Adam Richardson - Being a serial entrepreneur, scaling and investing in your operations team!

Welcome to the Recruitment Rollercoaster Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz. Today I'm joined by Adam Richardson, who is the co-founder of Strive Sales. They are a software sales recruitment company that focus on the EMEA market. They're based in Manchester, currently have 10 people in the business, and have big plans for the future. Adam, thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

I mean, obviously I know you're in a WeWork, you're in a nice meeting room and I'm in a nice phone booth cupboard.

Yeah, well, I opted out of the phone booth today because, yeah, the weather's quite nice and I didn't fancy sitting there for an hour sweating my back out, so.

How have you found it being back in the office?

Well, me and Harrison pretty much for the majority of the lockdown just coming in, the two of us. Me sat at home was just getting zero work done and Harrison's like an absolute workhorse, so he wasn't happy being in the office on his own, so he dragged me in most days. But we were just doing reduced hours, but a few weeks off to start with and then got straight back in the mix. And yeah, pretty much the two of us have just been trying to graft our way through it.

And is it busy in the— because you're in— is it St. Peter's Square in Manchester? Is it that one?

We're in Dalton Place and it's been dead. It's still quiet now. There's one other business on the floor at the moment. A lot of people have given notice that we're out of contract. Yeah, quite a few of them. And then I think they're like trying to come back and renegotiate new deals. So it's quite quiet. There's not many people in the building.

Yeah, because I'm in a shared office space in an office group building and definitely the same, super quiet. Have you got any of those screens in the office around desks and that? Have you seen them?

Yeah, I saw them. I saw that on LinkedIn. I put a little cheeky comment, but like, battery farms are recruiting.

Yeah, I don't know. Obviously they're important, but I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sure if I'm a fan.

No, I mean, there's, you know, we've got, there's only a small team and some of the guys that are in our team are actually considered as high risk or have got high risk parents. So for the ones that we've come back, we just said, if you want to come in, come in. If you don't, you want to work from home, That's cool.

Yeah, cool. Well, look, Adam, where I always like to start on this podcast is how did Adam Richardson enter the world of recruitment? Let's start there.

Yeah, so I think it's like most recruiters. No one sort of, you know, sits down with a career advisor at school and says, you know, let's get into recruitment. I graduated from university, did a business degree, didn't really enjoy it, to be honest, but just, you know, got on with it and got it finished as quickly as I could. By the time I graduated, Harrison, I went to school with Harrison, he was living in Beetham Tower below the Neville brothers, so like third from the top, driving around in this white sports car convertible, earning like a load of money. And I was like, how have I come out of uni with a load of debt? Last time, you know, you were a bricklayer when I left you, and now he's like living there, so it was recruitment. So that's how I got introduced to recruitment. He introduced me to John and Alex at Liquid, First time round, they knocked me back. Had like 3, like, gruelling interviews where they just ripped me to shreds. And yeah, in the end of it, they said no. They said, go and get some sales experience and we might consider you. So I ended up working in a call centre for 9 months. Just literally on a dialler smashing phones out all day.

So what was you selling?

PPI, personal injury claims. So like, yeah, pretty much, you know, your ambulance chaser kind of roles. But it, you know, it gave me a lot of good sales skills to start off with. But yeah, rang them back after 3 months, they knocked me back again, rang them back after 6 months, they knocked me back again. And then John rang me after 9 months. By this point, I was like top performer in the office and I was managing a team. And he was like, right, you know, you're ready to come in. So they offered me a job, but you know, they had to then give me a higher base and guarantees and stuff. So it probably worked out for the best.

Love that. So demonstrating a bit of resilience before entering the world of recruitment.

Yeah.

I don't know why I didn't just apply somewhere else.

I just saw Harrison's car and thought, I need a piece of that. So yeah, I know, to be fair, like Alex and John, they did absolutely rinse me. And I thought, you know what, that's like brutal in the interviews, you know, the two guys that I definitely want to work for. And it all worked out in the end.

So just for context for everyone, so Harrison is now your— obviously that's obviously a long-lasting relationship, but he's your, um, the person that you started Strive Sales with. Right, just for context for people listening. And then John and Alex are actually two chaps that are actually obviously involved in your business as well.

Yeah, so me and Harris, we went to school together, we pretty much worked together our entire career. So we worked together with Liquid, with A to Z, and he came, he was involved with Insight, helped massively from a BD perspective, and then also from an internal recruitment perspective. And then when we started Strive as its own brand, that was very much Harrison's focus, to which I've sort of later parted ways with Insight to focus 100% on Strive. So I've pretty much, I've known him since I was 10, we're born a day apart, I'm definitely his mum's favourite son, and then yeah, Alex and John, you know, they gave me my first shot in recruitment, same with Harrison, they took Harrison on when he was 17, he offered to work for free, And then, yeah, 10 years later, they're now like investors in the business, directors, and helping us scale the business with plans to take it internationally.

Yeah, that's such an interesting, like, how it's all sort of come full circle. I think it's super interesting and we're going to dive into that. But just quickly, as we're talking about it, how much has it helped How much has it helped being in business with someone that no doubt you have a lot of trust in?

So trust, yeah, it helps. You know, I've been quite fortunate in my career. I've always worked with like great people, Harrison being one of them. Sean was great. He was always, you know, I never had any doubt of trust with Sean. But yes, with Harrison in particular, you know, I know he's there for the highs, and when things have gone horribly wrong, he's still sort of stayed true to himself and been there by my side. But I think having that relationship when you've been mates with someone, you know, we used to wag school together, that also means that, you know, it comes with its flaws. So we bicker like a married couple, but I know he's got my best interests at heart, and so have I. I love that.

So let's talk a bit about Liquid personnel. So saw Harrison's flashy car, wanted a piece of that. How— always interested, like, what was your recruitment experience like then at Liquid overall? Like, was it tough? Did you smash it straight away? What was the journey? Because how long was you at Liquid?

About 2 years or so. My experience at Liquid was great. I learned a lot. John was more sort of behind the scenes operational. Alex was very much the, you know, the guy on the sales floor, the sales leader. He was the one that trained me and sort of taught me the ropes, so to speak. So, from a learning perspective, I learned a lot. I had a lot of success quite quickly at Liquid. You know, I was doing deals within, I think, month 3, and then just really pushed on from there. I think just before I left, how I left Liquid was quite bizarre because I came off the back of 3 record months. I did a 6-placement month, all new placements, 9-placement month, all new placements, and then a 13, which was the record at the time.

Was this contract or permanent? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, contract. So I don't know if it is now. I got a promotion on the Monday, spent pretty much all day with my manager at the time, Dave and Alex, sort of business planning. Talking about my future and the next steps and growing this, growing Modesty even more. Met for lunch with Harrison on the Tuesday and then quit on the Friday. So Alex and Dave were fuming, um, like, yeah, they weren't happy.

Um, yeah, so just quickly on, on that, and then we'll talk about, um, you leaving and, and stuff. Um, obviously from what I— from the context I have from Liquid, was it— was that healthcare?

Or was it social work?

Social work.

They branched off into a lot more sort of broader across the sort of healthcare spectrum, but at the time it was just 100% contract social work. I looked after the Southwest, so from Gloucestershire to Hampshire over to Cornwall, and just focused on anything social work, so child protection and adult social care as well.

How big was the business by the time you left?

When I left, we— so when I started, we were above a takeaway on Princess Street. I think there was about 15 consultants, 20 consultants. And it was still like a bit of a boiler room. And, you know, it was great. And then we moved down the road to another, like, it was like the first proper office that they had. And I think I was only in there a few months and then I left. So I think when I left, it was probably about, including all the business support, back office team, probably about 40 people.

Okay, so just quick one before we move on. Why was it that Adam set records compared to others? Like, why did you achieve that?

I wouldn't profess to have been like, you know, some god's gift to recruitment because there was people in there that are out-billing me. I was up there, I think I had a bit of fluke, bit of luck, but the operation they had at Liquid enabled you to be really successful. The business support team was amazing, so I didn't have to do anything that didn't involve selling. We had our own, like, personal business support for each team. A girl called Helen, she pretty much did all of, like, my admin and anything that wasn't phone-based or selling, she did for us, which was great, which just allowed me to just spend all day on the phone and, you know, do my job. So I think it was, at the time, I was very young, driven, money hungry, and, you know, Alex could easily tap into what my drivers were. And I was really competitive. I just, when I started, I just, there was a guy that when I got no'd, they offered another guy And when I joined, I was like, who was it that you gave the jobs? He was like my first target. And I just picked up the consultants one by one. And that was it. So I was really, really, really competitive. And I was a cocky little shit at the time. So I think, yeah, a bit of, you know, drive, very driven, competitive. But I think the infrastructure that they had there allowed people to go in and focus on what they enjoy.

So they gave you the platform and tools.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a bit of a product of my environment a little bit, and then also just, I think, yeah, my natural competitive nature. I've got a very competitive and entrepreneurial group of friends, so we're always trying to outdo each other. So that, I think that helped.

What was the best piece of advice you received in those 2 years?

Advice? Struggle to think about advice. I think that, to sort of twist your question, in terms of influence and person that really like helped and mentored me was, yeah, it was Alex. I mean, I was quite fortunate. My manager at the time, my team manager, he was the top biller in the office. So like, in terms of setting an example, he worked his ass off. He was first in, last out every day. We had a great relationship. So I had that as an example to be working towards. And then Alex was just, he was relentless. And he didn't accept any form of mediocrity. So yeah, I mean the first 6 months of my job, I was just constantly in fear of losing it. Like I joined, I bought my first house like a few months in. I was like, Alex, I've just bought a house. Like am I going to pass my probation? He wouldn't tell me until the day, until 6 months in. Bearing in mind I'd like done everything he'd asked me to. So he always kept me on my toes. But it was, yeah, I think in terms of advice, I probably couldn't put my finger on something. But in terms of like having role models, mentors, and people that really set the example, Liquid was full of them. There was no one in there that didn't deserve a seat at the table.

Yeah, so the standards are really high and always encourage you to be the best version of yourself and nothing less.

When I joined, there was like a bit of a change of guard. There was like people that have been there for a few years and like as I joined, a few of them left. So like even like people that have been there from day one started to leave and like the new sort of fresh blood started to come through. So yeah, everyone in there was doing well. There was no one blanking any months. Everyone was hitting and smashing the targets. Pretty much every month for the first few years was like a record-breaking month for us in terms of revenue, new deals written up. So it was a great environment. So I really enjoyed it.

So then you left on the Friday, you and Harrison. Harrison obviously sold you the dream.

You know what, we went for lunch and he took me to his office and he'd gone like typical Harrison, he got like the swankiest office in Chancery Place, we were like rubbing shoulders.

So he'd left Liquid by this point, right?

He'd left, yeah, and like, you know, with all these like corporate lawyers. And I was like, what the fuck are you doing in there, mate, on your own? So that was it. And it was bizarre because, yeah, I went, I was speaking to my girlfriend at the time, I had this like weird dream all my teeth had fallen out the night before, which apparently means like you're worrying about money. And I just, I didn't think about it too much. I just thought, well, I'm young enough, I'm not married, I don't have any kids, I bought my first house, and the worst that can happen is I lose my house and have to move back into my dad's spare room. So I can deal with that at 22 or 23.

So just, so let's just frame it up. So let's see, so joined Harrison on his endeavours. What, so what did you, what, what is it that you and Harrison did? Because it was what, like 2 to 3 years, was it?

Something like that, yeah. So as I mentioned, before I got into recruitment, I worked in a call centre. One of the things that I did really well at in the call centre was that accident management. So if anyone had an accident, I was like really good at getting, you know, getting the claims and getting the hires and getting all that sorted out. Harrison had been introduced to someone who could basically connect us to that network. And I knew how to, I knew the pitch and I knew how to sell it. So I joined and we started off doing your RTA claims and then PPI claims and then debt management. And then the business really took off when we got introduced to a developer, random as anything, some like hippie based in Australia built this credit brokering platform which allows someone to go on a website, apply for a loan, and rather than have to apply for a loan for like 10 different banks, they just did one with us and we'd ping them off to say 20 lenders. As soon as they got a loan, we got commission. And it, it, there was no phones involved. It was all online. And like at a click of a button, you could just increase and decrease the amount of applications you got. So we got, we invested quite a bit of money into that platform with a developer we'd never met. And yeah, that's when the business really started to sort of take off in terms of like the money that we were making at the time.

Okay. Was that all ethical?

Yeah, yeah. All like fully regulated. So like for two pretty young lads, we were regulated by the MOJ, the FCA, all of them.

It has that stigma, doesn't it? Just like all that?

Yeah, yeah. So that was, I think it was, we, 'cause we had all of the licenses and regulation, that's actually what led to selling the business.

Okay, so that's how then that journey sort of ended, is you exited that or sold it?

Yeah, so we were one of the first brokers in the country to get the full FCA license. It was quite a long process. We invested a lot of money into a compliance company to help us get it. And when we got it, a lot of other companies were struggling to get the license, which meant they wouldn't have been able to trade past a certain point. So as soon as we got the license, pretty much all the big boys wanted to just buy the company so that they had the license so they could trade. So, sort of back end of 2014, early 2015, we sold it to one of the big players in the brokerage market.

And how long did that take you to do? How long did you do that for?

What, the sale?

Yeah, no, yeah, no, how long did it— how long did you have that business for?

Sorry, 2012 to 2015.

Okay, so just a quick one and then we can get back to recruitment. Like, as you said, Adam, 20, 22 years old, got a house, girlfriend, nothing to lose. Where did this sort of I guess, where did this sort of fearlessness come from in terms of—

huh? Fearless or stupidity? Yeah, I don't know, either.

Because like, no doubt you and Harrison would be like, what the fuck are we doing here? We have no idea what we're doing. We're winging it. You're making money, you're not making money, you're learning, you're investing. Like, where did that come from, do you think? Like, how did you navigate through that? Just, yeah, how— why was you so willing to take risks and be fearless?

I don't know. I think I'm either easily led by Harrison or there's something else going on. No, I mean, you know, my dad's always like been employed, always worked for someone, whereas my mum has been more of the entrepreneurial person. She's worked for herself since she was like 16. So I don't know, just saw my mum always like, you know, just not— yeah, winging it all of her career. And, you know, she did a good job of me and my brother and my sister. So maybe it came from that. But yeah, I'm pretty driven, money motivated, you know, I've always wanted more and more. And I also get quite— I get bored quite easily doing the same thing. So I know when I left Liquid, even though I was still on that like upwards curve, there was days where I started to get a bit bored doing the same thing. I always need to sort of challenge myself, which is a good thing, but it's also quite a bit of a downfall with myself. Sometimes, you know, start something and struggle to not always finish it.

Always looking for the next thing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, which is, I suppose, one of the, one of the, the reasons why I've had success, but also why some things haven't worked out, trying to sort of do too much. But I think over the years I've learned to say no.

So then obviously enter the world of recruitment again, right? So as you know, I had Sean on the podcast, so obviously, so just to frame up for everyone, um, so involved in Insight for a couple of years, and then obviously then, as you said, then focused on Strive Sales. Just to help me out, what was the time frame of that? Just, it just helps with context. So was involved a lot more with Insight for how long before Strive?

Yeah, yeah. So, um, me and Sean, we've been friends for years. He used to DJ at Sanky's. So everyone always asks, how did you meet? And expecting like some, you know, big grand career, you know, we used to dominate S3. Like, no, he used to DJ at Sanky's when I was at uni. I was good friends with his brother. Um, I think we'd had that many sort of drunken chats about setting up a recruitment company that it just eventually ended up happening. So we got together like back end of 2015 and set up Insight. Sean was leaving S3, he'd been there for like 15 years and they'd had a bit of a restructuring and, you know, one reason or another he took that as an opportunity to leave. So set up Insight from day one, Sean did perm, I did contract. And then, yeah, I was there for 4 years, left in October last year, officially, after 4 years. So from 2 of us in my old office in Stockport, where I had A to Z, to I think it was about 35, 40 full-time people when we, when I left.

So let's definitely, let's just talk about that for a second then. How, what, for you personally then, what was that? How did you deal with and cope with that transition of going from selling what you was to contract recruitment in tech, right?

Yeah.

How did you manage that?

It was a shock to the system. You know, I'd not recruited for 4 years. I'd not, I'd never recruited it. I dealt with developers because we had developers that did all the loan brokerage platform. So I had an understanding of developers. I didn't understand tech, so to speak, but just, yeah, we spent a few weeks just getting everything in order, CRMs, the company website, all that lot. And then when Sean got back from Barbados, he'd been away with his wife and his kids for a few weeks. We just got on the phones. He'd give us, he'd give me like a job spec that we pulled on off one of the job boards and said, right, start speaking to some people about that job. And there was a few, if I think about how I sort of learned about the tech, like, once you know how to recruit, you know how to recruit. It's like riding a bike. But how I learned the market, there was a couple of candidates very early on that I got quite pally with that lived near to me. And I just, yeah, just was like a sponge and about, If I came up against anything I didn't understand, I'd just ring them and I was always honest with them. Yeah. And I think, yeah, they just said, listen, I'm new to this market. This is what I'm about. You know, can you help me? And they were always like, they'd always take the time to help me out.

I think a lot of people underestimate how you like, that you can do that. Do you know what I mean? Because I think sometimes people can make the assumption or worry that, oh, they're going to think I'm not competent or they're not going to, do you know what I mean? So I think people sometimes underestimate sort of how willing people are to help and how much knowledge you can actually soak up from people?

Most people like to help. The ones that don't, you know, you're always going to get those people, but most people like the feeling of being more knowledgeable about something and being able to help. So I think it's a powerful word. You pick up the phone, I need your help, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to say no, Sodgy, you're on your own.

So what— how I'd like to just break this down a bit before we go on to Strive is just the sort of beginning part of Insight. Obviously I have a bit of context because I've sat down with Sean a while ago, but a lot of people listen to this podcast who maybe long term might be thinking about starting their own recruitment business or early on at the moment. What happened in that first year that you didn't expect?

Um, we grew quickly. We filled jobs. We moved into like amazing office space. We had like one of the best things of the first year was like the group of people that we actually ended up like with as our like founding team. We're all like just great people. I love going to work with them every day. I got on with every single one of them. I respected them all so much. Like the first Ibiza trip that we did with the guys was just like, that was staying with me for quite a while. Life. I think one of the, like, defining moments of the business, which really was, like, quite a big turning point, was when we did our first event. Because we— Sean was obviously always big into his events, you know, he had his own night at Sanky's and that was, like, his thing. So when we started looking at doing the events, it was definitely something that was playing to our strengths. And the first one that we did at Seven Brothers was just like, without blowing our own trumpets, we just smashed it for our first, considering we're a new agency, you know, we've not been going that long, you know, I think there's about 80, 90 people that turned up, the panel were amazing, no one had really been doing that in Manchester at that time, you know, we were one of the first to sort of do one of these kind of events, and off the back of the event, we did loads of business, you know, record-breaking fee off the back of one of the events, new clients signed, some great relationships, and I think that really sort of accelerated putting us on the map in Manchester, 'cause, you know, let's be frank, there's a lot of, you know, tech recruiting companies in Manchester, but that was a real turning point, and then from then on, just pushing on with events, and it, yeah, it was a real door opener for us.

Yeah, and I know Sean spoke a lot about that, and I think, just a quick one on that, I'd love to get your perspective of this, Adam, and then let me ask you one or two more things and we're going to Strive. Like, you know, when you say business, big, big fee off the back of it or whatever, like a lot of people listening or a lot of recruiters' perceptions will be, how? How can hosting or running an event make me money? So like, like, I mean, I obviously have my opinion, sort of the know-how from the conversations that I have, but Like, when you say that, like, how did that happen? Is it because you're able to call people and say, hey, got this event, start a relationship? Is it because at the event you then got someone's business card? I don't know, what, like, how did that actually generate? 'Cause we're talking marketing and return on investment here. So like, how did that actually happen?

So let's be frank, it's relevant now more than ever. If you're just going out there trying to make placements in this market and not trying to think about how you can add value to clients and candidates, that doesn't involve you making an immediate placement, you're gonna struggle. There's gonna be people out there that are gonna sort of really start to accelerate. So let's be frank, the whole purpose of the event was to market our brands, to build relationships with clients and candidates that would result in fees. But how we did it is we positioned it as we were giving clients a platform to promote themselves and their brand. And giving candidates an opportunity to meet with companies that they may not have been able to get a foot in the door just off the back of their CV, or, you know, that was the sort of the pitch. The placement that we did off the back of the first event was, it was planned out. One of my clients wanted to leave, so I said, well, we're hosting this event, let's get your name out in Manchester. And off the back of it, someone in the crowd said, I want to meet him. I wanna hire him. So it worked a treat, but the whole thought process and how we pitched it to our clients was, we're giving back to the community, we're creating a platform for businesses to promote their brand into the local community and talk about what they're doing and how, you know, they're a great place to work and exciting place to work and giving candidates an opportunity to meet with companies without any sort of formality of an interview or having to send their CV. And that was it. So trying to do something for nothing, which in the long term always, always benefited us.

Yeah, no, I like that. Okay.

And why that's relevant now is if you're just trying to go after fees now in this market and not trying to think about how can I add value to this client and offer them something that they need right now that's going to help them in their business, you're not going to build new relationships. And the relationships that you've got are probably going to start to see through that it's value-based relationship that you've been talking about is really just purely transactional.

And I think from the conversations I've been having, I think, sort of to link it back to the event and stuff, I think sometimes what recruiters forget is that the actual value, like, which is really significant that you bring to the table is actually being able to connect people, and that doesn't always mean for a fee, right? Like what you've done there, and you can, this is a big part of what's been going on now, loads of webinars, live events, these sorts of things, and that's because as a recruiter, what you're gonna be way more knowledgeable than any client or candidate is the market, and sort of how one business is dealing with things compared to another, and I think sometimes recruiters forget that one of the great pieces of value that you bring is actually being able to bring people that are having similar challenges or thinking about certain things to actually hear or learn or speak to other people that are in the same boat and being able to sort of connect those people, connect the dots, and enable your clients to learn from other hiring managers that are experiencing the same thing is really useful.

Yeah, we did a lot before the lockdown. We put a load of roundtable, like, webinar events on, people doing the same job in different businesses no agenda, an hour call, and just let them talk. And just sitting there as a sort of someone taking part, listening to the conversations, the challenges that they've got, we've then been able off the back of that to think about how we adjust our value proposition.

Exactly.

And off the events that we did at Insight, like, we knew of placements that had gone on behind the scenes that, you know, we didn't make a fee off, But where we got the value is, you know, how they met was at an Insight event, and when they were looking to recruit, oh, who was that event that we went to? That was great. Oh, it was Insight, we'll give them a call. So you started to get inbound calls off the back of them.

Love that. So, couple of things. The first thing, always get questions from people around, recruitment business owner questions around, Hiring.

Yeah.

So just quickly, when you was in Stockport, yeah, just you lot in obviously your old office, founding guys, what was the sell? Because a lot of people, I've had a lot of messages where when you're early on on that recruitment business journey, sometimes you can fall into the trap of being like, why would they want to work? Like, why would they want to join us? Or there's so many other bigger companies that they could join, etc. Like, I don't know, what was the story that you told these people early on?

I think more and more people now aren't as impressed by the huge, you know, bright lights of the large corporate. They want to feel like they're part of a journey. And that was always the sell. Get in now and be part of the journey. The opportunities are endless. You know, feel like part of something. Accelerate your career. In terms of, you know, start now, in 12 months' time you might be managing your own team because these are our plans to grow and where you see yourself fitting in with our growth. We were also quite fortunate that, you know, I'd employed a load of people from A to Z, Sean had a huge network, you know, he'd been at S3 for 15 years and anyone in it recruitment or in recruitment, they know who S3 is, they probably worked there, worked at one of the brands or know someone who has, So we're really fortunate that, you know, we had a huge network from that, and both me and Sean being from Manchester as well, and we had a sort of network to tap into straight away. So, you know, a lot of people knew of us, my success from my career, Sean's success at S3, you know, there was two sort of proven credible people at the front of it all. And yeah, we just tried to get people that were engaged and bought into our vision. 'Cause the reality is we were in an office, a Regus office in Stockport. It was a nice office and it served its purpose, but it wasn't anything compared to what you see now in Manchester with all the WeWork spaces and some of the recruitment businesses have got amazing, amazing places to work. But I think most importantly, if they bought into the leaders and the vision and see themselves as part of something, that's it. Some of the guys that work for us have gone off to set their own own companies up and, you know, that they're going through that same now. But I think if, if they're bought into what you, what you want to achieve and you, I don't think it really matters where you are or—

Yeah, yeah, I love that. So Strive then. Yeah, back teaming up with Harrison. Yeah, so just a bit of context, so how long has Strive been going now?

So, if I think now, started off officially back end of 2017. We started trading, I think, in January 2018, but when we started off, Harrison was focusing more on, like, entry-level salespeople, more like rec-to-rec and getting entry-level salespeople into sales roles. But yeah, early 2018, I think he started. When we officially started trading.

So it started there, but then it evolved into tech sales.

Yeah, so how it came about, two of our clients from Insight, we'd been placing developers, they said, you know, you find us the techies, can you find us someone to go out and sell? So one of my big clients in Huddersfield gave us a sales director role, and then another client of ours in Manchester gave us another sort of senior sales role, And rather than dilute what Insight was from a, like a technical recruitment business, we gave it to Harrison and he smashed both the roles in about 3 weeks. And both the fees for those 2 roles are like much higher than any of the fees we've done on Strive or the majority of them at Insight. And that sort of opened his eyes to think, right, you know what, I need to move up the food chain. And then he just, he started going after your more senior enterprise sales roles and that was it. Once he got a taste for it, and, you know, knew he could deliver. He did that, and he, in the 6 months that he did the enterprise stuff, he outbilled all the perm billers on Insight.

Really?

Yeah, so that was it then. He turned his nose up at the—

And then what was your position then, Adam, in Insight? Was it like, was you still on the tools? Was it like, I don't know, just to help me out. What was you doing?

Yeah. I pretty much stayed hands-on, like, mostly because I did contracts, a lot of the BD was like, started off with me booting the doors down trying to win contract jobs. And if I didn't win a contract job, I'd pass it over to Lee, who had up the perm stuff, and he'd deliver all the perm stuff. So a lot of the clients I was involved in some way or another, particularly all of our key accounts. So I was always very hands-on. Towards the end, I did, I didn't do any much resourcing. The clients would bring me with the jobs and I'd pass them to some of the contract team who would deliver to them. But towards the end, we really started ramping up recruitment and I focused on training them. So we started the Insight Academy and then for the last sort of few months or so, I was very much focusing on training and developing people that joined us. So yeah, towards the end, less hands-on from a resourcing perspective, still involved with clients. We do a lot of client meetings, but very much focused on trying to get people upskilled.

Okay, cool. So then you went full-time on Strive from October last year, you said, yeah?

Yeah, so I took a bit of time off with Insight, took a couple of months off, went sort of traveling, went around Europe and a bit of time in Ibiza, Mallorca, Barcelona, and enjoyed myself a little bit, and then came I came back in May, started helping Harrison really sort of get Scribe in a position where we could start to scale it, because at the time it was just a small team, all just very much focusing on billing. So I focused on like making sure we had the right CRM, getting all the processes in place, all the procedures, and getting the business in a position where we could start to scale it. Started focusing on hiring an ops manager, who could then really help sort of get the business ready for us to, yeah, really start pushing on. And then, yeah, we moved Strive into its own space, because this sort of became a bit of an us and them culture with Strive and Insight, because we're doing two very different markets. The fees on Strive was so much higher than Insight. There was, whilst everyone got on very well, it was very much an us and them kind of culture, atmosphere. So we decided to separate the two. And then, yeah, after like a few months of focus on that, I just decided that I wanted to focus 100% of my efforts with Strive. And me and Sean agreed a deal. And yeah, I parted ways with Insight and then focused 100% with Strive. Alex and John then joined us.

I was going to say, when did they join you for the final bit of like context?

So officially, we just like over the last couple of months officially like announced it and signed all the deals. There were, there was a lot of a lot of conversations that were going on for months, but in terms of us actually putting pen to paper, that's been quite a recent thing. But they've helped massively over the last few months in terms of, yeah, getting the business ready for, you know, and capable of then scaling. So we started talking with them, I think it was around January, January of last year, I think it was.

Okay. So let's break this down a bit. So what I'm definitely keen to go into, Adam, is the whole scaling part, because you mentioned that a couple of times on getting it ready to scale and these types of things.

Yeah.

And I'm sure you have some knowledge or aware, but the majority of the UK recruitment market is sub-10 staff, right? And whenever I've spoken to recruitment business owners that do scale and grow a profitable profitable recruitment business that goes beyond that, what I've always found is common is that they might be a, not that the headcount's always the best measurement, right? But let's just say I'm at 10, you're at 10 now. Like a lot of people that stay in around that and always get to 15, then back to 10 and sort of fluctuate, which is really common from the messages that I get and these types of things. It's been really common that those that scale and go beyond that actually have the mindset of where this is where we are now, but what we're implementing and what we're having in place and our mindset is that we're already 30-person company. So when you say getting ready for scaling, what does that actually mean? Like, what's actually involved, or what are the sort of key things that you've invested in, and no doubt John and Alex have helped you shape and put together, on getting you ready to scale?

Yeah, so if I think it's— so first and foremost, Alex and John, if you look at what they did from 2 to 140 full-time absolute dominant market leader in their space, over $100 million turnover, sold for a healthy sum, shall we say, and got their, what a lot of people call their fuck you money, kind of thing. So, the proven track record, and they've got the experience to do it. In terms of what we've been doing, is operationally, making sure that the business is ready to go, just everything from all the back office processes, procedures, the training, documentation. And, you know, Helen has been amazing. Like, since she's joined—

And who's Helen?

—the transformation of the business, you know, everything's got a place, everything's got a process, everything is organised, you know, the team know where they're at, they know, you know, everything just runs really, really well.

And who's Helen? Sorry, Adam, what's her job title?

Helen, she's our ops manager. And so she's been like an absolute game-changing hire for us. She's worked for John and Alex before. So that's what I've—

again, quite common, and you don't really hear often. How many recruitment businesses of 10 people, 8 people, sub-10 have an operations manager? Yeah. So why, if I'm listening right now, why should that be on my roadmap of hires? You said, like, just like this sort of real core cell of you need to get an operations manager sooner rather than later. Like, why is that important and why has that massively helped you?

So if you think, most small business owners wear a lot of hats, and that's like one of the downfalls and things that holds them back. They're trying to do too much. So the reason that we brought Helen on was because she's so good at the operational side. Like, her organisation, attention to detail is just like phenomenal. And taking that responsibility away from me and Harrison has allowed me and Harrison to focus on other areas of the business. So when she's joined, my then focus was recruitment, so spent 3 months to like solidly recruiting. We set the bar really high to hire 3 new trainee consultants, develop them, push them on, and then just before the pandemic, we were about to push the button again and start hiring in the business. Of the three, so that's why, you know, having someone of Helen's experience, you know, was probably a bit premature for where the business was, but how much that's helped the business has been like, I can't even describe it.

So when we say, so like, just to make it really clear for people, 'cause I think this is the part of that, like, as you just said, a bit premature, but it's not premature if you know where you're going or what the intentions are, right? So when we say, so obviously, as you're saying, it's enabled you to just focus on the parts that you're good at, you and Harrison, your strengths, recruitment, selling, winning clients, revenue generating activities. Yeah. So are we talking, she's helped you with, what is a typical thing that she'll help with? Is it like terms of business?

Is it like— Anything that's not sales related. Okay. Anything that doesn't involve picking up the phone or delivering to a job, or like, I suppose internal recruitment. She's helped with internal recruitment in terms of the process and our approach. But in terms of actually doing it, but anything else is Helen, Helen deals with it. I have to ask Helen more about Strive than the guys ask me. Yeah, she's literally got the business in a position where it's ready to scale. The next key hire we were just started looking at, we'd actually found someone who was an internal recruiter to come in full-time and focus purely on recruitment, but I suppose from a, we missed the target that we wanted to hit financially, which sort of set us back a little bit to think, you know, maybe this is just that little bit too premature. And then obviously the pandemic hit, but that was the next key hire that we were going to focus on, was having someone focusing 100% on internal recruitment so that I could then continue focusing on sales and development of people, because the recruitment piece just took up all my time. The internal recruitment piece? Yeah. We'd obviously hired the people, but those game-changing hires, you know, so many people after we hired Helen, so many people that had like worked for me and gone and set up on their own, or like Sean as well, and to say like, you know, what's the situation with Helen? Like, it's, you know, it's a big hire and there's only like 6 of you. And yeah, it was a big, like, I'd recommend it to anyone.

[Speaker] Yeah, 'cause it's the, you're hiring Helen and she's not going to make you money, But she is. Do you get what I mean? On the face of it, it's like, Adam, why are you hiring that person? Because like, they don't generate any revenue. But actually they do because it enables you to— it's about viewing your time, what's most valuable for you to spend time on.

And let's be frank, she's better at that than— what she does, she's 10 times better at it than I am. Okay. Does the job better. Someone's going to try and poach her off the back of this.

No, I do, I just think that's really interesting because that ties into the whole premature thinking where you want to be in the highs that are going to enable you to do that rather than now we'll get someone in like Helen when we're at 20 people, don't really need them now, do you know what I mean?

So that was one of the, I think one of the, our biggest weaknesses at Insight was not having that person. We've grown quick, um, but I think where the business fell down was the fact that it was a bit like organised chaos. And I think if we had someone like Helen in place there, yeah, we could have achieved a lot more. And that's the thing, if you are planning to grow and scale your business, don't put that off, get that in sooner and it'll enable you to grow.

So what I'd be really keen to talk about, because I feel like it would have impacted a lot of things like influencing your culture, sort of your mindset, the decisions that you've made. But, so John and Alex getting involved in the business. Yeah. I'm sure you would have had your own opinion before. Obviously, it's great that, obviously, you knew them before you got to that stage. But the typical, from what I've gathered from speaking to recruiters on this podcast and through what I do and stuff, the typical perception of someone that can invest in Adam Richson and Harrison, the recruitment entrepreneurs, is that if you go down that route, that they're going to own your business and they might take complete control. Or there's just— from what I can see, there isn't the best reputation around people that invest in recruit— in recruiters start their own business, from what I can see. So I guess why don't we just talk a bit about that? Because I don't know what your perception was before, if that was— if you had any of that, I'm not sure, they'll take over then we won't have any, I don't know. But like, what has it actually been like having, yeah, two people that have walked the walk, um, that have actually invested in your— in the recruitment business?

Yeah, so after leaving Liquid and never had any form of external help, uh, investment, anything, me and Harrison pretty much just did it all ourselves. And it never really crossed our mind to get investment or some— not necessarily investment, but external people in to help us grow the business. And when we was speaking with Alex and John, it wasn't like a financial thing. It was more about what they bring to the table. In terms of fear of someone taking over your business, then surely like that comes down to the commercial agreement that you have in place, whether they're in a position to do that. And if the kind of people you're bringing into the business, you've got worry of them doing that, then they're probably not the right kind of people you want involved. But having someone like John and Alex on board is just— it's been great. It's been a completely big change to how we work. You know, Alex and John hold me and Harrison accountable. They're not our bosses, but then they won't shy away for say, listen, you need to pull your finger out, or you're not doing this right, or you said—

And how does that work, Adam? Because I think that's one of the most— that's one of the— I feel like you said that first. I feel like that's one of the big benefits, right? So how does that actually work? Is that the— you have like a quarterly board meeting and you're like, right guys, this is where we're at, these are our goals for the next quarter, whatever. And then you obviously openly communicate, this is where you're at, this is where you want to go. And if you don't hit those certain things, they're going, what's going on? Why haven't you done it? Blah blah blah. Like, how does that actually work, that accountability?

Yeah, so we meet weekly. Weekly management meeting where we discuss all the sort of ongoing sort of day-to-day stuff. We've got monthly board meetings, quarterly, like, business reviews kind of thing. So we meet regularly. John and Alex are on the end of the phone every day if they want to be. They're not like, they don't micromanage, they're not breathing down our necks. They're there purely as a support framework. That's it. You know, they have a share in the business, they're directors in the business, they have, you know, it's in their interest that we do well. But they're not— I think if you've got an ego and you can't see yourself having to answer to anyone, then you might have a problem. But if you can set your ego aside and think, you know what, if Alex gives me a bollocking, or not a bollocking, but says, like, calls me out, he's doing that to help us both. And we've got to have that situation. He's called me out on something saying, Adam, you said you'd do that before. You've not, and same with Harrison, and he can be pretty heavy-handed at times, but it's in all of us.

That's part of it, yeah. So accountability, what else have they had a big impact on?

So their experience, you know, the lessons they've learned from, and, you know, said, you know, this is what happened to us and this is why we changed, and the same from my experience with Insight, lessons that I've learned from there, so their experience. Also like confidence, like You know, I was really proud of what I did with Insight, with Sean, but also like having someone like John and Alex in your corner just really gives you that sort of confidence to sort of really know that you can push on and achieve what a lot of people set out to achieve. You know, they've got these big plans of an international recruitment business, but like you said, most of them are sub-10. Having someone like John and Alex in your corner gives you that confidence to do it. And it's also given us a bit of flexibility and knowing that we've got the resources financially if we wanted to be really ambitious or we face really tough times, it's sort of nice to have that as a sort of safety blanket as well. But I think we're really lucky, we were like, John and Alex pretty much shaped both mine and Harrison's very early careers, like they've had so much of an influence on us from so such an early stage, we're so fortunate to be in the position where we are now, where they're now helping us, you know, 10 years down the line, whereas I know a lot of relationships with investors isn't always like that.

Isn't always like that, yeah.

So I think our situation's quite unique.

Yeah, I think the confidence piece is really interesting because that can filter into so many positive things, can't it, as a recruitment business owner?

If you're bringing in— it depends what your reason is for bringing in you know, someone like John and Alex on board, you know, you're doing it because they add value from their experience, or you're just doing it because you need the money, you probably need to reconsider, you know, am I prepared to give up my share in the business and having complete control for the sake of a cash injection that I need or something along those lines? I think you need to think about your why. And if you don't need to get someone external and you've got other ways of, raising capital or whatever it is, you should consider them. But having John and Alex on board is, is great. And anyone that's looking to start up or they've already started up and feel like they've plateaued and they want to push on, I can't recommend both of them enough.

So just a couple of things on this then before I ask you the last couple of questions. What I'd love for you to just sort of do some key points on. So you've said around the hiring of Helen, the operations person. What other things do you think, what other decisions have you made or things that you've actioned do you think wouldn't have happened if John and Alex weren't involved?

One of the things that Alex and John got really renowned for was their training program at Liquid. They won awards for it. And one of the things I did a lot of inside was training, but it wasn't as strong structured and formalised. So one of the first things that we put together was, well, first of all was our recruitment process. We absolutely nailed our recruitment process.

We're talking when you're dealing with clients and candidates or internal? No, internal recruitment.

Okay. So yeah, first one was our internal recruitment process to make sure that we really set the barrier really high. I mean, I interviewed 100 people to get to hire one.

Wow. So the first— Great use of my time. Yeah, so the first thing is— Really. If they hadn't got involved, that would have continued?

I would have continued hiring the way that we hired at Insight, and whilst we had some amazing people, there was a few bad ones that slipped through the net.

It's what you said, it's just, it's actually having a process. It's actually that you wouldn't have put in a process, you would have just kept being reactive or doing what you do. So the first thing is the internal recruitment process, that's interesting. What else? And training and development.

We literally are— our training and development is great considering the size of the business and the maturity of the business where we're at. The training and development program that we've got, and ask the guys what their experience has been like, you know, Ed, who's worked at another recruitment business before, the rec-to-recs that have seen it, and it's really good and genuinely delivers on the promises that I know a lot of recruitment agencies promise consultants when they join that you'll get trained and developed and supported, I know that, you know, genuinely I'm delivering on those promises. So to give you an idea, all the 3 that we hired at the back end of last year had had some sort of recruitment experience, but it wasn't like 360 kind of recruitment. So they all came in as trainees and all, you know, all hit the— all smashed the— passed the probation, all hit the first promotion and have all smashed the revenue targets in their first 6 months in the job. Okay. Which, you know, they've all been given the tools and the skills to, to do it. So first thing was recruitment process, second thing was our training and development.

And again, making that a process and actually making that more official compared to— okay, so just a quick one on that, Adam. You said considering our size or whatever, and that's my question really, because if I'm in a small business like, how much training and development can I actually deliver? Because I think that's where sometimes people think that they can't, they, they can't— like, how can I make that into a proper training development program? Like, they sit next to me, they listen to me, do you know what I mean? So like, how can you offer development to someone who's in a business of the size of yours? Like, what does that actually look like?

So let's be honest, like, the, the The sitting next to someone, listening, and just getting that, soaking up the atmosphere is one of the best ways to learn. You know, just chucking someone in the deep end, they'll either sink or swim. But people have different learning styles. You know, some prefer classrooms, some prefer one-on-one coaching, some people prefer constant feedback. So when Helen joined, because of her ability to sort of just take something and process it— Systemize it, yeah. Yeah, systemize it, operationalize it, whatever you want to call it. I just sat with Helen for a few weeks just going through, taking out how we recruit, mapping it out, and thinking about how I would train every single aspect of the recruitment lifecycle, putting videos, call recordings, training pro— scripts, absolutely everything you could think of, call coaching sessions, role plays, just everything that they would need to do so that by the end of the program they can recruit and they've got something to refer back to. Alex had a huge impact. Impact in that, in terms of him helping scripting a lot of the stuff.

How long's the program?

For them to— it probably took us the first 3 months before they were all like sort of self-sufficient, where you could give one of the guys a role and say, right, here's a job, you know the brief, you're on the call with the client, follow the process, and at the end of it, you'll have some commission due. Love that.

So again, we're talking about, again, this, these are the types of things that now you've done that, where you're at, get, get to the 30 stage or hire 5 people, you know exactly what they need to go through. Whereas typically, yeah, okay.

Alex said something to me, he said the people run the process, the process runs the business. And that was it. Wait, say that again. The people run the process, the process runs the business. So if, if I say to one of the guys, where you at with the job? That they're working on, like get an update on where they're at with some of the roles they're working. I just say, where are you at in the process? And they'll say, I've done this, done that, done that, and I'm here now. And they'll know that by the time they get to the end of it, they should, they should have multiple interviews on the job and it should be boxed up.

Love that, mate. So we're talking a bit of like a 12-week program for them to be sort of close to being self-sufficient, but to work through all that content. And no doubt it's sort of ongoing. But yeah, so the next part of that then that I'm interested in, Alan, to get your thoughts on is then, so I join your business, got this great training program, um, great. As you all know, one of the sort of main key motivators for a lot of people is development, um, and making sure that I don't feel like I'm plateauing or whatever. So how, how have you, as a small recruitment business owner that's growing, how can you offer that to me? Like, how have you then processed or structured that? Is it just done on billings and promotions, or like, how have you then ensured that not only have you trained these people well, but you've then got a clear career development path?

Yeah, so to be frank with Strive, it's still early days, you know, none of the guys are really at that point where they're starting to like massively push on in terms of their role diversifying, they're still in the first 12 months as a recruitment consultant kind of role, but in terms of how we promote, it's based on revenue and then like values, so if they've got the skills and capability to do the next part of the role, whether it's the business development, account management, or leadership. Values, you know, do they demonstrate the values that we have? And what are the other things? You put me on the spot here, but yeah, it's a combination of, you know, performance and behaviours and attitude.

But have you mapped— I guess what I'm just trying to ask you, just because I'm interested, is like, have you actually mapped out like Because again, I feel like smaller businesses— yeah, do you get what I mean? Because I feel like again, smaller businesses don't typically do that.

Yeah, yeah. So we map that out from literally coming in as an associate right the way through to the, um, like VP of Sales, Sales Director within the business. So we give that to the rec-to-recs, um, or anyone that we approach directly, and we'll talk them through all of the different stages from associate to Yeah, basically running the office.

Do you think you would have done that if you didn't have John and Alex involved?

They pushed it. We had it inside. Had it in mind. Yeah, Sean drove it a bit more. So at the end of every year, so the end of every quarter or every 6 months, we would always do like a vision meeting where we would put up an organogram of the business and where the new roles are emerging because of our growth and how a new management role or a new division or a new market had appeared because of what the progress that we'd made. So it's something that we always did and Sean always did that really well and we always found that off the back of those meetings, people, it'd given people a new lease of life because they'd say, oh, I want to do that. So you knew that was important? Yeah, but I'd say it definitely wasn't on my radar to do that within the first 12 months, but it was something that we used to help attract people. So again, this is—

yeah, this is about— yeah, that's why I was just keen to get into that because I think again, anyone that listens that in a smaller business, it's like that. You again, it's that, it's that like you want to think long term again and think this is where we are, but we're going to be here. And that's so important.

Having that sort of big, bigger picture mentality and not just focusing on what's in front of you, which I think me and Harrison did a lot of when we were younger. We were just making money, not thinking about anything long term. We're just thinking about how much can we make this month and how much can we go and spanner at the weekend. Now we're thinking a bit more about, right, longer term.

Okay, so before we finish then, let's acknowledge the last 12 weeks, last 3-4 months. I mean, leading up to that, I don't know, like, has it been— has that been the most— the biggest challenge so far since full-time on Strive, going through the last 12-16 weeks?

There's two sides of it. From a work perspective, it's been tough. And like, I'm not the most disciplined person. You know, you go on about like recruit leaders having all this mindset, like I'm not that person. That's Harrison. Like, he's in the gym at 5 every day. So keeping yourself absolutely focused is not something I'm super, sort of, super strong at. But work-wise, it's been really tough just because of, you know, it's been tough BDMing and trying to win business in a market that we're in now. From a personal perspective, I don't want this to be insensitive because a lot of people haven't, well, have sort of really struggled during the last few months, but it's been great. I've loved it. I've been gifted time, so been able to spend time in the garden, exercising, doing what I want to do. So it's been a bit of a sort of bittersweet. Work's been a bit crap. Having to furlough everyone and, you know, it's setting us back in terms of— because we're on a really good— we're on a good— we had some really good momentum. But from a personal perspective, I've really— I think it's been a bit of a blessing in disguise for a lot of people.

What's been the most difficult decision you've had to make so far then?

During the last 12 weeks? Honestly, I've not we've not had to make any difficult decisions from a business perspective. When— so just before the lockdown, I came back in on the Monday, we worked on the Monday, on the Tuesday we came in and it started to get like— it took a turn and I think people started to realise how serious it was. All of our jobs were literally getting pulled, pulled, pulled, and it was a bit of a realisation. So the office next door had sent everyone home, so we pulled everyone in the meeting and said, listen guys, we're taking the decision, if you want to work from home from now, you can. And then they put everyone in lockdown on the Thursday. So we did that, but we made a pledge to everyone that we were going to do everything we can to make sure that no one loses their jobs. We cut all of our costs back, we negotiated good deals with our suppliers, me and Harrison cut our wages back, and we did everything, you know, to secure everyone's roles. So I've not had to make any difficult decisions because of the pandemic, touch wood. So we've not had to do anything like that yet.

And then how, because I think a lot of people found, obviously have ended up at HandsOn Focus on business development. Yeah. What's your journey been like with that? I know when we spoke a couple of weeks back that, yeah, I remember because at the beginning it was like, yeah, I'm literally being told like, Adam, how are you calling me about hiring? 'Like, how are you doing that?' So like, I'm sure that's changed now because I think we've been through that journey in the last 12 weeks, haven't we? Where it's been like, 'Adam, why are you calling me and talking to me about recruitment, full stop?' So now it's like, okay, just way more acceptance and understand this is a long thing, we're in for a while. So I guess, what— how have you navigated through that on the business development standpoint? Because I think a lot of people can relate to that and get sort of value from that.

The first— so the last few weeks of March, we pretty much just took it off. I didn't do anything. We all just like just chilled out, took stock, and then got back in around the first week in April. First week, I was just ambulance chasing, just hunting for jobs. And someone said to me, this ambulance chasing approach, Adam, is not going to work. We're not hiring. And when they said that, me and Harrison sat down, I was like, mate, we're wasting our time. Go— because all of our clients had stopped recruiting, so we had to find new clients. So bringing a new client cold— yeah, for jobs in a flipping health pandemic, we were pissing in the wind. So that's when we decided to do the webinars, and every single call from there, I'm not calling about recruitment, I can help you. And then 6 weeks of that, we started to build relationships with new people and some of those clients now have started to give us work and started having conversations about working together. So we just changed the conversation that we were having, but it took about a week for us to realize that. And now for the last 3 weeks, we've started to see, you know, conversations, jobs coming through, and I suppose light at the end of the tunnel. But yeah, it was— yeah. We just changed the copy. Yeah, if you've spent the last few months reading about jobs and you're still, you know, you've not thrown yourself off a bridge, fair play to you. Because I was at the end of my tether after a week.

Yeah, I can imagine. So look, you've been in the game for a while, like, and obviously access to, obviously John and Alex have been in the industry for a while as well. What does the future look like for you? How are you thinking about the future of Strive? I've spoken to a lot of people around obviously the whole flexible working piece and sort of that's going to change, but I don't know, what does the sort of future or what are the things are you thinking about sort of going into the next sort of quarter and beyond?

So at the moment, like, we've We've refocused our short-term goals just to sort of try and get us through this period. The long-term goals stayed the same. In terms of changes in how we work, at the moment we've reduced the hours that we're working slightly just so that we're not burning ourselves out. But in terms of how we think things will change, I think the people have a lot more flexibility because it's proven that people working from home works.

So what side of the fence was you before?

I was always— get in the office. Harrison's old school, like Wall Street boiler room, you know, in the office.

Yeah, militant.

And I'm the opposite. So like, you know, he'd still be in a three-piece suit if he had it, um, whereas I'm, I'm the opposite. So I was always a bit more liberal, shall we say.

Fair enough. Okay, because I think that's going to be interesting, isn't it?

Yeah, I think because Harrison's so far one side and I'm so far the other, we always end up somewhere in the middle. The guys get treated like grown-ups. We'd always treat anyone that come in like grown-ups. You know, if someone wants to work from home and they've got a genuine reason for it, then yeah, go for it. If you can't trust people to do stuff like that, then why have you hired them in the first place? And if they've broken that trust, then they probably shouldn't still be in the business.

Yeah, no, I think that's going to be interesting because I think, I think it's just going to make recruitment businesses just evolve differently or open up to the type of people that they can potentially hire. I think it's just going to change a lot, isn't it? And I think if you're a recruitment business that still wants people in 5 days a week in the office, blah, blah, blah, I think you'll be missing out on a lot of people because now the— before it was a nice to have Before it was like, look, Adam, what's your view on flexible working? Is that something that Strive does? Blah, blah, blah. But now, if you would just go like, no, we don't do that, there's gonna be a lot more businesses that now have that as part of their standards.

The company next door to us, they were at the end of their lease and they've got a new office that they're moving into. They've scrapped the office and everyone's working from home now. Really? So I know you've seen like the big Twitter and all that lot, you know, the big, big tech companies. But, you know, a small 20, 30 people office next door to us, they've done it. So I think it's going to be, you know, the norm. But I also think that the amount of remote working and people having to work from home in isolation has also took the shine off it. A lot of people are excited to get back in the office. Yeah, I definitely was. So yeah, agreed. Yeah, I did nothing at home. I didn't— honestly, I do an hour's work and then I go and sit in the garage and play with my bikes for a couple of hours or, you know, just sit and talk to the cat.

Be distracted, yeah.

To me, it's like home. If I can't do it and it's my own business, then— it's one of those. It's not for everyone, is it?

Yeah, I guess. Yeah. So last couple of things before I ask you the final question, Adam. Yeah. What's helped you, like, resilience during this period? Would have been one of the most important things, right? Yeah. What's helped you sort of weather the storm and the roller coaster over the last couple of weeks? What's helped you personally, like, get through it?

Yeah, so one of the things that you'd sort of said before that was around mindset, like, I'm not the mindset kind of, you know, poster boy. That's Harrison. He's the guy that's gonna, you know, militant with his diet, his exercise routine, his, you know, all that kind of thing. But, um, you know, I'm quite a resilient person But normally when things go sort of tits up, I go into self-destruct. Just go and have a skim full somewhere, but then Harrison has to sort me out. But what's got me through the last few months or so is, yeah, we've got a clear vision that we want to achieve as a business, but from a personal standpoint, I think there's nothing revolutionary here. It's just a lot of exercise. Like, I'm massively into my biking. Motorbiking, push biking. I've just, yeah, just kept myself fit and that's what's got me through it. And then from a work perspective, having him breathing down my neck saying, why aren't you in the office?

Nice, fair enough. Okay, what are you most excited about post-COVID, mate? Pubs. Very soon.

Honestly, So I'd never want to sort of wish bad on anyone, but I think this whole pandemic is going to see a lot of shit leave the market. From a recruitment perspective, a lot of bad recruiters are going to try and find an easier way to make a living. So it's going to be better for clients because they're not going to be dealing with poor levels of service from recruiters, and there's going to be more opportunity for those that survive. So like Churchill said, if you're going through hell, keep going. And I'm hoping that we keep going through this and we're gonna come out the other side, there'll be less people in the market and when we get the bounce back, there'll be more opportunity. So I think that, yeah, if you can survive this and you can work through this, then I don't think there's gonna be much that can test you in a commercial sense.

Okay, final question. Yeah. If Adam could communicate to every single recruiter out there, could be a business owner, recruiter, they'd listen to your advice, they'd take it on, it could be a phrase, a sentence, a word, what would you say to the people?

Right, I wish you'd have prepped me on this one, mate. I think if you're starting out in recruitment, then, you know, recruitment's a long-term thing. A lot of people come out of university and they see recruitment as a get-rich-quick scheme. It's not. Like you did. You know, it takes a while. One of the One of the examples that Sean always gave when we were hiring new people is when he started S3, it took him 6 months to do his first placement, and the second 6 months he was, you know, he did really well. So you've got to really think about, you know, this is like a 3, 4, 5 year plan if you really want to sort of smash it in recruitment from an earning potential. So don't think this is going to be a quick win and think about the long term. Everything that you're doing day to day is going to ultimately pay dividends. So yeah, you know, just keep, you know, think about, think about the long term and don't think this is going to be a short-term fix. Make sure that you've got some real goals that you're working towards. I think if you've got something that you're working towards, it makes the day-to-day a lot more bearable. If I think about times when I've been disengaged and couldn't really be bothered with work because I wasn't really working towards anything, I like to, like, if I put myself under pressure, like stretch myself financially or whatever it is, I work better. So, you know, put yourself under pressure and have clear goals. And if you're thinking about starting up your own recruitment company, give it a go.

Give it a go. Love that. Adam, it's been an absolute pleasure, mate. No worries. Thank you.