Alex Elliot's 10 Harsh Truths About Recruitment

Alex, welcome back to the podcast.

Amazing, it's been ages. I've never actually done this with you in person either.

No, we did the live podcast event, but we did the episode remotely, didn't we?

We did.

So to give everyone straight away, like, if they don't know who you are, let's give them the highlight reel because I think it's important because there's a lot that we can learn from you. So let me know if I get any of this wrong. You co-founded a business called Liquid Personnel, 2006. You successfully exited that company in 2016. 10-year journey in total. By the time you exited that, it was 140 heads, $100 million revenue, $11 million net fee income, and $4 million EBITDA. Along the way, won loads of awards, which I know you're proud of. Successfully exited to a private equity firm, 8-figure exit. And since then, You've been an investor advisor to the rec space. You've been involved in recruitment companies, one I know well, Strive. And then you're also actively investing in rec tech. And I know you're about to officially launch, by the time this goes out, it'll be out, your advisory practice.

Nailed it.

There we go.

Absolutely nailed it.

Now with what we're going to go through today, I would say I speak to a lot of people in our industry, and for the people that do know you, see your content on LinkedIn, I think they talk about in a positive way. Most people say to me that, uh, they really enjoy your posts, they cut through the noise. And we thought it'd be fun to go through some of your most engaged with posts. Some on sort of folks speaking to the recruiter, some focus speaking to a leader, and we're just going to get a bit more meat to the bone. Why did you end up posting these things? Why do you believe these things? So hopefully it can help people even further.

Love it. I'm glad we're going for some of my more popular posts. I've had some pretty unpopular ones as well. I ended up on, what's that thing called? LinkedIn Lunatics once a couple of years back.

Oh really?

That was fun. I think that was an interesting experience. I was called, what was I called? One guy, my favourites were, one guy said, if this guy's not, he might, I don't know whether he's a maniac, but he's definitely an asshole. And the other one which I really liked was, what was it? This is why we kicked the Brits out of America. They were two of my favourites from my infamy on LinkedIn Lunatics. So yeah, it's good that we're looking at the good stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's kick this off then. And there's a few with this sort of theme. So I'm interested to sort of get your take. I know you speak to a lot of founders. You were actively involved in the business for a good amount of time that was growing like Strive. So you would have seen this there, and I'm sure you've seen it now when you speak to founders. But let's start with this. You said here, like, recruitment is a really, really tough job, especially for the first 12 months. I definitely experienced that. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. The only challenge is that tunnel is curved and you might not be able to see in advance where the light is. Talk to us what you mean by this, because I think you said here around, like, that normally leads to a lot of recruiters giving up too early. And a big part of this podcast is trying to make that light more visible to people and understand what they're going through is normal. So talk to me about this, because I'm sure, like, where did this come from? Have you just seen so many people that you felt, you know what, they have potential if they kept going, there's on the cusp? Where did this come from?

I think, um, there's probably a couple of bits to where it came from. So I think my own personal experience is a starting point. I think recruitment isn't rocket science, and lots of people say recruitment is a simple job, and I agree with that. Once you know what you're doing, a simple job. But I think early on, especially if you're new to the industry, you're trying to understand a fair bit and how all of the different aspects of what you're doing from a sales process perspective fit together. And I remember for me, it's like your neural pathways, they suddenly just click. And people talk about, I've spoken to people in the past and they've spoken about that click moment. And I think sometimes it just does suddenly click and everything fits together and you go, oh, right. So X, Y, Z, da, da, da. So I think there is an element of that, but I think just as importantly, the first 12 months is brutal and you are building typically something pretty much from scratch. And therefore it's very difficult to understand or have any foresight with regards to what's— when the success is going to start coming and it's going to start sucking less. And I think a lot of that is about, about managing expectations or having your own expectations managed. I think it's about having a really effective hiring process to ensure you're hiring people who are genuinely committed to the journey they're about to go through. I think there's a big difference between intellectually knowing something and being emotionally prepared for it and the reality of that. And then it's supporting and over-communicating that process with recruiters when they come into the industry. What's the percentage of recruiters that quit within the first or leave within the first 12 months?

That's a lot, yeah.

I don't know. They, you know, Some statistics suggest 60-70% of recruiters don't make it 12 months, and 40% leave the industry within 2 or 3 years again. So I think it's really interesting, and I think it's, it's, um, it's a challenging journey. So you have to sort of be mindful of that.

There's a lot that goes into it, right? Because I do think as an employer, it's really your responsibility to, like you said, manage expectations, hire the right person, But let's say I did do all those things right as an individual. What are some of the things that might be helpful for me to, to do that can help me understand or really grasp, like, how far away that light is? I think that, that sometimes it's just hard to see because I might be listening to this and I'm in the trenches of it right now, and Alex, my manager, keeps saying to me, like, I've been where you are, keep doing what you're doing, it's going to pay off. But like, it is sometimes just so hard to like really feel like you're actually going to get the reward for your hard work. It's hard, isn't it?

Clarity of task. So there's a term clarity of task, and what that refers to is if I do A, B, C, that gets me to D. If I do E, F, G, that gets me to H. Or you're going to have to test whether I can actually like, whether I can actually keep going here. So maybe I should stop before I make an embarrassment. But yeah, it's clarity of task. So I think if you could provide someone with clarity of task, what you can effectively do is say, look, this is where you're looking to get to. This is the end goal. Let's reverse engineer back from that and talk you through the process you have to get through, go through to get here. And I think it's been shown that that's one of the most motivating things you can do for an individual is give them clarity of task. So all of a sudden, you're not just doing stuff. And I think that's again, one of the problems from a motivation and engagement perspective in that first 12 months, you go into recruitment, you're drinking from the fire hose. You don't really know what you're doing, even if you're getting supported well, it just feels like you're doing stuff. Whereas if you can actually get a golden thread to it from results of what I need to do to stay in this job, be successful, etc., etc., in X period of time, work your way backwards, understand the volume you have to do, understand the quality that you have to do from a conversion ratio perspective when you think about sales funnels. And then all of a sudden the person has, has an understanding. It's not just about hit KPIs. It's not just about do the numbers. It's actually like, this is the reason why you, you know, based upon what you're looking to achieve, let's work backwards from that, figure out the volume, figure out the conversion ratios we're looking to achieve. When those things aren't working, we dive into it. We use that as an opportunity to learn and develop and optimize our way of working, et cetera, et cetera. That becomes really motivating, I think, for new starters rather than just doing stuff.

Yeah, I really like that. I, I definitely didn't have that. I know so many people won't have that clarity of task. That, that is such a good breakdown on that. And I think, and this will ring true throughout your career, what ends up happening— I was just thinking about last night when I was building a course with a high-performing contract recruiter. He was like, he, he figured out what those inputs are, the ratios are, and that's all he focuses on versus really being hung up on the outcome of getting my weekly GP to 15K or whatever. Like I think that's the other thing that you need to really try and remember is like, don't be so focused on that outcome or getting that first deal or these things is being really dialled in on what you just said there.

Control the controllables.

Yeah.

We all know that saying, right? But when you actually think about it again from a data management perspective, you've got results. Results are unmanageable. You can't manage the results. Working back from results, which is say, let's say a billing number, you've got objectives and your objectives might be number of interviews. Number of candidates that you're speaking to, whatever it might be, you've got objectives in the middle. They're not manageable, but they're, you can influence them. So they're semi-manageable in that although you can't manage them directly, you can influence them. And then the stage back from that is activities. Activities are completely and utterly manageable and activities take two forms, quality and quantity. So that's what you can manage to get yourself to the objectives, which are semi-manageable, which you can influence, which in turn gets you to the results, which are completely unmanageable. So, Again, yeah, control the controllables. You can't control the result, but you can control— you can make a golden thread and figure out which bit of the process you can control and then focus in on that.

Recruiters, you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. Really love this message. I think really, I mean, you would have seen it in terms of over the years, like, this really has become front and center. And because the truth is very few people are able to strike an ideal work-life balance. And you said here, really, it's really hard to build that as you're building your career. Um, and the vast majority of early-stage recruiters you've seen just need to go all in, otherwise it's not going to work, and that comes at a price. I'm sure you've had to manage this when you was involved, maybe with Strive, you saw it, founders that you speak with, work-life balance.

Talk to us about this, where, like, see, I don't think it's that controversial, but I think, look, it's really fascinating to watch, like, cultural shifts go on with regards to you know, what's perceived as acceptable and normal. I'm an old man now in recruitment, so I get that. I get that the times were— I'm not that old, you know, but I'm old enough now that maybe times are slightly different. But I do think there's a really strong voice now. The narrative is all focused around work-life balance. And I think actually that's a danger— not dangerous, maybe that's extreme, but I think it's also potentially a really poor message to be communicating to people in their 20s. I just don't agree with it. I think your 20s, you should focus on working really, really hard and building the momentum to be able to position yourself to maximise your opportunities further down the line. How many 50-year-old recruiters do you know? I don't know. What ratio do you think of 50-year-old recruiters? I don't know the answer to this, by the way. It's a rhetorical question, but How many 40-year-old recruiters do you know?

Probably no more.

But not many, right?

Yeah, not like, there aren't like loads jumping around in my head.

And I'll tell you what, most of them will be doing their own thing. They've, you know, they've escaped the rat race. They've probably got their own brand. They might be a solo founder or they might have a really small team. But the point I'm trying to make is you don't see many 40, 50-year-old recruiters within an organisation.

Right.

There's a reason for that. It's a young person's game. That's the truth of it because it's a really, really tough job. I don't think many people still want to be on the phones typically, unless you're unusual, unless you're that hyper-driven individual who really, really enjoys the game. I don't think you should be starting out in your career. I think the odds are against you of still doing that at 40 years of age. So I think the key therefore is to work as hard as you possibly can early on, really position yourself for career success, whatever that might be, so that you have the opportunities therefore to be able to take your career in different directions, whether it's founding your own business, whether it's going into a leadership role, whether it's, you know, even founding your own business, you might wanna stay as a recruiter, but you can do it by yourself, et cetera, et cetera. So I think what is most likely to accelerate you towards those things is working extremely hard. And truth be told, I think your 20s is an amazing era and you can get away with an awful lot from a work-life balance. 'Cause you know, you, you don't have to sleep much. That, that's helpful. But, um, I think you can still have an amazing life, but it'd be incredibly career focused. And my last point around it as well, When did it not become cool to work hard? When did it not become— when was it not cool to be ambitious and career-driven and like be intrinsically motivated? And if you're going into recruitment, I don't know, I think it's a weird industry to go into if you're not driven and if you don't want to maximise the opportunity that a career like recruitment gives you.

I'm sure you've heard this a lot. It is such an interesting— I think the thing that that I see, what comes up a lot is that there might be a lot of people that say they want those things, they have the career ambition and those bits, but then that isn't backed up, or like, aren't willing to put in the work but are saying that they are ambitious and want that thing. I think that's where I often hear the biggest frustration. It's not true for everyone, right? But I think that it's always— I think that's where it can become really challenging, or where older or managers or leaders get frustrated is that they're telling me one thing but then the actions don't match up with that. Or the expectation is I, I should be given those opportunities, I should be, uh, earning more money, I should be this, but then the actions aren't matched up with that in terms of the work ethic.

And look, that's totally fair. And just to emphasize my point, I'm not saying everyone should work 60, 70, 80 hours when they're in recruitment because some people it's just that's just not them. And I get that, and that's completely fine. But what I don't think we should be doing is demonising people who do want to work incredibly hard to maximise the career opportunity that a successful, you know, career in recruitment can provide you. So first and foremost, just to make that clarifying point, it's not for everyone. I get that. And you've got to choose what's right for you. It's always been like that, what you're describing.

Always, yeah.

Because you're not going to get a job in recruitment if you sit in front of the leader and say, yeah, I've, yeah, I'm pretty motivated. I'd quite like some nice things and, you know, I'd like a few more holidays a year and I've got some aspirations. So everyone has to put a bit of a front on with regards to that stuff at the beginning. I think the key is, from my perspective, coaching different types of individual. One of the mistakes I made early on was trying to coach, I call them B players, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. But from my perspective, the typical differentiator between a B player and an A player is their intrinsic motivation. That's typically the thing that's going to differentiate them. Nothing wrong with B players whatsoever, because B players, as long as they're consistently hitting target, you know, you can't force them to be an A player. Because the truth is, their lifestyle needs and their wants and their drivers, they do want to have a better work-life balance typically than an A player, and that's fine. I think you've just got to accept that to a degree. But I think you've also got to try and have a really, um, thorough assessment process to weed out those people who are BSing you with regards to their drive or motivation, and just make sure your ratio of A, B and C players is right. Um, because if you get too many B and Cs, you're in trouble because you're not going to have those individuals who set the, set the tone from a high performance perspective.

We've got a post on that that we're going to break down on me because that's one of the ones that we picked on that, because I think that's really interesting point. I mean, just to build on what we just spoke about there, I think this is where it's coming from. You put here like, recently saw a post describing long hours and recruitment is definitely toxic. Um, which you said there, which for me completely missing the point. I do really like this message where you put the point being choose your tribe. I think that that's a big part of it as well, is like it is, it's a decision that you can make.

Kind of the point I was trying to make, like just qualifying what I said previously, it's not for everyone. I just, I find it really, um, this whole, you know, it's either A or B, this binary thing. You've got to have work-life balance, and if you don't, you're a loser because you should want work-life balance. And then the other side, it's like, no, you have to do— actually, it's it's what's right for the individual.

Yeah, I'm, I'm all for that. I think it's so— it is so individual. And who are you to judge other people's decisions around that? Like, you've got to figure that out yourself. And there's always a cost to something. It's about, do you know what those costs are and are you happy with those? And if so, then that's your decision. We're gonna get into a bit more of a technical one here, so I'm going to share some bits that you put around this that— but a lot of people loved it, and it's sort of your your approach around, or what you've seen the, the sort of biggest billers as around how they manage their time, which was you pay recruiters. This is why the biggest builders use time blocks to plan their days. Um, you put Parkinson's law states that work expands to the field time allocated for it. So if you give yourself an afternoon to do X, guess what? It's going to take all afternoon. We're talking about different things before we started this, but You won't be surprised to hear, but the normal biggest skill gap that we're always finding in recruitment teams is the, is the business development and sales side. What's a close second is time management, productivity. I think this is really true in 360 environments. You can tell me what you want to build on this, but I do think— I don't know how I feel about training or helping people with time management. There's only so much you can, you can really share. Like, this is my system for it, I do time blocks, I don't do this. I think really it's about are you getting better at prioritizing the right tasks and actions. I just think about prioritizing that. That's what I've really trying to get better at as an entrepreneur, because I'm just very aware at the end of the year I'm gonna know if I prioritize the right things or not. So I don't know what you're gonna build on here, but time blocks is tried and tested. Tell us about this as to why that's something that—

well, the challenge, like, on your point, I guess the challenge for you as an entrepreneur is that you're The things that you're trying to figure out what to prioritise aren't definitive because they're objective-based rather than numbers-based.

That's true.

The beauty about recruitment is it's all just numbers. Like all business is numbers. So again, I'm going to re-emphasise that point I said previously. If I want to bill, let's, let's, $100 grand this quarter, I know what I need to do to bill $100 grand because I know I'm going to, I need, I'm just going to make a number up that's nice and easy, 10 interviews. And to get to 10 interviews, my objective, I need, I know I need to bring on a certain number of jobs, I need to get a certain number of candidates, etc., etc. So again, you can understand that flow. Once you've got a proper understanding of what you need to do from a strategic perspective and you map that out in a, in a broad sense, I then think you need to look week on week and say, all right, well, what do I need to do in this week to be able to move the needle to drive me towards my objectives in a certain timeframe? In the, sorry, in the timescale allocated. So I've got effectively 3 months if it's a quarterly period. Well, it's not too difficult if you work with the right leader, I think, to, to who can support you with stuff like that, to be able to map it out and say, right, this week I need to do X, Y, and Z from a BD perspective. My, I want to achieve, I want to speak to, I'm getting into too much detail. I want to achieve X from a BD perspective. I want to achieve Y from a delivery perspective. I want to achieve, you know, Z from an account management perspective. So if you know what your objectives are on that smaller level, you can then allocate the time that allows you to do that. So I need to do 6 hours of BD this week. And in that 6 hours, I'm setting myself the target of picking up 3 new jobs, whatever it might be. So again, you allocate the 6 hours, you do that for all of your core activities, which are going to lead to your objectives for the, for the month and for the quarter, which are going to get you to the result. And then effectively at the end of every week, you can say, right, how did I get on? Did I get my 6 jobs? Did I get my 10 candidates? Did I get my 12 interviews, whatever it might be? And then you pivot for the rest of the quarter. So you say, well, I got enough jobs, but I didn't get enough candidates or interviews, right? Next week, I need to, I need to change my time blocks a little bit. And I need to have slight more emphasis to catch up on the candidates than I do on the BD. And then you just keep monitoring what you're doing on a weekly basis, which is going to feed into your monthly objectives, which in turn is going to get to your quarterly results. So time blocks just make sense to me. And the other key thing with them is that you finish once you've done your 2 hours of BD, if you haven't got what you wanted to, you still move on to the next thing, right? Because otherwise we get into this habit where we say, I'll just stay on X for a little bit longer, I'll stay on X for a little bit longer. And then what you don't do is get the balance right between all of the competing activities that you need to drive to be able to get your end result on a quarterly basis. What you do do is at the end of the week you say, right, where am I at based upon the objectives I set myself at the beginning of the week? And then you reprioritise objectives and you set new time blocks according to the amount of time you need to be able to get to the things that you, you want to get to.

What, so what do you like, this is getting into a bit of a leadership piece, but I'm sure this may have come up in your conversations, might not have, but a really common thing that I've found come up with founders that I've spoken to over the last like 6-12 months is they've, they may be during the time when it was like really busy, a real boom period, The top things you were talking about there, founders and leaders just got really relaxed with.

Yeah.

And basically just put all the onus into Alex in terms of he's doing all right, he's doing the deals, he's figuring out what he needs to prioritize, and really just putting the, like, it over to you. And I think you can tell me what you think about this, but I just speak to a lot of founders that are almost like, I don't want to say scared, but they really don't like the idea of being strict around these things.

But do you know what the challenge— I'm going to jump straight in. What's the biggest problem with that? It's that if someone tells you to do something, how does that do— how committed do you feel to that?

Not as committed.

If you— if it's your own plan, if it's your own, if it's your own goal and your own plan to achieve that goal, how do you feel from a commitment and engagement perspective?

Better, obviously.

Therefore, you've got to switch it around. Like, what do you want to achieve? What's the plan?

So you're saying it should be more on individuals?

100%. They should be the ones coming to me with the plan.

But then what if— but what if— yeah, like, but this is the thing. So I'll hear— I'll hear so many people say to me, like, my guys just aren't picking up the phone as much and they're not doing as much of the things that I want. And then I'll always— I'll also hear that they're, they're not willing to encourage. They're not trying to help them build these types of plans, or they're not— they don't like the idea of doing that.

That's the problem, isn't it? Because it's not necessarily— this stuff is just experience. And I think experienced, like, sales leaders or recruitment leaders can support the individuals and give them the guidance. It's like, you know, situational leadership, that thing early on. People talk about coaching. You've got to ask questions. You've got to ask questions. Actually, no, you don't. Early on, situational leadership, you've got to tell the person what to do. Because they don't know what they're doing. So, and then you go through the 4 different stages based upon their maturity and our motivational levels. But I think the key here is that you've got to transition from, I'm going to help you. I'm just a massive sales geek. So I like my, my enthusiasm and my knowledge. Hopefully I'm going to be able to help you be successful. And first of all, what we're going to do is I'm going to talk you through how that works. And I'm going to tell you what works for me. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna put a plan together and I'm gonna help you really closely with that plan. And then it's your job to execute on that plan and my job to support you with the execution. As time goes on though, my involvement in putting the plan together becomes less and less and less as per situational leadership. Really good framework for anyone to like check out. And then by the end of that, when I sit down with you for my, for your quarterly and monthly reviews, depending upon your management rhythm, you should be coming to me and saying, this is what the plan is. This is how I'm tracking against my quarterly goals. This is where it's gone well. This is where I need to up, up my game. This is my biggest blocco in my sales funnel. You know, all of that really good geeky sales stuff. You want to, you want to impart your knowledge and help people understand how to do it for themselves. And then what you see culturally is a shift from you being dictatorial and saying, you people, you must make 100 phone calls today, otherwise you're not— you can't leave the office, to, look, you, you know, they're your goals. Why'd you come into work? It's not to make me happy.

What if you didn't do that first bit though? What if you didn't do that first bit in terms of like—

well, it doesn't work then, does it?

But so like, if I've got a team, yeah, and I feel like we never had that first bit, and I feel like the performance is really low, and I feel like I need to maybe step in, we can start that situational and then work towards—

Well, I'd sit down with everyone. I'd say, I'd ask lots of questions around whether we have a plan that's going to help them achieve their objectives. Why do you come into work every day? What is it you're looking to get out of this? Where do you want to go with your career? What are you trying to do in your personal life? There's a reason people go into recruitment. They're usually financially motivated, but it's not like money that— what does the money represent to those individuals? Where do they want to go? All those good questions. So Once people really understand why they come into work, it's like, well, how can we help you get faster and closer to those goals as quickly as possible? Well, how good is our plan? Like, how good is our plan? Like, do we have a plan? And if we don't have a plan, let's talk through that. Do you all agree it's a good idea to have a plan which is going to help you get to your goals quicker? Yeah. Who's going to disagree with that? And then all of a sudden it's working with the group to map out what what that plan looks like. And then once you've done that and everyone's bought in and agreed, you're not just like forcing this stuff on them. I think it's a collaborative thing where you get everyone together and you get them bought into the process. Because if you just hand it to them and say, this is what you've got to do to achieve your goals immediately, I don't know about you, but if someone tells me to do something, my immediate reaction is no.

You tell me what to do.

I don't want you to tell me. We're all like that a little bit, aren't we? We like our own ideas the best. So you have to make it a collaborative process. and you get people bought into the science of sales. This is science. Of course, there's lots of art in sales. Of course there is. But the foundations of sales is understanding the numbers, understanding the process, understanding clarity of task, and having a blueprint for success. And it's also about being able to predict the future. I know that I can look at— I can look 3 months ahead and say, I know what I'm going to do this month. And I know, I'm sorry, I know what I'm going to achieve this quarter because I've got a plan. And if I follow this plan, that's what I'm going to get to. So you can see into the future and then all you've got to do is execute, like really, really like ruthlessly execute on that plan. That plan might change. So you get to the end of the quarter and you say, maybe if it's early on, I got this a bit wrong. My interview to placement ratio is actually 1 in 4 instead of 1 in 3. Next quarter, I'm going to tweak the plan accordingly. So as you go along, you just become more, your plan becomes more and more refined, more and more accurate. And then before you know it, you're in a really strong position to be able to say quarter on quarter, I know what to do to get me to my end of quarter goal. And that they should be doing that for you rather than you telling them what to do.

So where do you think this big popularity came from on we're a recruitment business that don't work to KPIs and that being really worn as a badge of honor and employee benefit because KPIs are used badly. Back to what you're just saying.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, you've got to— where that came from then. But why? Because it happens a lot. And I— what I've consistently seen, I can just go off the sample that I've spoken to, but the companies that tell me that they really struggled is they went too far that way because then they found it really hard then to help to review their plan, to know what was working, what isn't, because there wasn't tracking anything. There wasn't holding people to account to inputs or ratios. It was just, all we care about is Alex, if you're hitting your target, then that's fine. You do whatever you need to do there. But that, that, that is often, that was really used a lot, I found. Like, we don't work to KPIs here. That's why you should join us.

Yeah, it's, um, I just think it's crazy. It's like the joke, we've joked about it before, and I've said it's like not believing in cause and effect. It's just madness. And Look, the word is accountability, right? If you've never had accountability and then all of a sudden someone's gonna have visibility to hold you accountable to achieve your goal and understand how they can support you with regards to the things that you're doing that you could be doing better to get you there. And when things go wrong, also being able to dive in and accurately get to the root cause of what's going wrong to support you to be better. And when you're doing well, to be able to say, well, can we do even better? Let's have a look at that. It's all about accountability. It's all about visibility. And I think if you haven't had that previously, that's naturally going to be alarming when suddenly someone starts talking about implementing that.

Let's round out these recruiter ones. And you've touched on these bits, but again, people love learning about the how on doing great sales, great business development in our industry. But you had this post that did really well, which was around the 8 core principles of killer business development, which you've touched on different aspects. So 1 was embrace the suck. 2, the law of familiarity. 3, without data, you're just another person with an opinion. 4, find the 1%. 5, control the controllables that you've been speaking about. 6, pipeline generation cures all ills. 7, the better you know, the better you'll be. 8, your most effective weapon. What should we talk about here? There's some, some good bits in here. Obviously you've touched on some of the things, haven't you? Like control the controllables, data.

The most effective— we've spoken about data a lot.

Yeah, we have.

If I keep talking about data, I'm just like that data guy.

Um, the law of familiarity, I think worth noting. A big partner of us for a long time now is Sourcewell. You're putting here that successful recruiters are more persistent in their approach.

Yep.

The data that they have on like, I think it's 40% of meetings get booked on their platform from the fourth touchpoint onwards.

Nice.

So that, that like, so many people don't get anywhere near that. So that's nearly 50% of meetings you could be leaving on the table because you're not showing up, being persistent.

And you can align it with data as well, that bit, can't you? Because it's the law of— you build your cadence and then some of the software that's out there now is just amazing because you can actually genuinely analyze the effectiveness of each stage of that cadence and the return return on effort you get from it. So it means you can, you know, you can turn your sales force into a real like nimble strategic weapon rather than just like a blunt force. Yeah, you know, doing things again, sort of analogy.

I think this would be an interesting one, and I'm glad you pointed out because I'm sure you saw this a lot in your business. I hear this a lot. So you put pipeline generation cures all ills. What I hear all the time is I have some really good months, then I get complacent with my BD, and then I deliver on all my stuff, and then I'm like, fuck, I've got to do BD again. Like, I hear that all the time, and that can impact consistency. So is that what you're talking about there? Like, always be building pipeline, always don't get complacent? Yeah.

And the truth is that, again, it's always everything sales funnel management. So if you've got a really hefty, um, top of funnel, you can have average conversion ratios through the rest of the funnel, and that's actually— you're still okay. But if you have a small funnel, you have to have amazing conversion. Sorry, a small top of funnel. You have to have amazing conversion ratios to get you through the rest of it. So the point I'm trying to make here is that you can still be really successful with a massive top of funnel. And actually, then it's just a case of tweaking the conversion ratios, whereas actually the way people go wrong is their top of funnel is too small. And then all of a sudden they have a few creaks, something goes wrong, it doesn't convert properly. And before you know it, they haven't got enough jobs the following month or quarter based upon having not done the activities and time blocked effectively, understood what they need to achieve on a consistent basis, and also having someone coach and mentor them around that stuff to ensure that they've got that consistency of opportunity.

Most effective weapon, the phone. 100%. Never more true than today.

So true. Going to be more and more true.

It's, yeah. I think I'd probably also combine this with, from a lot of the conversation I've been having recently, you can tell me if you're surprised by this or not, but I interviewed a guy recently, really successful contract recruiter, UK, Europe, and he said that 90% of the hiring managers that he'll, that he meets, that he's done deals with, would say they've done deals with other recruiters, and 90% of the time they'll go, I've never met them. I do think there's this sort of face-to-face element is also part of this, because it is so easy to not be sitting here today, so easy for you to not leave your home and just do the video call. I almost think again that mixed with the phone, it's, it's almost like, like it can actually give you more than a 1% edge. I actually feel like— I don't know what you think about that, but I think I'm seeing this more and more.

Yeah, the stats support the increased likelihood of winning and retaining business based upon a face-to-face relationship. So I can't quote any off the top of my head, but it's really worthwhile. You do have to be strategic with it. You just can't go out and meet everyone. There definitely has to be clear ICP criteria. There has to be sort of like a few, you know, trigger points to enable to do. You certainly don't just want to be going out and meeting every single person that you're doing business with potentially. But, but certainly I agree, face-to-face is going to be huge. So what—

I just want to make sure I get your take on this. I'm just looking at the, the leadership stuff because we might have gone into this. Like, you put their most important weapon is the phone. What— like, if I, if I'm— if me and you have like a coaching session and I'm a business owner and I say to you, Alex, like, they just— I just can't get my team to pick up the phone. We've done the plan, I feel like I've given the— they should know why they're calling, they have a reason to call. Where does your mind go with that? Because I, I hear this so much, um, and I think a lot of people feel like that. Or I don't know, where, where do you— I've got a few things that pop into my head, but like, where does your mind go when you hear this?

I— the challenge you've got with culture is that once a culture has taken form, it's really, really difficult to change it. And it's a really, like, long process you have to go to. Now, the truth is, sometimes you kind of have to start again. And it's actually easier to start again almost than it is to try— it's like the small boat versus the oil tanker analogy. Sometimes it's actually easier just to build a small boat than it is actually to turn the oil tank around. I think you have to be able to identify what your values are in your business. I think you need to be able to translate those values into non-negotiables from a behaviour perspective. And then you have to be able to hold people accountable for that behaviour. And if they aren't prepared or able to hold themselves accountable for the things that you've agreed as a business are your non-negotiables, they're not right for you as a business. And if one of your like key tasks is doing what you said you like, let's just say doing what you said you will do. Or I, you know, or whatever it might be. It's like, if you don't do that, well then like this isn't the right business for you. So if you come to me with a plan and you say, this is my plan, I'm excited about it. This is what I need to do. It's really clear. I've got clarity of task. I want to achieve X and Y. And then a month later, we're sitting there. And you just haven't done anything that was in your plan and it's not justifiable, I'd question whether that's the right person to have in your business.

Yeah.

Conscientiousness and accountability.

Yeah. Like your mindset, like I'm just thinking of a recent example where your mindset shouldn't go like, I need like better tools or I need better data.

It's the people. It's either a people problem or it's a process problem. If you look at problems, right, it's usually one of those two. It's nearly always one of those two, especially in a recruitment business, people or process. Well, if our process is really, really good, it's a people problem. And as a leader, I think one of the most important things you do as a leader— what is leadership? It's about setting standards and maintaining standards. And every time you see something below standard and you don't do something, don't do anything about it, you've set a new standard. So the challenge is, I think, that has to— in a business like that, there has to be a big cultural shift and that usually, that usually means identifying who, who can work for you and who can't with regards to your vision and your values as a leader and your, and who can drive those non-negotiables. And, you know, who, who get the right people on the bus would be my answer to that.

Yeah, easy to say, hard to do, innit?

Well, it is, it is. But I always say you've got to do the right thing for the business. And, and I think that's a really, really good way to be able to kind of— you've got to reject emotional thinking sometimes. That doesn't mean being empathetic, that doesn't mean being like a good human being, quite the opposite. But I do think also, I think a lot of people just wimp it. I just don't think sometimes leaders, they take the easy option, which is not to do anything. And the truth is, well, you know, what, what do you do with that? Are you, if you have got ambitious growth plans, you as the leader are going to be the bottleneck. And I think being able to manage your own emotions and do the right thing, even if it's uncomfortable and it's not something you particularly want to do and you have sleepless nights about it. We've all been there, sleepless nights before letting someone go. It's horrible. But sometimes, you know, you've got to do what you've got to do because it's the right thing for the business and right for the other people in the business as well by maintaining those standards.

And this brings us quite nicely on— you did a post about the harsh truth in building a great recruitment business is that to unleash high performance, you've got to quickly let go of the C players.

Yep.

And you've got— and that you should always do it transparently by immediately getting everyone together, obviously explaining the reason why. I was going to say, is that what you mean? Fair. That's interesting.

Well, I think that's part of it, isn't it? I think, again, maintaining standards, that's the emphasis. That's the emphasis. That's what that's empathize—

Spanish.

There we go. Thank you. Thank you for saving me there. Maintaining standards is everything. And again, you've got to, your team are watching you and I've seen it before. And the truth is that, you know, if you don't make those tough decisions, your team are looking at you saying, why isn't that person acting? And they've, the truth is you will lose credibility as a leader because one of the things you have to do as a leader is demonstrate that you can make good decisions. And that you can make tough decisions. Like that, you know, again, that's still like the very essence of leadership, isn't it? Like people need to, you need people to follow you. You need to set the example of what the business is about and the values of an organisation. And if you're like an ambitious, high-growth, quality-oriented business, you need to make those tough decisions. And that doesn't mean doing it in a way that isn't really compassionate and thoughtful and considerate towards that individual. But it's better to make that decision quicker than just let it drag out. Otherwise it's just death by a thousand cuts.

Yeah. And I think you can tell me what you think about this, but the conversation that comes to mind, I recently interviewed a guy called, you might know them actually, Elliot White from Hubscale. You might have come across them. Yes, I do.

Yeah.

So a big thing that he was championing on the journey that he's on was like they're really dialed in and committed to only hiring A-players. And that's easy to say when you're sitting here saying that that's your strategy, right? But I think some of the actions that match up to that are— again, I can only go off what he says, but they, they're interviewing for a certain role and they've said no to like 90% of people or 95% of people. And I do think this idea here of the C players, how many founders decide to hire that person because they're looking at their job pipeline and what they could help with and think they could do the job versus think they're right for the culture. I think that is something that you can quite easily become not that disciplined with.

Definitely.

It's just so easy, isn't it? Like, you can see— I can imagine that happened a shitload when that boom period was like, look at all this stuff, we need more. We need more people to come in. And I think that a big part of this, I feel like, starts— which you sometimes you have to just learn these lessons by getting a C player in and then learning the hard way and then doing it. But then so much of it, I think, is in the upfront and, and really having that discipline and going, you know what, Alex, he ticks all the boxes, he's an A player for us, versus Alex ticks half of the boxes, he could probably do a good job, let's bring him in and see what happens.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. A few rules I've got around hiring. One, if you're not desperate to hire them, don't. 2, if you don't believe that they have the potential to be a top quartile performer, don't hire them. Because if you think about that, again, if you're always hiring for, can this person be an average performer, the risk of that is that they perform to a below average level. And effectively, your sales floor is a bell curve. So one of your jobs is to try and maximise your productivity. So I think you've got to define what you believe is strong performance and only hire people that you think can hit that. Because then if they fall below that, they're still an average performer and you're not actually reducing your average productivity. And the third thing I suggest is as well, the interview, you get it wrong. You just have to like, you have to like toughen up a bit. It's easy to get it wrong. I've interviewed so many people in my time. I could go and interview 10 people. You know what? I'd still get it wrong sometimes. Of course I would. Even the most experienced leaders would admit they regularly, because it's, it's, you're dealing with humans. Um, and there's so much in that, which means you're not going to get it right all the time. The real interview is the probation. And the truth is, I'd know within 2 weeks most of the time whether someone was going to work out or not.

Really?

And I'd know because at the end of the interview, I'd have been really clear and I'd say, look, these are our expectations of you. This is what you can expect from us. I'd make that super, super clear. And I'd say, look, if you can't live up to those things, I promise you, you're not going to work out because this is our culture. This is what we're about. This is who we are as an organization. You know, this isn't for everyone. There's easier opportunities out there. However, if we could, we can offer X, Y, and Z and all that's great, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, I'd make it really, really clear. And if they came in and within their first 2 weeks already there was some cracks, well, they're not going to get better than their first 2 weeks. So I think, you know, early on whether someone's right. And again, that's, that's the kind of another important rule I think is to make those decisions early and then not let it turn into a 3, 6, 9, 12 month thing where You should have just made that decision early on when you knew, your gut knew they weren't right based upon what you'd agreed and them not following through on them.

Yeah, so many people have stories like that, and I do think again it is one of those things that it's pretty unavoidable. Like, you've just got to learn, learn through actually it happening and make sure you're being clear with your expectations.

That is important. You can't do that stuff just— you've got to be really, really, you know, professional and thorough to ensure that you're not hiring and firing. You know, I don't want to give that impression at all because this is people's lives. You know, you take someone on, you take a responsibility when you hire someone, and you have to make— you have to take that responsibility really, really seriously. But vice versa, the individual coming into your organisation is also taking on a responsibility. So make those two things really, really clear at the beginning of the process. And then if I don't live up to what I said, that individual is completely within their rights to say, oi, you said you'd do X, Y, and Z to support me and you're not doing that. And vice versa, I'm perfectly able to challenge that individual and say, well, this is what we agreed at the beginning of the process, and already we're, we're definitely seeing some issues around that. What's going on?

So let's build on this a bit then, because a big part of leadership, a really important part, is bringing in the right hires. Um, I'm sure you've had this a lot, but there's definitely always normally a consistent, uh, message that I sometimes hear from recruitment founders where they do find it really hard to hire good senior recruiters, or like have often had evidence of like, I just, I just can't do it, it's really hard. And there's a lot that could result in that. But you had this really cool post which was 9 Ways Crappy Recruiters Interview. So let's talk about some of these. So these are ultimately things that you might pick up on that you feel like in your experience has resulted in these people maybe not being great, great recruiters that you may want to bring in the business. Um, is seeking the easiest way to gain a bump in their immediate earnings and often not much else. So this, what, searching more for the basic salary?

Why is someone moving? Because if they're a good recruiter, then they should be earning good money. So there has to be something, there has to be something there with regards to why you can suddenly get this person. Um, and I think I think a lot of recruitment leaders lose sight of the importance of that bit. Um, so yeah, in answer to your question, there has to be a really strong underlying reason why that person is looking to leave and you can get them. Otherwise, they're probably not that good.

Yeah, because I feel this was your second one, which I feel like you're talking about here in terms of you put super vague when talking about their accomplishments whilst also claiming full responsibility for successes.

Yeah, again, I think the weird thing is sometimes I think as recruitment business owners or leaders, we're not the best at interviewing for internal talent because we don't have the same level of thoroughness that we should with regards to really assessing someone's achievements, their technical competencies, their motivational, their, you know, stuff, their character attributes and all of those things. I think we simply look at the billing number and we're very quick to get excited about that. It's like the interviewing equivalent of Happy Years, isn't it? And we lose sight of actually no, there's a really thorough process we should be going through here to really test and assess this individual. Um, so again, that's not the sexiest answer. I just think it's sometimes going back to basics.

Another two that I really like here. One, you put lack self-awareness and don't give accurate descriptions of their strengths or weaknesses. I think that that's a really good insight. Like, if, if people are struggling to sort of identify those, yeah, I think that's, that's, uh, a flag to be aware of.

Couldn't agree more. I think self-awareness is— a lack of self-awareness is just a red flag in, in life, full stop, isn't it? Not just in, in hiring recruiters.

Really like this one as well: lack humility when discussing accomplishments, talking in terms of I all the time. That's a good little insight there as well. What's that resulted in? What, like people coming with big egos thinking they're the big dog?

I think so. And I get, I think, I don't know, from my experience, most people who are really good or have had some success, the really good ones are usually quite humble with it because I think a lot of the time they realize how much luck was involved or how much other people were involved in supporting them or the environment or the situation, whatever it might be. I think sometimes it's the less successful individuals who feel the need to puff themselves up. and almost like they've got a point to prove to the world, whereas maybe, you know, more successful people don't feel the need to do that.

Then we've got, I really like this as well, and I'm sure you've had some stories around this, but you put two points basically, tend to not like most of their previous bosses and struggle or can't get them to provide references and lack diplomacy when describing their previous managers.

Again, I think that's an awareness, it relates to awareness as well, but it's always the manager's fault. Every recruiter was the office big biller. Every recruiter was the office big biller. Every recruiter, you know, a lot of recruiters had rubbish managers. And look, there's always, there's an element of truth potentially with some of this stuff. But again, I think it's patterns of behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. And if someone's telling you their last 3 or 4 bosses were all idiots, That's a huge red flag for me because it lacks balance and it would suggest a lack of awareness if you're not taking any responsibility because you went into that job. That manager hired you to start with, so you were the one that actually made that decision to go and join that organisation based upon that individual. And then each and every time you're coming out afterwards and saying the manager was terrible, it's a pretty big red flag.

Yeah, nah, for sure. Tell me how much of this that you did. I think, again, think some of my recent conversations back to Elliot's business, but their whole hiring strategy is like senior recruiters. Not everyone has that same strategy. Let's talk to them about that because a lot of founders that I've spoken with have just found that really challenging, or for that to be like a consistent, um, model that they've got right. And something that he said that I wanted, um, your take on was something that he feels like not enough people do that they're really religious with is like back-channel references where you can do that. Did you do much of that? So speaking to obviously not their current employer, but speaking to where you can try and speak to previous employees and go, what, that Alex guy, what was he like?

I think back-channel referencing is, is really smart and everyone should do it. Um, it amazes me how we hire people in recruitment and we don't reference them It's absolutely bonkers because remember, it's salespeople that you're dealing with in the interview process and they're trying to put their front forward. They're trying to present themselves in the best possible manner. You've got to reference them. And that's often a back channel rather than a formal reference. The other bit I'd add to that is the talk, the threat of reference check. So in the interview process, so Hishem, you mentioned your last manager was John Smith. I think I know John actually, just out of interest. 'When I speak to John,' if it's not your most recent manager, 'what do you think he'll say about you?' Oh, that's good. 'What do you think he'll say your strengths are?

What about areas for improvement?' And you'll be able to see in that moment how they—

Yeah, I think so. So I think it's a really clever way to be able to get someone to tell you the truth because they're thinking, 'He's going to speak to John. Oh no. So I've actually got to tell the truth here based upon what the feedback I think John's going to give. So again, I think threat of reference check talk is a really, really cool, like, thing to build into your interview process because I think it's a bit of a truth serum.

Yeah, I really like that. Okay, we've got a couple more here that we can talk through. I feel like you really delivered a good point on here, but it was, it was one of your ones that a lot of people engage with. Which was some recruitment leaders are just glorified scorekeepers, as all they focus on is activity metrics, repeatedly banging the drum to do more without really understanding the golden thread that ties results, objectives, and activities together. I think this brings us back to something else you're so passionate about, which is this process playbook piece, I feel like, right? But so many, as I was saying to you before, so many people being this camp, which is obviously why they get—

KPIs get such a bad—

Yeah. How do we get out? Like, if I'm that recruitment leader, what's— how do I get out of that? And when you say glorified scorekeeper, you're saying if I'm in this recruitment leader's team, that's all I'm hearing. I'm just being told to do more. Yeah, but I'm not really understanding why.

100 calls a day.

I don't see why— how that's going to help me get to my objectives.

Well, it's also a lack of coaching, isn't it? So look, we were talking about this beforehand and the value you, you offer to organizations because study after study after study shows that in sales organisations, the best sales organisations I've ever seen and worked with were, had L&D at their absolute core. And one of the things that culturally they did constantly was coach and develop, like at all levels. And that's like the huge, huge thing that you do for organisations and why you offer so much value. So one of the things that these companies do is they coach. And actually a sales manager is basically what their job title should really be is coach. Because what they should be really doing is working with their team on a day-by-day basis to help them maximise the effectiveness of what they do and maximise their ROE, their return on effort. That's what their job is. So they need to increase productivity, they need to increase like profit or growth or whatever it might be. So that's what the sales manager should be doing. They should be identifying leverage points, they should be identifying blockers based upon different sales funnels, etc., etc. Again, it's the science of sales. And then zeroing in on that stuff, identifying metrics to improve, and then helping the individual in a really granular way from a coaching perspective in a proactive, structured manner to be able to upskill them in all those things, which is going to move the needle from a metrics perspective, which is going to help them get to their results more. Um, lots of sales managers just say, hit a number. Why aren't you hitting the number? Do more. And it's kind of like, you're missing the point.

Like, it's just such a So if I catch myself saying that, thinking that, is the encouragement advice try and take a bit of a step back and think about— does that actually, like, take a bit of a step back on this? Rather than just thinking, yeah, like, my guys and girls aren't doing enough, they need to be doing more.

Well, the answer might be to do more, by the way.

Yeah, no, yeah, but in terms of, like, to know— rather than just coming to that conclusion, you need to understand why that is the— like, why that is what you're championing, right? So I I don't know, just from the conversations that I have, I don't know how many, I don't know how many business owners, particularly, you know, I speak to a lot of companies that are in that growing stage and they're, you know, 10 to 30, 40 heads or on their way there. A lot of the time how they've got to a certain point is by the founder being a good biller and leading by the front. That doesn't go hand in hand with taking a step back and thinking about sales funnels and ratios and, do you know what I mean? So I was just thinking then, like, if I'm listening to this right now, and sometimes I can be guilty of, you know what, I'm just sometimes, I know I'm just thinking, I just, I wish the guys would just do more. Like you said, the answer might be do more, but that needs to come from a place of like understanding and taking a bit of a step back and actually looking at the entirety of it.

You have to, one of the biggest challenges, what is it, 80% of recruitment businesses in the UK are sub-10 heads and the vast majority of those are like sub-5 or whatever it might be. So there is definitely a big sticking point in the industry, I believe, based upon the number of companies who would like to get above 10 heads and the ones who actually achieve it. I think the biggest challenge, the biggest inflection point you have as a business scaling, scaling a recruitment company is that company has to go from a— we spoke about this, didn't we? They have to go from a people-orientated process, business, a people-orientated business, and they have to become a system-orientated business. The challenge you've got with that is, as well as becoming a system-orientated business, they can't lose sight of, like, the culture and the people-orientated culture that got them there in the first place. They've got to maintain that, and they've got to maintain the scrappiness of a startup and all the good stuff that got them there in the first place. But really, they have to become a systems-orientated business. That's what I think is one of the biggest transition and inflection points that recruitment companies typically looking to grow struggle with. And that's kind of like the science of sales and all that stuff that we've been talking about. Um, I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, because it's a—

yeah, like that's where you need to also be— what you're saying is like, right, if you're catching yourself just saying do more, you need to try and get more towards that mindset that you're talking about.

You need to understand your numbers. It's like if, if you— someone interviewed you with a biller and they didn't understand their billing numbers, That would be a big red flag for you, right? As a business leader. Same thing. If a business leader doesn't know their numbers, that's a bit of a red flag. And that's obviously therefore an area they need to focus in on because to become a system-orientated business, you need like really strong optimal working processes. This is how we do it. And this is what's going to drive repeatability, predictability, and scalability in our business. And then as well as those process, those processes and those playbooks that you build, that are going to give you an optimal way of working. The process runs the business, the people run the process, that type of sort of thing. You need the numbers. Every business is just numbers. And what you've got to do is figure out what are the most important numbers in my business? And then how do I help improve that? How do I improve those numbers? And that's quite challenging, but that's like part of the journey you go through, I think, as a business person.

That's what you want to try and get to.

Is good. Because that's the, again, you, I was a recruiter. With my, you know, I co-founded my company, the two of us, we were billers, we had a good experience of sales management and we kind of ran a business on behalf of an owner before we started off on our own. But the truth is we didn't know any of this stuff and we just stumbled around for ages trying to figure it out. And we got some good advice and support, but a lot of it we learned the hard way. But for us, getting from probably maybe 30, 40 heads to 140 heads and all of the financial growth that came with it, I think the biggest thing for us was going from people-orientated where we just did stuff, the two of us, we managed everything, we had our hands over everything. If you want to keep scaling, you have to build middle management layers, you have to build a senior management layer, and you have to become process-orientated. They're some of the most important drivers of ongoing growth.

So let's round out on this then. The toughest recruitment leaders are often the most caring.

Mm.

Which sounds like a paradox. Some people might feel like that with some of the things that we discussed, but it's not. Because although it's easy to equate caring with softness, caring actually means wanting the best for your people. And I think this sort of hits that message where I think really, like you're saying, like if you have brought people— part of it anyway, there's a lot that goes into this. But like, I think I really buy into that idea of like, you're— if you end up letting go someone who's a C-player or whatever like you can, you can do that that's best for that part, that is best for that person. And that, that doesn't always come from like a hardness place and like that higher and fire angle, does it? So what really motivated to write that? Just you've just seen that time and time again?

Yeah, I think the best leaders, like I've read, it's called managing duality. So duality is like having two opposing things that they do equally effectively at the same time. So An example of that, I would suggest the best leaders are highly demanding and highly supportive. And if you think about it, right, they're actually kind of competing in many ways, but I think they walk that fine balance between those two things. I get a bit of stick sometimes because of the way I'm, you know, I'm quite direct and frank and sack C players and stuff like that. And it can come across as really, really harsh. I was a really, really, I was really demanding of our guys, but I was also incredibly supportive. I'd like to think. People would say I was incredibly supportive. And I had— if, if someone worked with me, I had their back 100%, and I gave them everything to try and help them maximize whatever it was they were trying to achieve in their career, in an appropriate sense, in a business setting. So I just think it's about managing duality. You've got to do both at the same time.

Yeah, and you also put it like, sometimes you have to confront or challenge them Don't be a wimp.

Have those uncomfortable conversations.

It's hard, though, isn't it?

So hard.

But it's a muscle, though, I feel like.

It is a muscle.

I've had a few— I've had to have a few of those, and we'll have to continue to have a few of those. But it gives you confidence for the next one, doesn't it? When you have that— that's where I think the motivator is. Is like when I let go of my first person, that was a challenging conversation. I thought a lot about it. But as soon as I had that, the next time it happened, I went into that way more confident. And like, I think it definitely is a muscle.

I agree. It's evolutionary psychology as well. We're not designed to have uncomfortable conversations because we're tribal. And if I have an uncomfortable conversation with you, you might turn around and try and hit me over the head or, you know, I might get ostracised from the tribe. So we're kind of designed to skirt over that stuff. That's why we're really gossipy as a, you know, as a race, etc., etc. So you've got all that stuff that goes with it, but you get used to it. And again, the key is what's the right thing for the business? That should be your north star question. If you're not performing to the required standards, what's the right thing for the business? It's for me to try and help you perform to the required standards. So I've got to have a conversation with you about it. I've got to map out what the required standards are. I've got to make sure those expectations are really clear. I've got to help you devise a plan to how to get you there. I've got to measure and track your success at fulfilling on that plan and support you en route. And I've also gotta be really clear about what the reality is of you not achieving those things and what that means to you. Just as an example, right? Because we're talking about firing and stuff like that. So I think again, if that's coming from a caring place, because I really do, I want you to be successful and I'm here to help you, but I also need to be really like brutally honest about what this process looks like and what you are responsible for and what you are accountable for with regards to delivering it on it. Um, and I think it gets easier, but also you just remember it's the right thing for the business and you're doing it for their— for them as well.

Yeah, I do like that, that perspective, that duality of like just demanding a lot from them but also being their biggest like supporter. Because I think the way the sort of phrases that you'd normally hear, and I've heard a lot, I'm sure you have, would be, oh yeah, like my manager Alex, he was really hard on me, but I'm really glad that he was. And hopefully that's coupled with— and he did help me a lot along the way, do you know what I mean? You hear that a lot. I think the same.

I think that would be fair. I'd like to think that would be some of the feedback I'd get. I'm sure not everyone would say that, but I think, yeah, I would like—

I just think, yeah, you often will like hear that in terms of someone that was demanding of you, but it was coming from a place because they really wanted the best for you.

They knew I cared. I'd, you know, the people I work closely with knew I cared, um, because I did care. Um, it's like that thing of how to get people to like you. How do you get someone to like you? What's the easiest way?

How to get them to like you? Nothing's going to come into my head immediately.

Like them, right? How— the easiest way to get someone to like you, like them, right? It's really weird, isn't it? So like, if you want someone— if you want to be able to deliver really tough feedback to someone, first of all, it's— well, I did a post on that, was it The first principle of leadership is, um, until no one cares what you know until they know how much you care. Like, quite— I've stolen that from somewhere, probably, and I think that's true. But if they know you care, it's incredible the frankness and directness of conversations you can have if they know it's coming from a good place versus me just having a go at you or me challenging you to be the best version of yourself where I feel like maybe you're not. But if you know that I, you know, give a shit, you know, you're really receptive to that typically, versus the other way where immediately your guard's going to go up and you're going to be like, who's this guy telling me what to do? You know, you just have to get that piece right.

Covered a lot, a lot of— so for anyone that isn't following you, I think they should. Tons of wisdom there. I'm sure there's going to be plenty more that we can learn from you and plenty other posts that might end up in some weird places that people don't agree with.

If I end up on LinkedIn lunatics again, I will definitely tell you. I will definitely let you know. I'll reach out.

Um, I love it. But why don't you just— I know you're still figuring some of these bits out, but who— let's just end on this, like, who— there's a lot that we can learn from you, right? So There's just so many different bits there that people can take. But who do you think you can help the most? Like, if I'm listening to this, I think that's a good thing to ask. I always ask people that when they go on this advisory journey, because there's going to be some types of businesses or people you can help more than others. You still might be figuring this out, but I don't know what comes up for you there.

Look, I've called my, my business Phase 6 Advisory, and that's kind of linked to what John, my previous co-founder, and I went through. We kind of figured out there were 6 key critical stages to growth. from literally starting all the way up to, exiting. Um, I think probably I offer a reasonably, um, I think what I've done is because I've gone through all of those stages, I'd like to think I can offer a fair bit of value regardless of what phase you're at. I think the key is that the thing with me is it's not something I'm doing full-time. So it's not like this is a bit of a side thing for me. So, um, it's not like I can take on loads and loads of work. So I think the most important thing is that I'm working with individuals who have a goal, who have goals. Who want to achieve something and have clarity around where it is they want to go. And then I can support them with that journey with regards to, okay, well, let's first and foremost map out a growth strategy. What's the strategy? Let's work back from that. What's our go-to-market strategy? And just work through all of those different processes, put a plan in place, and then be able to support them to actually, you know, execute that, hold their feet to the fire a little bit, but also give them the tactical and strategic tools to be able to sort of help them on that journey. So, There was a really rambling, like, diplomatic answer.

No, what I take from that is, I think I was telling you, I spoke to, uh, Mark and Graham that founded Consul Partners.

Great guys.

And we're talking about a few different bits, but they were saying they do some advisory work.

Yep.

And they were saying they often run into two types of founders.

Yeah.

One that has the clarity that you're talking about, the types of people that you probably want to work more with. And then two, probably for a lack of a better term, I think they use a term like drifters, where I might say to Alex, like, what's, what's the big goal here? Where do you want to go? And they're like, well, like the idea of an exit, like the idea of maybe not working in the business as much. And there isn't that clear clarity. And I think they're saying like a lot of people they speak to are in that category and don't have have that clarity on where they want to go. It's something that you've got to think about, Ryan, that that clarity might change and where you want to end up might change. But I do think what you're saying there, where you can have the biggest impact, is definitely going to be, again, probably people going, Alex, I really want to get here.

I like winning and I want to help people win. Like, I'm super competitive, I want to make a difference, and I want to add value. If I don't know what game I'm playing, I, I can't really help someone win.

And you can't choose that for them either, can you? That's what I mean.

It's so personal. And if someone doesn't really know whether they like, they're not, if an exit isn't for you, that's the first thing to say. If I'd quite like an exit, well, everyone would like to win the lottery, but if you're not actually prepared to go to, you know, and buy tickets, et cetera, et cetera. No, I want to work with people who have an understanding. It's never perfect. It doesn't necessarily have to be completely crystal clear, but they should have a clear understanding of where they want to go and what they want to achieve. That doesn't have to be an exit, but it's just giving the roadmap or the view, the vision of what they want to do so that I can support them to be able to get there quicker, faster, and bigger. Because that's what it's about, right? That's, that's, if you bring an advisor into the business, they should be able to do those things for you. Otherwise, it's probably not worth spending the money on them. So, you know, I just want to help people win.

Alex, it's been a pleasure.

Amazing. Good to see you again.