From truly knowing your customers and getting a really good insight into them and spending time getting to know your candidates, it's much easier to get the match, well, perfect that kind of match. But a lot of it is around the feedback. Again, that +89 NPS score is something that we're incredibly proud of. 77% of that is from candidates who didn't get a job through us. Really?

So 77% 77% of that NPS score is— and would you mind just in really brief terms explaining that, if you're happy to? Um, like, because not everyone might know. Obviously we use that in our, in our business, but not everyone is aware of what that is. It, from my understanding, it literally is the sort of, um, the best way or the most used way to measure customer experience.

Yeah, promoter score and experience generally. It could be employee experience, net, net protocol Promoter score is effectively how likely you are to recommend Zest to a friend or colleague, and they will get a survey after being in a process through our business, and they will get a survey that says, how likely are you to recommend Zest to a friend or colleague? It will say a 1 to 10 score. A 9 or 10 will be a promoter. I think it's a 7 or 8, a passive. So kind of amber. And then, yeah, so So we do that, as I say, so 77% of the respondees for our NPS scores— people who didn't get a job, people who have been in a process who got told they were a no, who dropped out, whatever that looks like. And still, again, that's something that's like—

because yeah, I think I had— I think I might mention to you, but I had Abhi Dunn on the podcast who's also like really committed to his customer experience, which I absolutely love. And her sort of gripe, uh, with it, with what she's seen like outwardly of other companies, was oftentimes you'll see people give that net promoter score option only once they've placed in the job, right? And that's what I think. And she was saying, well, actually, the ones that I really care about, and when we get low scores, are the ones from people that didn't get the job, because that's— I feel like they're the experiences you really want to improve. So I love that stat on 77% of your Net Promoter Score has been, um, yeah, given by people that didn't get a job, which is not the outcome that they wanted, right? Yeah. But because of the service that you've built and your commitment to it, um, you're still delivering great experience. And why I think that's so overlooked— we've done a couple of training sessions on this, and I'll always remember one. I don't know if you've got any stories like this, but, um, we had a guy called Rich, uh, how he recruits an FMCG, and he's really big on this, and he was saying one of his biggest clients came from someone that he didn't place, and he really focused on the experience of people that didn't get the job and making sure that's covered right. So again, these are often people that get forgotten about, or it's just easier, it's more comfortable to not give them the bad news and do all the things that we've all done. But actually, they're some of the— can be some of your best promoters that end up in some of of your best clients potentially.

Happens all the time, happens all the time, especially like sales leadership. Give someone a good experience. There's so many people that get placed who have a terrible recruitment experience or just don't know, don't know who their recruiter was, don't know what agency represented them. It was a very transactional experience. And again, that's, that's why it's adding value through the process. But I'm, um, I, I completely agree. There's so many recruitment agencies who will only sort of survey people that given a positive outcome to. And actually, not only does that skew figures, but it's not particularly useful because while you're asking for feedback, and I'll never sort of not be grateful for our NPS score, but in some ways I'm hoping this year it's slightly lower because I want to get more feedback to improve. That's why we're doing it. And it's bloody brilliant that we deliver a phenomenal experience and that will always be the core of our business and what we, what we endeavor to do every single time. But, um, we're doing it so we can get feedback ultimately to improve. And we've already had 3 customers, 3 candidates this year got a job for another recruiter but gave us a review. Didn't even ask them to do this, but gave us the review. And it said in the review, Callum or Aaron or Adam or Lizzie didn't place me, but they were far better than the agency that did. And what a brilliant way. That's great. To send to the company that person's joined. Yeah, yeah. Their new starter has said, we're a better fit, or we're better, we gave a better experience than the person that placed them. What a brilliant, what a brilliant, um, in, and what a brilliant kind of bit of feedback to receive.

Let me ask you this then, with your commitments, and I think this is the center of what we do, we've broken down your service, and this results in so many positive things, right? In terms of, like we're talking about your team, they know the roles that they work on, their place, they know the companies and customers they partner with are companies that are a good fit and fit your ICP. And, um, they know hopefully they're going to get the commitment that they need. So this just benefits everything, right? It's just pretty mad that a lot of companies don't make this commitment. But I think this is why I want to ask you this, which is, if you think about the second year, you've really committed to this, you've are so close to everyone because it's a small team. What are some of the things that you could be— uh, what's the word— the analogy that I want to give is like, there could be some things that happen that make Callum go, oh yeah, we could earn some good money there, and it makes you drop some of these standards. Like, what are the things that you have to resist, you know what I mean? What are some of the things that you know you're gonna have to fight really hard to come back to this? Because that, that happens, right? Because I'm sure at this stage age, you're just so involved in everything. But what are some of those things that you know you're going to have to not be enticed by that could lead to getting away from that?

Yeah, I think it's, um, it's a good question. Um, and you mentioned money is the obvious one, so money or any sort of revenue or profit or whatever, whatever that looks like. However, luckily our biggest driver isn't money. Um, genuinely, we're I'm a big believer that if you're very true to what you do, profit will always come. I've never, not from an arrogant sense, I've never had to worry about money through working or doing what I do because I've learned, and it's a learned behavior now, if I try and add zest or add value through every conversation, the right things will come. I, I think, I think the, the maybe a different way to frame the question or answer the question is something that I'm very conscious of is making sure that every hire that we hire is truly valuable. Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest ways. Exactly. People have got to have the same beliefs as I will. And there'll be so many people that have been on your podcast, listen to your podcast, who have differing views for me around the— me around money or, or whatever, whatever that looks like. We, we measure our success Truly, number one, number one promise of that is the experience that our customers and candidates have. Um, and we will always be very true to that. And our belief is if we continue to deliver against that and to continue to deliver against our, our model and what we do, money will— everything will take care of itself. And it's quite hard to say as well, by the way, just quickly on that, the contingent side. So if someone came to me now and said look, Callum, we can give you $500K worth of business that's contingent. There's elements of that would be tempting, but what I can't do to that business is tell them what we'll deliver, because everything that we've done is delivering against the model that we'll, we'll, we'll deliver against, or the model that we'll operate. And I can't, and I'm certainly not going to start doing the same search for someone that doesn't pay a third upfront, because then that isn't fair to the customers that do partner with us and work with us the way they, they do. So it's got to be consistent, and I've got to know that whatever we're signing ourselves up for, we're going to have to be— we're going to be able to deliver against, because that is our key kind of barometer of success.

Yeah, to be fair, I think, yeah, you are probably right. The fundamental way to really protect that and really have that embedded in your business as you grow is going to be the people that you hire, because you can probably very easily point at a client and say, this is why we should have said no to this client. So moving forward, if they have any of these characteristics, we need to make sure we say no, and this is why. That's probably a lot more easier rather than trying to convert someone that's in your business, convert their behaviors and mindset towards what good— a good experience looks like, right? So yeah, I was just, just curious.

It's a good question. That's interesting, right?

But I —And we've also done, which I really rate, and again, this is the really great thing about having your own business, is you can do these ideas that you've had and you can take action on things that maybe you've always thought about. Could we try this? Could we do this better? But you also, again, I don't know how many companies do this, but you also, it's that important that you're also providing a financial incentive on your team, to your team on their NPS. Escort as well. Yeah. So I want to talk a bit about that because I don't think, you know, you'll hear commission on what you build on these things, but your team also are financially incentivized to deliver a great experience, which I think is really cool as well.

Yeah, no, no, I appreciate you bringing that up. And it's, um, it's something I want to stress as well, that, that we still need to incentivize consultants and, and our teams based off delivering and numbers as well, because that You, you can, you can deliver a phenomenal experience and place no one, and ultimately you won't have a job in recruitment for very long. But, um, you're absolutely right. So we, we pay monthly based off of an individual's billings in a very similar way to any other recruitment agency will, will, will do. But then quarterly we pay an extra kicker based off of delivering phenomenal experiences, and that is delivering a certain number of promoters within that period. So within a 3-month period. Yeah. So, so, so, and we've set it at the moment as a really manageable— and we've, uh, I think a few of the guys have got over 15. And what is the 12th of Jan or whatever? So it's incredibly manageable, manageable number. Um, yeah. And we give 5% of their quarterly, um, number as a bonus in addition to that. Yeah. So that's a Typically for a senior consultant, that will be over 10 grand a year just for delivering phenomenal experiences. Yeah, that's somewhere on that. Wow. It's, uh, it's, uh, again, it's a great initiative to have.

That's the cool thing about having your own business, that you can do these things.

Yeah, but also, if we're going to drive the, um, the right behaviors, if we're going to change the perception of recruitment and truly do that, we need to incentivize it.

And it has to be that— yeah, the game has to be incentivized in that way.

Exactly, exactly. And, uh, Um, yeah, no, it's worked really well so far, and it— you can tell from the results that we've, that we've had and how passionate each and everyone within the Zest team are at the end of a week looking back and just having such lovely bits of feedback come through. It's, it's just, it's just this— it's the same kick that you get from doing a deal. It's, uh, it's phenomenal.

We've spoken a lot about how the benefit commercially to your business the, the fill rates, the, the experience you're giving to candidates, clients, and how this can actually help your business grow, just like commercially. But how have you found, as you've started to grow this business, like, how— when you've spoken about this approach, like, how have you found the impact actually your ability to hire people or attract people? Because I think that's always going to be one of your challenges, like everyone is aware of, particularly a recruitment agency in London, it's just so competitive. But have you also found that when you do get in front of the right person from an internal hire standpoint, this is something that also gives you competitive advantage in that conversation?

Gives us competitive advantage to the right person. Yeah. There's a lot of recruiters that I wouldn't hire. Exactly the same to the way that we'll say no to a lot of, a lot of business, we'll say no to a lot of recruiters and a lot of really successful recruiters and actually recruiters that I always respect a lot, they're just not right for us. So it's, it's understanding what good looks like to our business, and it's making sure that we're shouting about that enough. We're incentivizing the right thing, we're driving the right behaviors, driving the right activities. And absolutely, and again, I think we're all quite lucky, and we've tried to really— I've always been a big advocate of the kind of personal brand and making sure we're sharing on LinkedIn. But I put out a video Both times I've put out a video saying we're hiring and we've got quite an unusual benefits package, but we've been flooded with, flooded with applicants and really experienced applicants.

How do you test people's commitment to that experience?

I always, I always, it's quite easy to see, I think, and there'll be lots of people that say they deliver a great experience. But someone like Lizzie, for example, who is bloody brilliant, who joined in November, that's the thing that she was proud of, the testimony that she had from her previous customers. And that to me is just like an absolute ding, ding, ding kind of gold mine of a zest employee, someone who puts customer experience over everything. Um, and equally, Hishem, as well, they have to have the capability, they have to be good at the job. Um, but you can see, and that's, that's the best thing about experience, that's the best thing about tracking feedback. And even if someone doesn't have a, like, a formal feedback tracking system in place, which a lot of recruitment agencies won't, there's a whole host of things around, like, LinkedIn recommendations, um, emails that people will save and kind of hold close to their heart. From someone just saying, look, Callum did a phenomenal job, Lizzie did a phenomenal job for this, that, and the other reason. And, um, yeah, we've, we've been really— there's only 5 of us so far. We're going to grow far more aggressively this year. But every time that we posted about hiring, um, I know it's very competitive, but we've had quite a lot of people.

Is that, is that one of the— because that was one of my questions. Yeah, I feel like for a look— for quite a while now you've done done, I feel like, a good job of building your own brand, and that then you really see that come into fruition when you start your own business. Because it's like, wow, I can, you know, do this activity online and I can see the direct benefit. Like when you first started and then, yeah, your first client, right? Um, it just feels a bit different compared to when you're an employee, I feel like, you know what I mean? Like, you literally see the direct impact of you sharing something, building your brand, and then it impacts in your business, but is that one of the big impacts you found it to have in terms of building your brand? Because you have done— you guys have invested a lot in your marketing, on the marketing side as well.

Yeah, no, I think it's, um, there's, there's two things there. There's, there's, there's two sides to that question. There's number one, for me, I'm not wearing anyone else's cape. I'm not wearing any— I'm not representing anyone else's brand. I can truly be my authentic self, um, which is one of our values. Be yourself always. And you don't feel like, oh, maybe that won't align with what my company is doing or whatever. And I'm so far from what I would define the stereotype of a recruiter as well, but I can truly and honestly be myself. And I think it stands out. And the feedback that we get is that that kind of stands out in terms of the service, in terms of the added value, in terms of what we try and deliver to the market. The second side of that question is starting a business completely afresh. You can also make sure that you hire people who are value-aligned and who know exactly what they're coming into and don't feel like they're wearing a cape, feel like they're truly representing a business that's an extension of themselves, feel like they're truly representing a business where they can be themselves and authentically themselves every day. And they're so proud to shout about that. And then it's much easier to go on that kind of personal branding journey. There's some other— Adam who I've worked with for years and is phenomenal at the job, never really posted, never really shared anything until this year. And now he posts more than me, and he gets— he's got such a community of followers and people that he didn't have before. But he's, he's able to— and not necessarily he couldn't do that before, but he can— it's completely stripped back and it's completely authentic to him and to Zest as, as the brand and the culture kind of defines itself in these early years as well. So there's kind of two sides to that. But yeah, it feels kind of more free posting, and it certainly helped us build our brand and, and build our following opportunities and stuff.

We'll get back to the episode in just one minute, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, Firefish, the recruitment CRM that accelerates data-driven growth. They have just released their 2024 Recruitment Agency Report. Based on insights from over 200 agency leaders, the report offers unbelievable insights into forecasts for the year ahead, enabling you to refine your strategy based on data rather than intuition. Here are some of the stats I personally found interesting from the report. Although industry optimism has declined for the third year in a row, growth signals remain positive, with 84% of agency leaders expecting year-on-year sales growth this year. 47% of agency leaders plan to use a contingency recruitment model in 2024, and 70% of agencies plan to use social sourcing as their main candidate attraction strategy in 2024. You can access your free copy of the report and start making data-driven decisions about your business by clicking the link in the show notes. And whilst you're there, if you wanted to check out how Firefish could help your business grow this year. They very kindly offered a unique offer to our community, the Recruitment Mentors Podcast, that's going to save you up to £1,000. And this offer is only available until March 31st. You can click the link in the episode description, and you can also head to firefishsoftware.com/rmp. Just curious then how you think about— you said there you want to really continue to grow and scale. What's coming to mind is, again, at the center of all of this is the customer experience. How do you think about when you're scaling? Like, is there— how do I say this? Not like— I don't use the word like ceiling or like things are capped, but I'd love to just hear your perspective of if you keep bringing in these recruiters that are aligned, they're experienced, obviously what's going to be really important is they deliver your service and, uh, you know, stay true to that. But I feel like— you tell me, you might disagree— but I feel like if I'm someone joining your business, surely there must be a cap of the amount of customers that I can support in order for me to maintain those levels of service. Yeah, I might be wrong there, but I don't know if you've thought about that. Like, so like, if I join your business, do you think, you know, and unless you start building a team around me and help me support that way in order for me to really maintain those levels, it's gonna be hard for me to serve 15 customers on my own maybe. I don't know what the number is, but the good thing is that I know I'm getting paid on the jobs that I work and these things. So I don't know if you've thought about that. Do you feel like there's maybe a limit until you have to start building people around them?

[Speaker] Yeah, there certainly will be, and I think it's really important. I certainly think until we're kind of 10 plus, so certainly double digits, we can, and what's been proven with the kind of interest that we've had, that we can hire experience people, and ultimately they can develop their own relationships. And there's, there's so many, there's so much opportunity within the market. There's, there's always, there's plenty of business to go around, there's plenty of opportunity. But I, I do, and my track record and why I feel in a really fortunate position to do this, we, the guys who work with me today, um, 3, 3 of them I hired into recruitment in their first job. So I, if we have been on that kind of trainee journey themselves. We've— I, I've led them through that experience. They've led plenty of trainees themselves through that experience. So we can absolutely do that. And there definitely is a kind of— there's, there's the, the support and infrastructure that a really successful recruiter needs when they're delivering X amount of X number or with X amount of sort of customers where they need additional human sort of support. And that will be a really nice experience, not only for the kind of senior members of our team to have that support and infrastructure around them, but also for people coming into our business when the brand and the identity and our customer experience and how we operate is so clearly defined. And it's not just me and now me plus 4 people. It's an army of people delivering this very clearly defined, authentic, differentiated service. And through osmosis, those people will eventually kind of grow into the senior recruiters of the future. And we've absolutely been on a journey before where we've, we've trodden that path. So it'll be something long-term that we, we need to be mindful of. But for the time being, there's plenty of opportunity out there.

Yeah. How many— like, I'm just curious thinking about it, like, how many, how many customers do you reckon a perm recruiter could serve and work with, do a really good job on in 12 months? Some— what do you think they could build?

Do you think— it's a good question.

You've spoken about, you know what I mean?

It's a good question.

I think, um, there's a lot of variables, but I feel like there might— you might have a bit of an idea of—

to, to, to do it really well. And you've got to look at— it's probably best looking at roles and rather than customers in some senses, because it's like, how many roles? Yeah, but so my, my goal is one one placement a week, which looks at— and I think in a good market you can absolutely do that if the demand is there. And then that's $600K-ish billings, which is a decent per number whilst maintaining all those customer experience levels. Yeah. And I think you then have to do the kind of the backward reverse engineering of like how many, but probably about 10 customers. I would say about 10 customers that are properly qualified, that are long-term partners, that we can truly be impactful within and stamp our mark within and be an extension of their business. I think someone could do. That's exciting, that, isn't it? Yeah, it's super exciting.

It doesn't— that's not a lot.

Yeah, that's another thing about recruitment. I was— people, you think, is everyone so focused on like activity and onboarding 10 new customers a week and doing— actually, we've done over $500K for 25 customers. It's been a really— and of course we'll do far more than that, and we'll grow, and we'll, we'll, we'll develop more relationships and do, do more and make— be, be more impactful. But that, that— for— I know all 25. I've met all 25 multiple times this year. It's been a really enjoyable experience. We've genuinely impacted all of those businesses. All of those businesses will come back as soon as they're hiring. And so cut that in half, one person can absolutely do that. And there's some big numbers to be made for the people that do.

And that's why I think that's really exciting, the way they've approached it, just because, yeah, like, you can be really hyper— for— I think that, like, what I really like about what you're doing is you're not like, you— the way that you view it is you can be high performing and you can deliver an exceptional service. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I just really like thinking from that mindset of like, how can you do both? Um, do you know what I mean? How can you— yeah, how can you be really high performing and deliver an absolutely exceptional service? And I think that's just a really good way to look at how you can build this business, because it could— it can absolutely be both, rather than on how can we just get people, generate as much revenue as possible, and if we miss the mark a few times and we, you know, burn a few bridges along the way, then it doesn't really matter because we're really high-performing. But you're really trying to drive, let's be as high-performing as possible and let's, yeah, have the customer experience at the centre of everything that we do, and how can we do both?

It's a terrible term, but it's work smarter, not harder. And actually, it's something I— the biggest thing that I I still work harder than nearly anyone, but it's making sure that there's so much wasted time. There's so much busy fooling done in recruitment where people take on all this contingent work, run around like a headless chicken. Yeah, I've got 10 roles to work. I've got 50 customers. No, you don't. Sit down, give me your pipeline, and I could break down which roles you'll actually fill. Focus your time on them and actually be brave enough to say to the other companies, this probably isn't for us. For us, but it would be for us if this, that, or the other reason. Yeah. And I think you can absolutely do both. I can absolutely prove that. Um, and the way I would view a zest, or myself, someone, someone would beat me in recruitment, give, give them 6 months and we do a 6-month race. Give it 2 years, I think anyone with zest would smash anyone out the park because we're genuinely going to be focused on how many people that business is going to hire over 2 years and how can we maximize the value that we can serve that customer with over that period so that they don't want to go anywhere else, and there's no need for them to go anywhere else. Yeah, I love that.

And, um, that's why I think, yeah, like, I really respect the, respect the journey you've been on, because I feel like you're— even just listening back to our conversation 3 years ago, like, all of this is like, it was ringing true for you then, and now you're in an environment where you're building this business around all things that you've cared about for a long time. And I just really love how much you're championing this message of, like we're just talking about, doing absolutely you can to build a world-class experience. Whilst you're doing that, changing and really moving the needle on changing the perception of our industry. And whilst you're doing all these great things, you can also be really high performing. And absolutely, why can't you build a recruitment business around those values and principles and be really high performing and offer a great environment for recruiters to excel and advance their career without maybe sometimes going home and being like, not sure I, uh, delivered a good service today.

Yeah, and I think, um, I think what can often be overlooked, and as I said at the start of the conversation, our vision is to radically change the perception of how a recruitment agency serves its people, customers, and communities. And people is first, so our team will always come first. And I think that is not only my focus, but everyone's focus. We'll deliver phenomenal experience to our candidates and customers, but it's making sure we deliver phenomenal experiences to people internally as well. And kind of our ethos, our benefits package, how we look to incentivize people, as we've kind of touched upon there earlier. I think that's incredibly important. And I think I said to you the other week, I was interested that a lot of people I know went to interview at lots of different recruitment companies and still came back to me. Wanting to work for us. And I was interested in that. I was thinking, why is there no one where people is just really interested, really wanting to work for that business? So I think I want to be the Willy Wonka of recruitment. I want to create a business that is truly the best place to work, the best place. And that isn't just by paying people more. No, that's by, number one, the human side, being on that journey, growing lots of people's careers, development plans, but then giving them the internal benefits and support they need, infrastructure, tools, everything they need to thrive. And then also, from an external perspective, we give £750 a year for people to travel, wellbeing allowance, private medical, wellbeing days. We gave 5 figures this year to charity, or last year to charity, and to have a couple of volunteering days. Like, they're just truly be the best place to work in recruitment where someone can actually see a long-term career path within this industry is really important to me. So that's where the experience side as well.

Let's see where this, if Canon can become the Woody Wonka of recruitment.

It's a big claim and a random and silly claim.

I love it. But no, look, honestly, I kind of really mean it when I say So yeah, kudos to you on what you're building. And I just really, just, yeah, really like this framing of, um, I had Andrew on the other day, Andrew Sillerton. He, he spoke about this, and it is about, you know, you can have people really engaged and high performing. And that's what I really like about what you're saying. Everything you're talking about, it isn't just all in that direction of great place to work, paid really well, all these types of things. It's also, but you're also in the environment when we push out comfort zone, you're going to be performing as best as you can and the standards are going to be really high. So it's about, yeah, pushing the boundaries of both of those, being really engaged and high performing. And I think that's exactly what you're bringing to Add Some Zest. So I'm excited to see where we end up in another year, 2 years.

I'm glad. It's, uh, so it's interesting you say that, and I'll just leave with one final thing in regards to— I don't know if people are kind of football fans, but that's how I view putting a team together. And you see all these teams who just spend all this money on the best players but there's no identity there. They don't know who they're joining, like at Man United, which has got so many players, but there's no identity to the business. And that's how I view putting a team together. And I think it's really important to understand that you can be incredibly high-performing, but also deliver a phenomenal experience. And sports is a great example of how I view that kind of team analogy, the everyone fighting for their position every year, but everyone being truly the best the right place person within that team, rather than it kind of being just somewhere where, yeah, someone comes, works, and that's fine. There's got to be the capability, there's got to be the high standards there, and you can absolutely deliver a phenomenal experience and have both— get paid very well and have a long-term career in recruitment where you earn well over six figures and bloody enjoy what you do and feel really impactful in what you do.

And that's our goal. Love it. Callum, thanks for joining me on the pod. Thank you.