Anthony Kelly - Growing a market from scratch and how to be a successful billing manager! #TeamCream

Welcome back to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and on this week's episode, I was joined by the first Irishman in the podcast studio, and that is Anthony Kelly, who for the last 2 years has been building a successful career at Trust Insoda. He's achieved 4 promotions in 4 years, and in this episode, we covered everything. We really dug deep into how Anthony is being able to merge modern methods with old school methods, how he leverages meetups and podcasts to build his name, build his client base, how he went from building a market entirely from scratch to building the team of the year, the team of the quarter, and many other achievements. If you're someone that's aspiring to be the top performer within your company this year, you have to listen to this episode.

Enjoy.

Anthony, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, Hishem, great to be here, great to finally meet you.

I know, I was saying you are the first Irishman to take a seat in the studio. Proud moment for you?

Absolutely. First time we've met after about, I think, 14 months now.

Yeah, we've known each other for a little while, haven't we? Obviously got involved with Recruitment Mentors, the learning platform, got to know each other a bit there. And yeah, I've been really looking forward to sitting down with you. I think obviously you dropped me a couple of nudges to say like, hey look, when am I getting my call-up? I think the last one was obviously a great achievement last year, being a top performer globally on the perm side of things in Trenovo. And yeah, was really looking forward to sit down with you. So there's a lot that we're going to go over. I think we were just saying before, definitely going to have a real focus on the last 2 years because I think it's fair to say that's where you've had some real exponential growth in your career, and, um, but we'll touch on just early days, learnings, looking back, but we'll mainly focus on the last 2 years. So I guess where I always like to start is I'd love to get your thoughts on what you believe are the common characteristics and traits of a successful modern-day recruiter in your view, and then we'll kick it off there.

Good, yeah, I'll, um, I'll try and go for the ones that people don't generally give. You know, people always tell you, you got to be able to take the highs and the lows and come back at it. I'd actually say hard working. When you get like new jobs on, and if you get a new job on at half 5, and if you're out the door at 6 o'clock, and if it's exclusive job, or even if it's not an exclusive job, probably not going to fill it. You need to be able to put the hours in when necessary. Don't say— don't mean you have to do it every day. When it matters, to be able to do it. And then I'm going to say something that's, I don't know if a lot of people would say it, but I'd say courageousness.

Courageousness, a lot.

Courageousness in the sense that, yeah, do a podcast, do a meetup, do a blog, do something different to get your name out there. Do the stuff that makes you uncomfortable to build your brand, because I think that's a mixture of hard work and something older, courageousness, something a little bit newer. Yeah, I like that.

So work ethic, is that something that you believe you've always had? Something that you grew up with, you were surrounded by?

That's all I have.

Really? Where that— where's that come from?

Do you know, I don't know. I think I had my first job when I was 14 years old.

Really?

I worked in a nightclub, uh, hanging up in the cloakroom. I worked there up until I was 22.

Wow.

But even in between then, I used to, summer holidays, work on a building site doing labor, and then other weekends my Uncle's best friend owned his own clothing store, and I used to work on the shop floor while still being in the nightclub on weekends. Love that.

So you've always, yeah, so you've worked from an early age?

Yeah, yeah.

I love that. So if we just to touch on the sort of early days, when would you say your career truly started then? Was it when you got into recruitment at Esprit? Was it before that? What would you say?

For us to tell you, to put it this way, I got into recruitment when I was 22. When I was 21, I got sacked from Nando's.

You got sacked from Nando's at 21?

What for?

What did you get sacked for?

I gave my friends and family discount out to someone without management approval. So to say there was a career glow up after getting let go from Nando's wouldn't do it justice.

I love that. Okay, cool. So how did— there's always normally a story. How did you end up going from Nando's and that experience to working for Esri?

So I actually went from Nando's, I was trying to find jobs and I spent actually my last bit of money to try and get interviews everywhere on getting a suit. And I was getting off, I couldn't get an interview because I was young, no education. Like I've used to call it, I think it's a GCSEs. I failed those, dropped out of community college. I got sacked from Nando's, pretty unemployable at the age of 21. And then I got a job in a call center. Okay. And I was there maybe like 14 months. And in 14 months—

That was your first proper office?

Yeah, yeah. And in 14 months I went from being like, you know—

What were you selling? Was it sales?

Yeah, white papers.

What do you mean?

Like, you would—

Paper?

No, white papers. Like information sheets about emerging technologies.

Got you, got you. Yeah, basically like publications, digital publications, kind of like lead generation. Okay.

Ish, and then it would go to like IBM or Dell to try and sell to the person I spoke to. Really strange. I actually don't know how that industry still makes money after so long. Yeah, but it's a successful industry. And I went there, I was there 14 months, but like after 6 months I was made like trainee team leader to team leader.

So you just really applied yourself?

Yeah, yeah. Took a lot of hours. Again, you're talking 70, 80-hour weeks, Saturdays and Sundays. I'd be in for when the, uh, West Coast— East Coast of the US would open, and I'd finish when the West Coast closes.

Oh wow.

Yeah, so it was, um, tough industry. And then I got, uh— I'm sure you probably even know him— Berker Acer used to be on S3's talent acquisition. Okay. He messaged me and said, hey, would you be interested in recruitment? I was like, nah, it sounds like a Ponzi scheme. Um, then I had a really bad day at work one day and I messaged him back and goes, hey, is this recruitment thing still going?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then that was it. I went for an interview and there we go, joined S3.

And then what would you say, what's the career in recruitment given you that maybe you least expected? I always like to ask that question.

For me, I would say the biggest thing that it's gave me is a level of communication skills that I never had. The way you can interpret situations, the way you can speak to people. A level of calmness when, you know, generally situations should be high pressure. I mean, if you can have, you know, 6 dropouts in 6 weeks, it's pretty hard to get stressed after that. But yeah, I would say those sort of characteristics, being, not even being more personable, but just being more actual, being able to listen to people a lot better. And I think that really goes a long way. And I say this because these are, like skills that I was traditionally really bad with when I was younger. I used to be very, I suppose, selfish and used to be like, yeah, so what? I used to have a bit of a bravado that wouldn't have been very, very nice.

No, I appreciate you sharing that. I think that's such an interesting point. I think, obviously, I'm sure you see it now in your management career, but being able to effectively communicate is just such a valuable skill. Not necessarily just in a sales environment, but just in life in general. So I think that's really interesting that that's something that, yeah, maybe it's really given you and equipped you with that clearly it wasn't something you was really strong at before that. How would you describe your first year in recruitment?

Was it tough? Difficult? Yeah, it was, it was, it was tough in the sense that it was time-consuming, you know. I joined, uh, es, de, fr, it was like 12 of us, 12 trainees joining at once. And now look, I remember looking back, we are all there for 9 months, and over the 9 months I built more than all 11 of them put together.

Really?

But I was there every day, you know, 7 or 8, out pulling my own business. I was like a whole school. I was picking up, I was like, hey, can I get, uh, can I get a budget? I want to just walk by this company's office and drop them in coffees and donuts. And I was like, because I've not got a busy day today, so I'm going to make myself busy. But I think like they were very supportive and willing to do that. But I mean, other than that, I mean, I would say, I would say I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, just found yourself in an environment where basically if you really applied yourself, you got rewarded. Yeah, yeah, I think normally if obviously you're doing the right things and learning from maybe challenges, mistakes. But a lot of people say who I've had on here that were part of that esprit culture, fear period, really talk highly of the training, the development, curious, like, what would you say you sort of still live by now or use today that maybe you learned really early on in your recruitment career out of interest?

Yeah, a couple of things. It would be that one as well, having a reason to drop into someone. If you can't speak to them and you're somehow passing their office, have a reason to drop in. Something that was really helpful, I think it was Rachel Kelly that showed me this really well. Rachel Kelly was probably the best mentor I've had when it came to learning and computer futures. Yeah, S3. She's been there like 18 years. She's won like top biller UK and Ireland for, say, like 14 of those 18 years.

Wow.

Unbelievable. She was the.NET market in Ireland.

Rachel, if you're listening, we need to get her on the pod.

She has that, she has that like down. Down there.

Okay.

I wouldn't even bother setting up a competition.

Really? Okay. So she was a great mentor for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Even so much to like, if you were to work very close to our clients, she She would make sure that you're working to her standards very specifically. And the way, maybe it was just the way I took it, you know, she'd be very brutally honest in what you've done bad and then very complimentary in what you've done well. And then she'd split the difference and like, this is what you're doing well, this is what you're doing bad. And to an extent that like, if I was sending over a CV to a client, I'd have to send it to her first for her to say, okay, why are you saying this candidate's done this? That's not really relevant to this. Can you tell me this? And like everything from that. Great. Now you've got that candidate in interview. How are you going to prepare them? What notes have you got for them? You're debriefing them. What notes can you get from them on the debrief that you can give to the next candidate going in for prep? And she taught me basically to really good qualifications, to really good preps, to really good debriefs, and recycling all that information back to give to the next person to basically increase your percentage of chance of placement at that point again.

Yeah, that's interesting. So that's something that's really stuck with you.

Yeah, yeah. And it's something that I now do training on to everyone within my business, in my teams. You can see it, like Suki, for example, he has a— we have a client and he was like, I know when I sent in me first new job, sent in his first 5 candidates, he was like, yeah, they all failed. It's like, but he's been building up his 4th round interview question since, and now everyone that goes in just passes the 4th interview.

Okay, so he knows that though. He really—

he knows that's the story, and that's why Yeah, okay, I love that.

So obviously we touched on, I guess, a bit early days, I guess, like obviously I was saying earlier, a couple of sort of achievements tonight before we move in onto the last 2 years. But obviously you was at, from what I remember, she was at S3 for nearly 3 years, right?

Yeah.

Like you said, joined in a group of people, but one of the things that you had in your LinkedIn profile was, yeah, it was in the top 2, top 3 consultant S3 UK Ireland one year in 2017. I guess just curious to get your thoughts on, and then we'll move on to the last 2 years, like, that's a great achievement, right? Would have been a really competitive environment internally. So, like, what would you say looking back were some of the other standards that you lived by or principles that you think you really took on board, lived by day in, day out, that really enabled you to achieve those achievements, you think?

Yeah, I suppose what I would say what made my time different, like, in my second year I won best newcomer rookie, which was people between 13 to 14 months. Um, and halfway through the year I was like, I'm gonna win it, I'm gonna win it. But halfway through the year I was like 80K off the pace, really. And this is what I would say was from that moment to like the end of the next year, it just really kicked on, kicked on. Like I was doing 3, 4 placements a month consistently for like a year and a half.

Wow.

Like to the extent that I was made like 60, 70 placements in a year and a half.

Wow.

It was a low fees market but it's still, when I say low fees, it's consistency.

That's, that's 10K.

Yeah, but, uh, still pretty decent. What I would say, like, what, what I'd done differently is I stopped saying, hello, Computer Futures, Anthony speaking. I started saying, hey, how you doing, it's Anto. Yeah, yeah, because that's, that's what my friends call me. And I think that level of personability just came through and fed through to my candidates when I was asking them available for a follow-up. It gave me like a different element of like candidate control. I was meeting everyone, video calling everyone if they were abroad, but I was Anto, I wasn't Anthony. Even though like S3 itself was really professional, I made me very personable, and I think that gave me just like so much benefits out of it. I can't exactly say what it is, but it just changed everything.

You really, yeah, you you, you really brought your authentic self to every interaction, relationship. What do you think interested— because I'm sure this is something you maybe help people with now, and maybe the, the environment you're in now at Soda, it's a bit more— from what I— from the people I've met and what I know about the brand, might be a bit more free rein to bring that to work. But I guess, what, what do you think maybe held you back? I don't want to say hold— held you back, but why do you think it took that long for you to bring Anfo to work life or take that approach, you think?

Es tree, you used to have to wear suits and shorts and ties. It was just that simple, you know. There was no, like, if it was a sunny day, 25 degrees outside, we were all in the office, an old Victorian building, roasting. You have to get an email from the director to say, yeah, you can take your toys off.

Fucking hell.

Even if you're not at a client meeting. There's no clients coming into our office. It's just 50 people on one floor, you know.

So I think that comes back to courageousness, right? That you use courageousness to— I'm assuming you didn't go in there walking with flip-flops and shorts, but like you made the decision, was like, you know what, I'm going to really bring myself to work and be myself. And you then obviously saw the rewards of that. People bought into you, that authentic authenticity. Yeah, I find that so interesting. So let's talk about the last 2 years then, because we're saying, just to frame this up, obviously an amazing achievement last year, 2021, obviously top perm consultant across the group. I mean, there's a good amount of people that's against, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Do you know exactly?

4,000, I think it was, innit?

Really? Okay, love that. So, like, let's just frame this up because I think obviously you were saying to me it was your best year, right? Best year billings-wise. What did you finish last year on?

It was like 610, 612.

And that's the best year you've ever had?

Yeah.

And obviously the important context here for people listening is that's also a period where at this beginning of the year, it was just you. And then by the end of the year, you was at 6 people, you was in a betting manager role, 6 people in your team, and then you now got 8 people in your team in the middle of obviously this 2022.

Yeah, I think the thing I like about the most though is 6 months before me joining, then Soda had never touched an AI or data client in Germany ever. So there was zero candidates and zero clients and zero businesses from the day I started.

Yeah, that's nuts. You should be proud of that.

Very proud of it.

Yeah. So let's unpack this then. So I guess why don't we first start then, I guess towards the beginning and with what you just shared there, why don't we just talk a bit about what was the game plan for you to go to the German market, do those particular niches that you're going to focus on. What was the approach that gave you confidence that it was going to work or things were going to work? Like, talk to us about the early period and what the game plan was.

Yeah, so I guess when I was joining initially, I was telling Dave, Ash, and Ollie, yeah, I'm going to do data and AI, which obviously is a big part of many businesses.

A lot goes into that.

You know, it's a big pillar that like we can build this out, make a lot of placements here. And then like a week in, or like 3 or 4 days in, I goes, no, I've changed my mind. Can I do computer vision? Someone turned around, was like, what the fuck is computer vision? I was like, oh, it's self-driving cars, self-checkouts, all video-related, camera-based technology. Ollie just said, he was like, I've no idea what it is, but if you think it can work, I'll back you, just go ahead and do it. So I spent 2 weeks without picking up the phone.

2 weeks without picking up the phone?

Just adding contacts and businesses to try and understand who was the companies that hired computer vision, where were they, and then how can I start to make connections with them.

So did all the legwork of like the market mapping basically?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just quickly, man, because this is really common, like if, if I was in your team tomorrow and we identified like a particular niche, what, what, like what does market mapping actually mean? Is it that I'm just going on LinkedIn I'm looking at all the companies that have this certain technology or certain thing that I'm going to be focusing on. Then I'm going to add the hiring managers, then I'm going to be trying to grow my network of candidates. Like, what is that marking? What do you actually do in that market mapping period?

Well, I guess that's exactly it. You want to find out exactly every single company and what technologies they use. I was going through just searching computer vision Berlin, like going through every single LinkedIn search page. Looking for candidates who had just computer vision in it to see what companies they were at. Because some companies could be like 4 people big.

Right.

Computer vision, they're all startups. So you'd have to just find out who had computer vision engineers. Because if you look at it now, there's probably like over the last 90 days, 400 computer vision jobs posted on LinkedIn.

Yes, it's growing.

And half of them are probably from like big companies like Facebook. So you take all them away, about 50. So you aren't building a market looking for open jobs. You are being very proactive in who you can get on. I mean, it paid its dividends. I mean, sometimes I was getting business on with companies where I'd made like 3 or 4 placements in a couple of months. They didn't even have a careers page. So I was like, my competition definitely can't even point to this.

Why is that beginning part so important in your opinion? Because a lot of people say that you need to do that donkey work, leg work early on. Why is that so important?

Because if you try to do it while you're working jobs— recruiters like to work jobs, you get paid for filling jobs. Yeah. If you have even just one job to work over admin or market mapping, you'll resource the job, you'll speak to candidates, and you just won't do it as well as it should. I think it sets the ground for if you want to do social selling, you can then mass market to the right type of people. I mean, spending time really trying to find out right email addresses, not just adding it for no reason. Yeah, like if I got a company that I wanted to add, I'd add everyone from the executive assistant to the front desk, to the C-levels, to the managers.

Yeah, get a full picture.

Because I'm like, yeah, because no matter what I'm sharing in my industry, once it's about computer vision, everyone in this company is going to be interested anyway. And you never know, some of the times I've had people come back who are like an engineer or someone that wasn't necessarily directly affected by lack of hiring, but they were like, oh, I'll connect you with this person. And then they'll connect you, but then they'll write back. And you'd have messaged that person 10 times before and not have a response, but a referral from someone else in the business made a big difference.

Yeah.

So like, I'd map— I tried to map every company as I can, and then also every person in those companies.

And then just quickly on this, do you— is this something that you go to now? You did that beginning bit, and then is it something you make time for throughout the year? Is it something you look at on a monthly, quarterly basis? Just curious on that.

Yeah, I try to do what, um, I try to find new companies at least once or twice a month, probably, you know, 1 or 2 hours.

And then I know, because we know a bit about each other, I know like you're so passionate about this, the niche piece, right? And being known for something and having a real focus, which you're talking about there. Just really quickly before we go into the sort of strategies and what's worked and challenges, like what sort of markers or indicators got you really excited about computer vision? Like for you to go to turn around to Ollie and go, look, I know I said I was going to do this, but I really want to focus on this. Like, what is it that you got excited about? What did you see?

I've gone from a market with 50,000 vacancies to one with 50. It's like, it's like, yeah, this makes perfect business sense. Um, it was actually when I was finishing up my previous company, COVID was coming in, and every larger enterprise who worked for every large tech company Every company that had an internal talent acquisition team or recruitment team shut off the taps. We're not using agencies, we're not using agencies. Every computer vision company, and I only worked with one at the time, but I was able to BD and able to pick up two more while no one else was hiring. All were all happy to work with me. That's because they're small companies, they didn't have HR departments. You're like, you're contacting the people who are directly affected by not having the right person in there, which is CTO. If you go into a 1,000 or a 500-person organization, CTO's not worried about that. And then there's probably too many barriers in between getting to the person that is. Maybe they'll be like, I'll go through HR, go to the hiring manager. There's too many blockers. But within this, you could contact the C-level executive who, they need to spend VC money because they have to make these hires. Because they have to build a computer vision product. Because if they don't build it, they lose their investors or they can't go to the next round of funding.

Okay, that's interesting. Hey everyone, a real quick one from me. This podcast would not be possible without our amazing podcast partners, Vincere and Sourcebreaker. Because you listen to this podcast, you're able to get your hands on exclusive savings on both of these award-winning products. If you're a growing recruitment business, you have to check out Vincere, who are an all-in-one operating system for your growing recruitment business. With Sourcebreaker, if you want to make sure that all of your recruiters have the best tools on the market to stand out and beat their competition, then you have to check out Sourcebreaker. Use the link in the show notes, in the comments below, and you'll be able to get yourself exclusive savings on these amazing products. So let's first talk about you as you sort of getting numbers on the board, building a name for yourself, making placements, building that client list. and then we'll talk about challenges that have come with like them doing that whilst they're managing, leading a team and all of that. So I guess if you, if you look at this 2-year period then, what, what's been— because I know you're quite passionate about this, I'm keen to get your thoughts on that— what, what's been for you the most effective way for you to get known, liked, and trusted by the companies that you mapped out and that you were going for? So what's been your most effective way of winning business, winning clients, and sort of unlocking that loyal customer base that obviously loads of recruiters are aiming to do?

Yeah, so I would say it's— I can't pick one.

Sure.

But like, obviously to say social selling, like when you come into a market where you've got no reputation whatsoever and you want to just start talking to a load of computer vision managers, hey, how you doing? I want to do a computer vision podcast, can we talk? I'd love to get you on it. And you can speak to 20 managers in 3 months. That's 20 actual relationships that you can try and leverage into business. You do an event, you can do the same thing. But then after you've made a couple of placements and you've got a decent little book there, you can start literally just picking up the phone. Hey, I see you're still advertising this job, can I help you? No. Why not? It's like, why not? I know that there's not that many people doing my market. I'm like, who is using— what's going on? I was like, I can send you over letters letters of recommendation. I'm working with like some companies of like the guy— I'm working with the company of the guy who created computer vision.

Oh wow.

He's now got a new startup in Berlin and I'm hiring for them. I just name drop him in. It's like, if he's working with me, why won't you?

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but then yeah, there's a difference. I can use that to like maybe like a HR, a line manager, and then, you know, maybe next week I'm like, oh, I didn't like that, I'll ask him, do you want to come to my event? I didn't come back, I'll ask, do you want to come to my podcast? Hey, here's this cool blog I wrote. Yeah, just something all time. And I just make it that, uh, it was again a big reason why I picked the niche market. I'd say there's probably 500 companies in the whole of Germany that I can contact or that would actually hire in my space. So I'm probably targeting to hit them with some kind of CV content or information probably 4 to 6 times per month. Okay, so it's all relevant.

Yeah, yeah. So just to break that down a bit, because so you mentioned social selling, right? So how, so like you said, I think that's the key part to take away from that. There's like, if you're listening to this and you're relying on one method, one approach for you to grow your sort of loyal customer base, you're gonna struggle, right? And I feel like that's what you're saying here. So like, just talk to us through like, so right now, what are the sort of multiple ways that you mentioned a few of them, but just to be clear, what are some of the multiple ways that you would view help you grow that loyal customer base. So you said obviously a podcast, something that you started, you've got an event, events that you run, you mentioned like blogs, actual industry content, and then you said CVs. So like, just, just, I guess just talk us a bit about that high level and on the different ways and why that is important, and then we'll move on because I think that's the key learning for people.

So podcasts again, I mean, if you can come across and do and deliver a very good podcast where someone technical, CTO, line manager you're going to come across as their go-to guy, you know, or girl, whatever it's going to be. Next time they have a vacancy, they'll come back to you. I mean, those can be the longer term games, you know. You can check them out, they don't have vacancies, you can ask them how the hiring is, you can always have them conversations. But I would say 80 to 90% of the time, they'll ask you 2 weeks before they know they have a vacancy, hey, do you have any idea what salary I should be paying? Or if this was to come out, would you be able to help us? Of course I would. And then it's the same with the events, but the events obviously is very much— they can be quite hard because they're trying to get people in from speakers or from an event into like conversion. But when it happens, you actually have a very lot— very little one-to-one time with them. But it can always be used as another one. Hey, let's do the event, but let's book a meeting up after. Let's see how everything went. And then you can look to convert it then. And then information, CVs, they're like a little bit more quicker wins. Sometimes you don't get the long-term relationship out of them that you want. Sometimes they can be a quick, a quick snatch deal, even though, you know, you could do a lot more with them. Some people are just not— some people are just interested in a quick placement and that's all they want you for.

Yeah.

But I guess it's, I guess it's about having, having different arrows for your bow. Different weapons that you can use depending on who it's going to be that you're working with.

Yeah, and like you said, that enables you to build a short-term relationship, short-term opportunities, long-term opportunities. So I guess this was something that, and I know again something that we spoke about just on this topic, and it's something also that Ollie dropped me a note about as well. So I think, and this is what we spoke about, so I think when I spoke to a few of your colleagues, they all sort of spoke really highly of you in the sense of like your approach to business development. And I think that the overarching thing that I took in when we sort of prepared for this was this sort of combining social selling, modern approach with old school methods, right? And I know we're talking about, talking a bit about this now, but I guess how would you sum up or describe that you use things like podcasts, meetups, modern approaches combined with old school, getting on the phone, making things happen? Like, how would you describe that you combine those?

Yeah, I mean, look, it gives you a fantastic reputation when you pick up the phone to someone who is a computer vision manager or someone who hires in computer vision. When they look at your LinkedIn, like my LinkedIn looks pretty decent. You can see it's very well accomplished. You can see the recommendations of X guests. You can see lists and lists of people that have been there. I think it creates like people seeing your face either at a meetup, at an event, people hearing your voice at a podcast reduces you being a stranger calling them for that first time, you know, whereas every other time you're just that same old recruiter trying to send them a CV, trying to make a placement and trying to leave them. Whereas these people have probably heard, seen, spoken, seen like so many things 5 or 6 times before. Um, and I think that's a nice way to get in and get some long-term business. But then there's obviously, you know, some people are not interested in these podcasts and meetups. They're the people that, you know, you sometimes you just have to make those calls to. I'm pretty sure that, like, I don't let people say that they won't speak to me. If they say they're not interested in working with me as a recruiter, I'm like, that's fine. I guess, what about coming to one of my events or on my podcast? It's like, these are very relevant to you in your industry. As a minimum, have you considered looking at these? I've never heard of them. Oh cool, why not? Yeah, I know, I know everything that's going on in your space in Germany. This is what I do, I share this information. Why don't you want to know what's going on? And then from them nearly going to hang up the phone to like, what do you mean, what is it that you do actually? And then it's great. So, you know, I'm not afraid to, to get told no for anything, because if someone says no for working, I'm like, oh great, Fall back.

What about this? Yeah, what about this? So it sounds like he's been really proactive. You're picking up the phone. Okay, cool, got it. So I want to segue into your leadership journey because I know that's really challenging for people, and it seems like obviously you've made that a success. But I guess before I do, um, people actually know— well, I was going to ask you about like your day plan and how you approach that because people always love that. But you know what, actually, let's do, let's do that when we're also talking about you managing and leading people because I think that, that would be really interesting for people and like how you were able to build that whilst also growing your team and how you manage that. So we'll touch on that, but I guess, look, we've kept it quite positive. What would you say last year as you were growing your team, what was the most difficult part about it, about sort of keeping that performance high? Obviously making— you could probably sense that you was on track to have like a really good year, but then you wanted to grow your team, get the right people in. What were the maybe the challenges last year that maybe you least expected or came with that transition to management?

Um, do you know what, I would actually say the challenges are coming now. Okay, more so last year.

Talk about that.

Last year it was like as soon as the team joined, everyone came together, it went from 1 to 5 overnight, and it was like everyone was just in flow state. Like everything just happened. Like month 2, full house. Month 3, team full house. Yeah, I was like, this is, this is unbelievable. There was like a trainee on my team who'd done 3 deals in our first 2 months.

It was all going to plan.

It was, it was just she's signing terms. It was just like, this is, this is great. I was like, I was having some of my best months. And yeah, it just worked out really well. Whereas now there's just me and Seven, so there's a team of 8. My time has gotten very much restricted now. We're trying to help, like, Suki's doing his event, uh, his first in-person event next week. This week? This week, the 8th. It is, it's this week, yeah, yeah. So Suki's doing his first event, so I'm going over for his event. And then 2 weeks I'm back over for my event, so I'm finding that juggling all of that, it's a lot of over-commitment and then trying to make sure I have enough time for everyone. And I mean, having enough time for 5 people when a lot of the time you were able to be remote working anyway, now you throw in travel times and yeah, it's just being, just being that quite bit stretched.

So how have you, how are you approaching at the moment? Like, what's the current approach to it? Because I know it's not perfect, but Yeah, how are you thinking about the moment? This will be helpful for people because this will be a really typical journey that billing managers go on. So how are you currently thinking about approaching those time constraints and challenges? And because I'm sure you're thinking, oh, that person on my team, do they feel like I'm letting them down? Do they feel like they're getting enough support from me? Like, how are you currently thinking about approaching it that you think is maybe working well?

Or— yeah, um, I would say I sacrifice time speaking to candidates more so than speaking with my team.

Interesting.

Everyone on my team has a consistent one-to-one every month, performance management, biweekly training sessions. I speak to everyone on the team at least once, at least. Sometimes it might just be a 30-minute session, but some people are in the team now one year, that's all they need, that's all they want. They might just want to rant to you for 30 minutes. There could be people on the team that want or need that little bit more support, you know, maybe 2 30-minute sessions per week to talk about their L&D, where they're going to develop. Um, but with that as well, I always make sure that I'm booking out my own time for making sure I'm still doing BD each week. So that, like, if I was— if I come into every week, there's 20 hours gone anyway. That's between booking in BD and time with my team. That's interesting because it's, it's, it's nice with a niche market 'Cause also, like, if I get a computer vision job on next week, I'll have 12 candidates in 24 hours, and that's unheard of in that market. So I think choosing that niche has allowed me to be able to spend less time with candidates. It's kind of like a Java developer. You either do Java or you don't. It's the same with computer vision.

But you've also got now critical— obviously, is it just you that does computer vision?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I was going to say that you've then obviously grown a bit of a team where I'm sure that they do some Obviously they're building their candidate networks and these things, but that's interesting. So, so the insight there I got then is, which I guess oftentimes can slip for billing managers, is your non-negotiables each week beyond supporting the team is you every single week you're showing up doing business development, existing relationships, new relationships, is something that you, you always make time for regardless.

Yeah, yeah. And time with the team. Yeah, yeah.

And time with the team. And then maybe it's the candidates that you maybe don't have as much time, but you've really worked hard to build this network. So, you know, if you get these grade A jobs, that there's, you know, the type of people that you want to be calling that you can headhunt and speak to.

Sometimes it's easier to win a new business to get 5 CVs, 5 existing CVs for that, then get 5 new candidates for one existing job.

What about, what skill sets have, has Anthony had to develop on this journey so far? What have you had to get better at? What things have you had to learn the hard way? When it comes to management?

I would say, I would say like it's the, it's the doing and the following up.

Okay.

Um, not even that, it's the, the process behind it. Something that Ollie Perry is actually amazing at, and I try to replicate as much as I can. So you have your, your team brief in the morning, Monday morning, you let everyone know, you tell everyone, this is what we agreed on, here's our objectives, here's our goals, here's our actions, we'll catch up on these on Wednesday. Let's see how everyone's doing on Wednesday. And then on Wednesday you can link back to the email that you sent on Monday. Hey, how are you getting on based on everything we agreed on? And then again, same on Friday and then reset in between.

So what are you doing? Just the email on Monday and then no follow-up? But yeah, is that what you're doing?

I do, I do. I've got good at it now. I've got good at the setting emails, setting the actions, the following up. And even, I mean, you can do that from a one-to-one perspective. A team weekly objective setting perspective, one, uh, like a monthly one-to-one personal development plan. If you do a training session, everything has actions and objectives after it that you're following up on. Whereas previously I would have just been like, yeah, here's a meeting, fine, go on, not know like what we agreed. That was just it, you know.

Um, so the follow-up and the process is something you've worked really hard on?

Yeah, yeah.

So you had to become a lot more organized?

Do you know what, it was actually just being able to manage to do that in time with that. So now I can do it while the meeting's happening on a dual screen, whereas before I was like drowning in all the information coming in. Yeah, it was all so new to me, but yeah, okay, balancing that was quite nice. I think that was really good.

Anything else that you've really had to work on, learn the hard way? So you mentioned obviously the process, the follow-up, from a management leadership perspective, is there anything else that you've had to get really good at, do you think?

I mean, I haven't really had to deal with much else. It's just more so work with everyone very closely, performance manage one-to-one.

Yeah, nice. So I think that this is— we spoke about this, but this is something also Ollie mentioned about, and you, you mentioned it to me around— he really feels like you've done a really good job of creating like a mini culture in your team. Um, which he was saying that he feels adds an additional purpose for people in your team beyond working for the overarching company. And probably something that recruitment owners want their best managers and leaders to do is that they'll, they'll sort of die and live for the company, but also their team management and within the team. So I think obviously you mentioned to me before we, uh, called, right, that your team's called the Cream Team, right?

Team Cream.

Team Cream rises to the top.

Cream rises to the top. Obviously Irish.

What's the idea behind this? I know you had a bit of a philosophy around it, but why have you really intentionally built this mini culture and really tried to get people even further bought into what you guys are trying to build as a collective within the business?

I can't remember the book exactly it was in, but it was definitely one of the management framework books. And as I was saying, it was about— can't even remember the coach now, but it was England's most successful Olympics coach. Did he do cycling?

Or not?

No, no, over overall.

Okay, good.

So they get like an overall team coach for everyone to go in, right? And everyone like reports into him. He's the team leader for 100 athletes to go over, right?

Got that.

And there is the thing that stops most teams from being successful at the Olympics, and I didn't know this until I read that, is illness.

Illness.

Yeah. So they made this thing, it's like, let's be the healthiest team ever. And then they called it like a totem, like a kind of like a ritual that they all had to make sure that 'cause if one gets sick and you're all sharing a house together, you're all gonna get sick. So if you get sick, you're sacrificing that person's success and so on like that. So let's all agree, we'll wash our hands, we'll sanitize our hands before we enter every room and when we leave. And there was a couple of little rules like that and that was their totem. Anyway, it was the most successful English Olympics ever in history, even still to this date. I was like, cool, I was trying to think of that. I was like, I can't get everything.

So that inspired you?

Yeah, yeah.

Do you do a lot of, do you intentionally make time for you to, learn about how can you become a better leader, manager? Is that something you often do?

Yeah, I would.

I wouldn't—

not so much recently because I'm quite— I don't have the time as much now, but I do need— that's not an excuse. I need to make time again.

But obviously when you went on the journey, it seems like you was quite curious about— yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So you was inspired by that, and then what did you think? What, what can I create? What sort of rituals can I create for, for my team or the team that I'm building?

Yeah, yeah. And then, um, I just came up, I was like, yeah, look, let's call ourselves Team Cream because it was kind of like joking at the time because it was when the team had just set up and like we'd been team of the month, team of the month, team of the month, team of the quarter, like just in like our first month. I was like, this is unbelievable. And then I just written to like one of the chats, yeah, the cream always rises to the top. And I was like, yeah, we're Team Cream. And then like from then it just stuck. But then what I done is I took it a step further and I do like a 3, 6 months rollout of where were we then, where are we now? And basically like showing accountability. So like, let's say like Suki, who's now gone into team leadership.

Yeah.

Like 6 months ago we were rolling out, I was like, yeah, Suki wants to be here in 6 to 12 months. That means that as a team we need to do this. But everyone then knows that if the team doesn't do this, it's actually impacting possibly Suki's growth, it's impacting the growth of the potential team.

Um, we're getting people to buy into that collective.

Yeah. So I don't think people— people often say in recruitment, oh, what, what am I here for? Am I just here to generate revenue, to make sales and do business? I'm like, great, yeah, yes you are. Um, but in our team, you doing well, you're doing well, and the whole team doing well, here's how it affects the person sitting beside you. Um, and we all got matching hoodies as well.

Yeah. And you found people who really bought into that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. So I guess as we come, as we come to the end here then, what advice would you have for people listening to, to this that are also on this billing manager journey, maybe finding it really tough right now? They're in the trenches of like, I don't know, they've gone from like one person they're responsible for to 3 to 6. Now they're getting on to the next stage. Like, what advice would you have to people that are on a similar journey to you that might be helpful?

Um, the structure. The structure of when you have a meeting, there's an agenda. Goals are set out, and then after you're following up what goals are set out, who's accountable for them, and how they're going to achieve that. And then making sure you're following up on that, because if you're just setting goals and you're not following up on them, people aren't ever going to do what their goals are anyway. You know, they're not going to go for their objectives if it's not— you might say, yeah, this is important, but then if you never follow up with them, how important is it? Yeah, they start— even if it is important, they start to think, oh, it's not that important anyway, he never asked. She never asks. Working on your own time management, which again I know is a lot easier said than done, but with me I have, you know, blocked out times in my diaries which are non-negotiables every week that I either have for my team or for me to do something, whether it's from my desk or then specifically for my team and then team meetings.

So let's just, as you mentioned that, let's just break down what a typical day looks like for you then as Anthony the manager in a growing team, and then we'll wrap up. What does a typical day look like then?

It's more so typical week.

Okay, cool. Let's do that.

So let's say if I say typical week, I'll have start of the week objective setting, midweek catch-up, Friday end of the week, done.

So that's like team time? That's team time.

Group team calls. There is then individual time for every single person on the team. 20-minute sessions, probably 6 to 8 of those per week minimum, maybe even a little more.

Is that the beginning of the week, end of the week?

Um, mix, mix, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. Okay, trying to mix it up so I still have good availability in core hours for myself. So I'm not sure.

Yeah, the objective setting, the follow-up, the sort of wrap up the end of the week with the team group stuff, then you've got individual time, 30-minute sessions with the team. Then what else? Do you have any other team commitments?

No, that would be it unless there's stuff coming up. Unless it's, uh, every second week there's a team cream biweekly training session.

Cream, like that?

Yeah, biweekly session.

And how long is that?

Uh, that'll be 45 minutes.

What, over lunch?

End of the day on a Wednesday. And that will be a topic that the team give to me. It's like, what do you want to know about?

Whether it's interview preparation, debriefs, maybe current challenges that are going through, things that are interested in.

Yeah, closing techniques, stuff like that.

So every other week you've got a team cream training session, non-negotiable as well. Yeah, yeah.

And then I've got my management calls that I have, so there might be 2 or 3 of those per week, maybe an hour or two.

Yeah.

Um, And then I do my traditional recruitment stuff that I can, even though I tell everyone to do it, there's not a lot of people. So you still see the owner, 4 hours of outbound BD every week, 2 hours of candidate regens every week.

Regens?

Yeah, it's just regenerating candidates that are old on the database, candidates I might have spoke to 2 years ago, um, available.

What's going on? Yeah, so 4 hours outbound client development and 2 hours outbound Candidate development.

Don't know what leads you get out of it.

Yeah.

Someone you might have placed or someone you might have not placed is now a hiring manager. I mean, it's— or even better yet, they're available.

Love that. So, and then any other non-negotiables, like activities? So you've got 4 hours of that, 2 hours of that. Is anything else, or is that it?

That would be it. You know, the rest of the time is what I'd use for sourcing, maybe, uh, you know, calls with new candidates.

Yeah, I love that. I love the non-negotiables around that. Thanks for sharing that. So I guess to wrap up then, obviously we're halfway through this year, what have you got top of mind, what are you thinking about that is going to make sure that the cream rises to the top again at the end of this year?

Yeah, yeah, I'm actually in the process of trying to place a whole team of 9 people that were made redundant.

Oh wow.

Which would be unbelievable.

Yeah.

So if I do that, I'll be very happy, but by the end of the year, ideally I'd have like, you know, setting up in new regions, Munich, Switzerland, this way we can really I guess the word land and expand. Yeah, you know, we've got a successful team in Berlin, uh, so you're all based in Ireland, aren't you?

Your team?

Uh, 2 in London, 5 in Dublin.

Okay.

Yeah, um, in terms of that, I think we're going to be looking at a Berlin office in Q1 next year. Um, but yeah, just really looking at growth, getting in that second line of leadership. So Suki obviously coming in. If I had my way, I'd get one more team lead. Um, again, that would be fantastic for me because then I can spend more time with Suki and new teammates, and then with more people, maybe let Suki manage 2 or 3 people, but when it really comes to performance manage, I can help out with that.

And then how are we looking your own performance-wise? We're going to top last year?

I think so.

Really?

On track? I'm going to aim for it. I'm not on track, but this month I'm going to—

You're feeling good?

I'm going to have a 6-figure month this month.

Yeah. Okay. I love it. Anthony, it's been an absolute pleasure. Pleasure, mate. Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it and got value from the conversation. If you did enjoy it, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next episode.