Behind the Numbers: Ethan’s £70K Weekly GP Story and His Strategies

Ethan, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you very much, good to be back. 2 years on.

Yeah, um, obviously, yeah, sat down 2 and a bit years ago and we thought good timing to talk about what's been going on since we last sat down. So I guess just to paint a bit of a picture for everyone, feel free to let me know if I get any of this wrong or fill in some of the, the blanks, but I remember when we did sit down, you're talking about some of the milestones that you wanted to get to or the goals that you had And I think definitely I remember you saying when I listened back to it around you hit one milestone of getting to like 35K weekly GP, then you're thinking, right, the next one, the next one. So since we last sat down, a couple of big things that you should definitely be proud of. One, became a shareholder in Interex Group. Yeah, that's pretty big.

That's a big one.

That's a huge one, uh, which is really exciting. Obviously a lot of people that listen to this podcast are high performing and will find themselves in a position where their directors are saying, um, this is something that you can achieve. It doesn't always materialize, so I think that's awesome that that's something. Yeah, you know what I mean? So I think that's awesome that that's happened with Interex, which is really cool. Um, we're going to talk a bit today around the strategies that you're applying now, but also what you feel has enabled you to get to this peak. But your peak contract book-wise was 70K weekly GP. 105 contractors, um, which is— that's huge.

Good old days. I miss them days. Yeah, I wish some days were still there.

So that was— so that was end of 2022?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I'm going to talk a bit about what's been going on since. I guess, why don't we also— because I'm assuming this may have changed, but you, you let me know— in terms of like the infrastructure and how, um, the InterX group, I guess, being part of InterX, like how they've enabled you to be able to do those numbers. So you can tell me if I get any of this wrong, but in terms of the setup, obviously your world and your niche, which you've been really focused on nearly for a decade now, is Microsoft Dynamics.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's, that, that's your niche. So right now, um, any contractors, any deals that are happening in that, that's you, and just you're doing that?

Yeah, yeah. So Obviously started my career in recruitment 10 years ago, and I always stayed in the same market, which was Microsoft Dynamics, which is in the ERP space. Um, I was pretty much just doing that until the year 2022, where it was basically just myself. And at the time I had one DC that was supporting me, but most of the time it was myself on delivery as well. Um, and then coming into 2023 is when that slightly changed. I took a bit of a different role. I focused on client expansion, growing the accounts across all areas. So it wasn't just Dynamics, I was covering cloud infrastructure, modern workplace, data, really growing it. But up until 2022, it was just doing Dynamics. And then literally only until a couple months ago, I've decided to come back to male market again and focus on Dynamics.

Okay, cool. And then anything— and then again, let me know if this is wrong, but then if you do pick up work outside of that from your clients, um, you get support on that because obviously Interact have delivery function.

Yeah, yeah. So the setup is now is everyone in the company's 360. We, we don't build a business based on having loads of delivery consultants and only salespeople. Everyone is 360, but then we have a designated delivery team where that's focused on any accounts that come into the business that might fall outside of market or outside of region. We pass to the delivery team. Um, so yes, I focus on Dynamics 365, which is myself, but then I still manage big accounts where we're getting roles outside of Dynamics, which will go to delivery, where I'll pass it to delivery, they find the candidates, manage the candidate process, and then I just manage the client and the client process.

Okay, because I think that's important to make sure people are clear on that, because I think often when we think about these big numbers, people thinking about how's Ethan doing that all on his own, what's the setup, what's the support. So, um, yeah, it sounds like you're in— you're obviously in an environment, in the infrastructure that's enabling you to really maximize your client relationships and do the best job that you can, obviously.

Yeah, well, to be fair, back in 2022 when I was at my peak, that pretty much— it was just myself and one delivery consultant. So I didn't really have a delivery team, right? It was literally just myself and one DC at the time. And then going into 2023 is when I kind of changed for me.

And then the other bit to know, again, let me know if there's some updates on this, but if we look at 2022, obviously you've always been quite diverse, haven't you? We spoke about this last time in terms of like where your contractors are, where they're based. So, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've got it written down here. But if we were to look, if we were to like dissect your book at the peak, where is it, 70K weekly GP, you had contractors and clients in Mainland Europe, US, and then Africa as well.

Everywhere. I didn't say no to anyone. I mean, at the time I delivered everywhere. So North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia. I was— the only place I didn't deliver was Australia, just because it was impossible. Other than that, I delivered to every corner of the globe.

Okay. And then what about now? Is there more of a bit of a focus now, or is there still like that?

No, it has split. It has split, um, naturally because the company's grown. We've got two offices in the US and it's growing. Um, we've had to split it, so I no longer focus on the Americas now. Um, my focus purely is now is Europe, uh, Middle East, Africa, and some parts of Asia.

Okay.

But the whole Americas time zone is moved on somebody else.

Got it. And then other bit that I think would be interesting to people, so, um, when we had this contract, but at the, the peak, I think we've got here the client spread is about 10 or 11 clients, 40 to 50% of your contractors at that point. So nearly like 40 to 50 contractors was in one client.

Yeah, yeah. So at my peak, I'd say probably one, one account had around 50 contractors, another account had about 20 to 30, and then another account had 10, and then I had a few other accounts that had like ones and twos and threes.

Yeah, I think that's just really helpful for people because I think, again, interviewing more and more contract recruiters, I think if you're getting to these sorts of numbers, there's a lot that goes into it. But oftentimes you're gonna find them say, I've got 1 or 2 accounts where a big chunk of my contractors are.

Yeah.

Versus having like— imagine if you had that 40 split across like 10 different clients, do you know?

Yeah, yeah. I've— to be honest, I've never met anyone that has grown to, let's say, 30, 40, 50k a week with like loads of spot business. Everyone's got, you know, 1, 2, 3 accounts. That's has the, the vast majority. But then spot business is great, but you can't scale and grow to those numbers because the whole point of getting to those numbers is to stop becoming a recruiter, become more of a partner, and you become more of a managed and outsourced outsourcing service. So you can't do that doing spot business because spot business is classic recruitment. The way you get to those numbers is by being a partner, which is different kind of setup where you need those big accounts.

Yeah, makes sense. And then maybe find a bit of context as well that'd be helpful. What— it might vary, you'll have to educate me on this— but what was like the, the sort of bread and butter of like the skill set of your contractors? Like, what was the typical— like, what did that look like, uh, typically at this time? And maybe even now, like, what's normally always the types of contractors that you're placing?

Yeah, so in my market, functional consultants was always the, the key hires. So it's always functional consultants, solution architects, projects and program managers, and developers. Um, other than that, I didn't really look outside of it. I'm, I'm very strict on what I look at, especially when it comes to Dynamics. Um, I focus on what I know because luckily I've been doing a job 10 years, right? So as soon as a request come in, I knew exactly who to call. There was no recruitment. I just knew who to call, the numbers there, that was it. So, and the way I did that was by focusing on the role, uh, the area, the location, and that's why it was so easy. But those roles are the typical ones. I wouldn't really look outside of that unless I was passing it to delivery where somebody else was doing the role if it wasn't dynamics.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Okay, and then how long do you think— and then we can get a bit into like how things have taken shape since this, um, period— but how long, if we were to look at like a timeline, how long do you think it took you overall to get to that peak, do you think? Because I think that's, that's good for people to— yeah, like, how long can I actually take? I know there's the harder you work, the luckier you get. I'm a huge believer in that.

Yeah.

But like, how long do you think it took you to get to that peak? Do you think—

do you know what, the, the massive growth was quite fast. What, what took me a while was, um, it took me about 5 years to get to about 20K a week, which was with loads of end customers I was working with at the time in Dynamics. And then when I cracked this one account, that's what took me from 20K a week to like 30, 35 quite quickly. But in terms of getting to, um, 70K a week, it took me about 2 years from that point, from like 30, 35K a week, 5 years grinding, getting to that point.

And then there's a few like trigger, um, tipping points.

Yeah, yeah. So maybe even less, maybe like 18 months. It just— the months just become huge. Like it was just, it was just 6-figure months back to back to back for a long period of time. So there'll be some months where I was adding like 15K a week to my book. I think my biggest month was like 17K a week. I had some huge numbers.

Yeah, it was huge.

Crazy. Yeah, crazy. Yeah.

And then, well, yeah, and then let's look, let's keep it real here. Like you said, you know, before we were chatting, it's, it's been really varied from the conversations that I've had. There's plenty of people that have found it really tough this year. Some people, um, there, yeah, there's like pockets where there's success. I think what I always say to people, what I learn every year, is like LinkedIn isn't the truth, do you know what I mean?

Oh, it's like Instagram, it's all fake.

Yeah, so like, let's— like you said, you've been really honest with us in terms of how long it took you to get to those. Pete, you've already said you missed those days. What's been like— what's been happening since then? And then we can tie it back into what we're going to talk about today, are ultimately like 8 to 10 strategies that you feel you've doubled down on that's enabled you to get to that peak, and ultimately the things you're going to be implementing now to hopefully get you back to the— get to back to those days. But like, what's been going on since?

Yeah, I think we all have to be honest now and say 2022 wasn't normal. Like, 10 years in recruitment, that was my biggest year in recruitment and probably will be my biggest. Um, it wasn't normal times. Everyone was smashing it, everyone was hitting records, breaking numbers, and it was easy. You could call 10 clients and pick up 5 jobs. It was just times were easier. There was a massive boom after COVID, and, you know, it's just the right time, the right place. I was working with the right company that had a massive boom, had loads of demands, and luckily I had the network to deliver it. Um, so I'm not gonna sit here and say that I've cracked it and I'm the best recruiter in the world. It was just that I had a very good client, it was very good timing, and because I had such a good network over the 8 years at the time I built up, it was easy for me to deliver, um, you know, and that's why I got to those numbers as well as just being consistent and working hard. Um, going into 2023, that's when there was a massive dip for everyone, um, you know, and it was very up and down. So I think from getting to 70K a week, I think I entered February and it dipped down to like 60, so I lost like 10K a week after a month. Um, and then throughout 2023, it was just kind of going between 50 and 60K a week the whole year, pretty much. And then coming into 2024, again, kind of stayed the sort of same. And then again, I've had some ups and downs. So yeah, it wasn't a normal year, but I'm now in a position now where it's kind of back to the grind and it's back to normality. Everyone's talking about, oh, the market's crashed, it's really hard, it's really difficult. It's just normal now. It might be slightly harder than before COVID but I think we're just comparing it to the year where everyone was smashing. It was really easy. And, you know, the, the recruiters that were smashing it, hitting all these big targets, that was seen as the best recruiters in industry, they're getting found out now because they're trying to work the same way and it's not working.

Yeah, I think that, that's the— that's hopefully what this podcast can help with, is like painting a bit more of a picture. Because if you, you can imagine, like, if you join the industry in like '21, '22, and then like you said, you're only ever— your only experience was like doing crazy numbers. Yeah, you've got nothing else to compare it to. Yeah, it's gonna be really, really tough. So obviously you've got the advantage there in terms of you've got a whole like decade to look at and be like, it has been this tough, like this is normal, whereas some people haven't, right? So I think that that's really, um, just a great insight for people. So let's get into— because I know these are the things that we thought about, right, in terms of strategies that you feel like you've deployed, doubled down on, that's enabled you to achieve the things that you have. And also going to be the things you're going to be applying now, right? You know, when you say back to the grind. So why don't we start? This was— this isn't in by means any order, but what I found into being more and more contract recruiters, which I want to get your take on, is they do have really ruthless standards on only working with the best contractors. And this also coincides with really getting to grips with your market and your industry and your niche. So you've already told us the, the particular skill sets you're always looking at. Sounds like you stay pretty disciplined to that, but then you're part of an infrastructure like Interex where you can also benefit from your relationships and get support on other things outside of that. So the more you do that, you're more— the more you're going to understand what companies have really high standards for contractors. If those contractors work there, then there's probably a good sign that they're decent.

Yeah.

And also, this goes into which I think also I've learned is If you can also increase the percentage of contracts that get extended, that's huge as well, right? In terms of protecting your book and maintaining those numbers. So why don't you just talk to us a bit about Ethan's perspective on, on that? Like, how crucial is this for contract recruiters to really be disciplined with, like, trying to make sure you're working with the best contractors?

Yeah, definitely. Well, look, your network is definitely your wealth. Uh, you can't go far in this game if you haven't got a good network. Our product is people, right? So you need to know good people. Um, again, you know, if you've been doing this job a long time, naturally you are going to have the benefit of knowing good people. Um, but in those early days, it's just talking to candidates. I know people don't like it and it is long doing it, but the, the best way to become an expert is by finding the best product, speaking to the best candidates, and networking and working with the best. So You know, when you're, when you're working with a customer, right, they want to get the best value and they want to get the best candidates. So it was so important for me that when I was working on positions and working on roles and requests, that I was only going to the best people because those CVs and those people are a reflection on me. And when I'm talking to clients, I'm very direct. I'll say to them, you're talking to the best contract recruiter in Dynamics. I work with the best people and I am the best and it's proven. I can't back that up if I'm sending terrible CVs, right? So I need to make sure I'm working with the best people. So I was always very thorough on who I selected. Um, I'd box off the market, speak to absolutely everyone. I wouldn't just speak to 3 candidates. I won't speak to 3, I'll send them. I'll speak to at least 10 candidates, then say, right, these are the top 3, these are the best 3, and I'll send those people. So that's a representation of me that you're working with the best. Um, and always getting the recommendations from other contractors. You know, good people know good people. And, you know, a good way of knowing good people is seeing where people are working. So when you're speaking to contractors, knowing where they're working, what projects they're working on, and the types of companies they're working with. Big companies usually work with good people, right? If they're paying a lot of money for someone, they're working with quality. So again, finding out where your contractors work, and if you can see there's a pattern where they're working on these big projects, big companies, high revenue companies, it's normally a good insight that they're good, especially if they've been working there for 12 months, 18 months, 2 years.

So let's just talk about this just for a sec, because I think there'll be some bits in there that might be helpful for people. And this might be, again, we were talking earlier, right? This might be something that people feel like they already know, but it's more about being reminded, right? Versus them. So just a couple of things that I've learned, and then you can tell me what you think. So within that, one of the, so one of the ways that you can get a better grasp besides just like doing more reps, speaking to more people, and just getting more experience, is if you understand from a client perspective. So if this contractor is working with this particular business and you know it in that business that they have a pretty stringent process on onboarding contractors that weeds out people that aren't that good, that's one thing. So I feel like that's something that I've learned in terms of not all companies are equal in terms of how they onboard contractors. And if you know X company, uh, has worked with this contractor, you know they would have gone through certain hoops that should mean that, uh, they're better quality. So is that, is that true? Or I don't know, what is that?

Um, I mean, yeah, I mean, some clients they want to do background checks, have 10 interviews, like find out where they live, they want to do all kinds of things, right? And then there are some clients that just say one chat, get them on board. Um, I don't think a client's process is linked to how good the candidate is.

Okay.

I think it's more just down to, you know, the thorough search from the person doing the qualification. Um, a lot of people, when they're speaking to candidates, it's like, are you available? Do you fit in the budget? And are you based in that country where you can go on site, for example? That's not really qualifying the skills, you know. Finding if somebody's good is when you're pressing 2 or 3 times in a question about their experience. So for example, if you're asking how long you've been doing this job, 10 years, okay, in those 10 years, how many projects have you done? How many have been successful? How many of those have you been extended on? How many have you come back to in the, you know, in the future, in the past? There's so many questions you can ask to really find out if someone's good, because if someone's joining the project, they're there for like 3 to 6 months, they go, they go to another one, most likely they're not a good candidate. Because I know in my industry, if you're a good candidate on a project, you're going to be there for a year, 18 months, 2 years, sometimes even more. So it always just comes down to being very specific on the qualification, um, not just asking one question, ticking the box and moving on. Ask a question, they give you the answer, and go back with a further question and so on. So you need to probe a bit further. Um, because most recruiters don't, and that's when you beat your competition and you really understand who the best people are.

Yeah, okay, that's, that's really good insight. So to build on that then, again, it's something that I've learned from another great contract recruiter. You might use this framework, but he uses this framework when he's selling in contractors, but it links back to what you're saying, uh, which he calls, uh, FAB, which is feature, advantage, benefit.

Yeah, I don't know if you use that, but it's a very old-school sales technique.

Yeah, fair. So, but the bit what I just want to highlight is the benefit bit. It's the bit that he highlights is like great contractors will be able to explain what they did on projects, and they'll be able to understand the benefit in terms of the impact that what they did on that project and the impact it had on the project in terms of the benefit to the actual client that they're working for. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel like that's also something that I've learned which I found interesting in terms of a great contractor will be able to answer those questions, and the even better ones will be able to go, and because of that, the client was able to— I don't know, it could depend on the project, right— was able to speed up the amount of um, speak— let's just say it was, it was more easier for users to use the platform that we created, or I don't like, just the actual benefit of what they did. I thought that, that was quite interesting.

Yeah, I mean, that's the difference between a good salesman and a recruiter. A recruiter is someone who works with HR, they fill a vacancy, and they just find CVs. A good salesman, or a good, let's say, good partner, is someone that can go to a client understand the pain, a bottleneck, or an area where there's a gap, and then not just sell, oh, this guy's got 10 years, he's been doing this module for this long. That's not— you just— that's a summary of someone, that's someone's CV. You're not saying this guy's going to come into this project and do X, Y, and Z, is going to make this impact, bring this value, reduce this time, save this cost. That's how you show value. And You know, time, time is changing now. I've noticed it. Um, anyone can, can sell contract, perm, contracts to hire, right? So we're adding value now. And if you can talk to a client and talk about a resource, about the value and benefit they can bring to your project, they're going to buy into that a lot more than saying, this guy's got 10 years in Dynamics, he's worked on 10 projects, he's a specialist in finance. That's, that's not going to get the sale, that's not going to get the buy-in. What is the value? Why is this guy different to the other CVs I've seen? Here's why, I'll tell you.

And it comes down to that qualification, as you're saying.

Yeah.

Okay, love that. Final bit then on this, I think you mentioned it, also pretty crucial that great contract— great contractors are also going to be able to give you references. No qualms about that, confident to give you them as well. Is that fair?

Yeah, definitely. Um, naturally when you're speaking and networking, you want to be finding out, you know, who are their teammates, who can you recommend. Who is part of the project. Because, you know, if you, if you follow good candidates or good contractors, it will lead you to the projects where you need to be working. Because, you know, if a contractor is working with a client, one, you know they're hiring contractors, and two, if you can supply similar profiles or people that have worked in the past and they can work well as a team, that's going to add more value and that's going to bring more value to the project.

I love that. I don't know what you think of— just final point on this— I don't know what you think about this analogy. I thought it was about— it was with a guy that I interviewed called Duncan. Again, we're talking about the having just ruthless standards on great contractors. And he was saying whenever he's had pushback from contractors around them giving him like a reference that he can sense check what they did in that project, and look, it's in your interest, Ethan, I can then speak to the client that because you've had this experience, it's gonna be really beneficial to them and the project that they have. The analogy that he uses is like, would you ever buy a box of eggs without opening the lid first? Yeah, that's a banger, innit?

Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, I might nick it.

Yeah, I thought that was just class. Okay, cool. So yeah, as you just said, there's a lot to be said around probably really a lot of foundational success around working with best contractors, right? That's absolutely crucial. Let's get on to the next one then. I might need your help and maybe people listening. You might go a bit technical, but I think this often happens when I speak to contract recruiters that, like you said earlier, where you're going beyond like the end customer and then we're talking about consultancies.

Yeah.

So let's just try, I guess, because we've got here, identify the biggest partners, consultancies in your area and focus on working with them. They are the eyes and ears on the market. Do you want to— this is going to be technical, but contract recruiters will be able to learn from this and know. Do you want to try and educate us on the difference between end customer and consultancy?

Yeah, this is always quite a controversial topic because even internally we always say, do we want end customers or should we work with partners? And there's always a bit of a debate. Um, and I've always said there needs to be a bit of an even split, but just to sort of break it down, an end customer is the business that are the ones using the technology or using the platform. So for example, it could be, let's say Barclays Bank are going to be using Dynamics 365. They're the end user. They're the ones that are going to be using the actual IT system. The partner or the consultancy is the business that is offering the service to provide, um, the team, the project, the governments, everything to implement that system for Barclays Bank.

So Barclays have engaged the consultancy to do that?

Yeah, yeah. So Barclays will use a partner, a consultancy, to run the project and help implement that system into that business.

Got it.

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So that, that's the two differences. Why Talk to me a bit about like the eyes and ears. So they're the eyes and ears because these consultancy partners are literally speaking to end customers that need, uh, yeah, basically taking transformation projects or these things are going on. And in order for them to do that, they need certain skill sets and need people. So is that where this comes from then, like understanding who are the biggest players in your market?

Yeah, definitely. So the way I, the way I see it is that Um, I always would just see where the biggest numbers come from and where the revenue comes from. And when I look at our business, don't get me wrong, we have some huge, huge end customers. We do. But a lot of our big accounts are partners. And I just think, well, if that's the case, that's who I want to work with. And my biggest account I work with is a partner. Um, and the, the reason I love working with partners is because I always say If you work for an end customer, you work for one company. If you work for a partner, you work for 1,000 companies. And the reason I say that is because partners work with hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of customers.

And they're doing multiple projects at the same time.

Demand's always gonna be there. For example, I, I had a massive project finish this year. I had about 30 contractors there with an end customer. They went live this summer and I had 12 grand a week come off a book overnight and they finished. Whereas if they was working for a partner, there's a good chance they would get put onto another project and I wouldn't be moaning about losing 12 grand a week in my book. So you need to have a balance because it's great having the end customer, but that day's gonna come. I've had it 3, 4 times now where that project finishes and then your book falls off and you're back to having beans on toast for dinner. It happens, right? So I'm in a situation now where I wanna have a balance. I wanna have partners that give me stability and security and volume. Um, because they do the work for me. You know, it is graft constantly calling customers all the time because it never ends.

End customers.

End customers. Yeah. If you're always calling end customers, it's never going to end, right? But if you're working with partners, they come to you, you have a relationship, you have a partnership. They're the ones winning the projects, they're winning the demands, and they come to you and they make your job easy. Um, so that's why I always say have a balance. I've always said, you know, 70-30, 70% customers, 30% partners, or even 60-40, depends how you want to play it. Because you need to have the balance and you need the security there.

So let's just talk about this for a sec then. One, what's going to be the easiest way for me to understand who the players are? Is it again, use my network, speak to contractors? Because good contractors should be aware of some of the big partners. Who run these projects or are pitching for these transformation projects. Is that fair? Like, what's the best way? And then just some solid market mapping, understanding the market.

Yeah, there's a few ways. So the first way is always obviously speaking to contractors. So once you've spoke to every contractor in your market and you find out where they're working, if you're seeing that, okay, I spoke to 50 contractors and 15 of them work for this one partner. That's a very good indication that that partner is a heavy contracting business within your market. That's who you need to work with. So talking to people, find out where they're working, or asking them, what partners do you know that hire contractors or win lots of projects and so on? And of course, when you're talking to end customers, who are their partners? Every time you talk to an end customer, you need to ask them, who is your partner? Because if the customer fobs you off and doesn't want to work with you, but then their partner is getting all the work and they've outsourced it to them, that's another angle to get into the project. Because I've had it before where I spoke to a customer, they don't want to work with me, um, because they're saying, oh, we've outsourced it to our partner. Who is the partner? I've gone to them and then got requirements. It happens, right? So that's one way of doing it. Um, another way is just going on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the most powerful sales tools you can use. A lot of my work is based on LinkedIn, so I just filter down LinkedIn Recruiter to identify all the it consulting companies, partners, management consulting businesses, and I'll identify all the biggest ones and all the mid-level ones that win the most projects, and I'll map them out on LinkedIn, get all the contacts, and go after them. And then of course you can just go on the Microsoft Partner website, find all the partners online There's a few ways to do it.

Okay, and then just so I understand then, I guess I'm assuming if I'm an end customer, they're thinking like, if a recruiter calls me, right, and it's a contract recruiter, they're trying to talk to me about do they have these problems, etc., they're probably thinking we like, we've outsourced all these problems to this partner. Yeah, like you don't need to get involved with this, or I don't even want to be spending any time or energy on it, like you can't really support us, or we can't really chat, because they must feel like they've just solved that problem, it's being dealt with. Yeah. Right, okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, because look, um, I'm a firm believer that it's a numbers and volume game, but you need to know when to walk away sometimes, and you can't always sell to everyone. So, you know, there are some customers that go, do you know what, um, we don't want to be accountable for the project, we don't want to be responsible for it, it's down to the partner, they've signed the contracts, they're liable for the project, if it goes wrong it's their fault. We're not dealing with it. Um, and some companies are like that. So naturally, you might get lucky if you're pestering them for a year, 2 years, 3 years, and you finally get somebody in. But, you know, if they're saying that to you after the 3rd, 4th, 5th call, the likelihood is that you're gonna have to go to the partner. Go to the partner with the information, say, look, I know you're working with so-and-so, this is the situation, I know you're the partner, let's see if we can work together. Um, that's another angle of doing it because you are going to have those blockers.

And then have you found in your journey and experience then, is it the bigger— it may vary, I don't know— but like the bigger the end client, the more likely that they, they engage with a partner to do these transformations?

Yeah, so, uh, in my industry in ERP, every single business will have a partner. I've never come across an end customer that has never had a partner involved. They might have a partner for a very small part, and then they take responsibility for a lot of things. But there's always a partner involved because they always need to blame someone if something doesn't work. Yeah, they always need to blame someone. They always need a bit of insurance because companies aren't going to take liability, invest in 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 mil on a project, and it goes wrong and it's their fault. If it goes wrong, they can always blame the partner.

Okay, and then I think I just want to just make sure I understand this and focus on it because I think it'll be helpful for people. What is— if I'm a partner, what's the benefit to me of working with you? Is it the— okay, Ethan is literally in the detail every single day speaking to the types of people that we need to execute great projects. We don't have the resource to be able to do as good a job of Ethan, like what, what's in it for the partner to, you know, work with you?

Yeah, so naturally any good recruiter or a good salesperson knows how to sell against a partner. When we're talking to end customers and pitching them, we're always selling against a partner. So we know a partner's weakness and we can use that to our advantage when we're pitching them. So like a lot of recruiters, they will over-promise, over-sell, and under-deliver, right? Um, the partners are the same. So a partner's sales business is like a recruitment company. So they will overcommit to a customer and they will fall short. And, you know, a partner can only do so much because, for example, there's a partner working with a big company, um, and they're located in Europe, Middle East, Africa, the US, Asia, but that partner doesn't really have a team in those locations or has knowledge in those areas. They're going to have to expand it and go to external companies. So rather than subcontracting other partners that are going to be expensive, they can work with a company like us that's going to be more lower cost, more agile, more flexible, faster, and they have the network in each of those locations. Because there's so many sales, like, you can go on forever about how to sell to a partner, but that's just the reality of it. Partners can't deliver to every customer. It's just impossible.

Now, that's what I wanted you to share, like, what basically what you've consistently found, like, why would a partner like work with you. But that, that, that makes sense. Um, okay, that's super interesting. And then the other bit then that we, we put down here in terms of strategy-wise, which I think was— be interesting for people to hear this— so we put focus on big customers that are international, will need teams in locations Europe, Asia, and, uh, USA. Like, why? Obviously, yeah, because I think that is interesting because whenever we've spoken about how you've done what you've done. You've always been quite diversified.

Yeah, I'm sorry to break the news to people, but if you're wanting to get to 50K, 60K, 70K a week and you're doing one country in one area, you ain't gonna get there.

Yeah, you put here hard to scale in one country about 25K from what you've seen, from your experience.

So yeah, I mean, I've interviewed a lot of people throughout with our company and I've networked with a lot of top billers, and you know, the highest top billers I've spoken to, they've probably got to like 15, 20 maybe $25K a week doing like one market. And what I mean by that, for example, doing just data in Netherlands, for example, you're never going to get to those numbers if you're restricted. If you're lucky enough to be in a company or negotiate to have the opportunity to work outside of those regions, you can scale. I'm not going to sit here and say that if I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to work where I want, I would have got to those numbers. The reason I got to these big numbers is because I can do Europe, I can do Middle East, I can do Africa, I can do Asia. At the time I was doing US and Canada. Even now I could as well, but I've tried to be a bit more focused. But the whole reason I've got to those numbers is because I'm not restricted. I can build teams in all these locations. If I'm working with a client who they're doing a project, let's say, in the Netherlands, but then they need to build a team in Germany in Malaysia, in New York, I can do it. So I haven't got to pass it over to different teams, or it's out of my region, I can't touch it. I can do it myself. And especially in the US where you're getting $2,000 a week, $3,000 a week margins, no wonder your books are going to grow so much. But if you're doing just one location, one area, getting €500, €600, €700 a week margin, it's hard to grow.

Yeah, this is right. So like a big part of the recipe is the environment that you're part of, right? And the infrastructure you have in terms of obviously Interact has been enabled that to be even be an option. They've got everything set up so you can do these things. So on, just curious then, what were— I don't know, maybe you didn't, but like what have you found to be the common misconceptions around this? Because I feel like people might be going, oh yeah, but like what about all the legal stuff? That's gonna be really different. Can actually do that? It's gonna be difficult to start building a network there. I don't know, is it— what are like the common misconceptions that you haven't really found to be true? Because it sounds like you're just like, yeah, I can do that, I know, I know the skill set, I'll just crack on and make it happen.

Yeah, no, look, I, I can't sit here and say that I've done it all on my own. Um, I, I've got a great contracts team, compliance team, legal team, um, contractor care team. It's all set in place for me. When I got to about 50 contractors, that's when my, um, my contractor care service started going downhill.

Just because when you was doing it yourself.

Yeah, because it gets to a point where you're a recruiter and then you're a partner and a service provider, and there's a difference. And when you get to about 50 heads, it's hard to stay on top of your contractors because— and what I mean by that, catching up, how things are going, what's the situation on the project, any problems, any issues, getting information from them, having general catch-ups. You know, if you've got 50 contractors and you have 50 conversations a week, that's your whole week gone before you've done any BD, right? So it gets to a point where you can no longer do it. So we had to employ, um, a contractor care team where they basically support, um, people in the business that have large accounts, a large amount of contractors that can no longer do it, so they can focus on BD. So that's what happened to me. Obviously, when I got to 105 contractors, there's no way I could manage that. And the problem is, um, what always happens every month, there's always an issue. If you've got 100 people working for you, you're never gonna have a month where there's not an issue. There's always something. So again, I can't be constantly dealing with issues with contractors when I'm trying to win clients, manage accounts. It's not gonna happen. Mm-hmm. So we had to get the infrastructure in place. So I've got my compliance team where they've got loads of experience working international. I've got ones in US, I've got ones in Europe, in the UK. So the infrastructure is there, so there's no issues with me working with anyone in the world. Um, and the same again with all my contracting team, that they, they do everything for me.

Um, that's class. Yeah, so it just comes down to execution and the things that we're doing, so you can just focus on that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, even with the candidate side, if I pass this to delivery, I don't touch it. They do it all for me. I just focus on clients, managing my process. Um, so I, I outsource a lot of things. Even when it comes to my admin, I outsource a lot of my admin now. I don't do it myself because sitting there on a CRM until 8 o'clock at night adding clients on the system, I don't want to be doing that. I ain't got time for that. Um, so I always try and outsource things as much as possible, and luckily I'm in a company that gives me the infrastructure to do that.

Yeah, I mean, that, that's what great companies need to be thinking about. How can we get— like, how can we make sure people like you are spending time on high-leverage tasks and the things that matter and the things that are going to move the needle on your contract book? And staying there till 8 PM uploading leads or whatever, isn't that?

Yeah, the grind needs to be there in the early days, but I think this day and age there's a lot of automation, there's a lot of AI, there's a lot of tools you can use now. Um, so I think naturally companies are moving in that way now, and if you can outsource— silly— even when we had a meeting, you took the piss out of me because I was taking notes with a pen and you're sitting there with AI notes. Like, companies are doing it now, so if you can outsource things, why not do it?

Yeah. But bottom line there is, if you're listening to this and maybe you feel like you have hit a bit of a ceiling, it's worth thinking about how can I, uh, yeah, provide this skill set, work on similar projects but not limited to X location, right? And if you haven't got the infrastructure, speak to your manager, speak to the leaders in your business, and go, what needs to happen so we can start, uh, supporting on these projects in US, in different parts of Europe, right? Because like you've seen, it sounds like you might run into a ceiling if it's just London this or Netherlands this that you focus on.

Yeah, and if you haven't got out your company, you can always come work for Interex.

Absolutely. So, okay, then we've got leverage current relationships within the group and network, and just basically network, network, network. My biggest client had 15+ contacts in the business unit. I think that's a really good insight. So you're saying there, your biggest client you had 15 different contacts that you made in that business.

Yeah, just in Dynamics. Just in Dynamics. Um, I think, yeah, again, a lot of people can have the issue where they talk to one contact, they get a really good conversation, they do a few deals, and they think that's it. Um, again, luckily I had the opportunity to network outside of my regions. Um, so if you're working for an organization that is global, you want to make sure that you're networking as much as possible. It's network, network, network. And the more contacts you work with in a company, the easier it gets. Because sometimes if you work with one contact, some people think, oh, that's my client. I've worked for clients before, you do one deal with a contact and you try and network around, they don't want to know. It takes a long time to crack an account and be an actual partner. Um, so you always have to network and keep on pretending like they're not your client. Always networking, providing a good service, always having follow-ups and catch-ups with all contacts. And so it gets to a point where they're all talking about you, they all know who you are, and it becomes an actual account. It's really important to always network, even if you think you've got a really good relationship. Get recommendations, get introductions, get, um, get an organogram to find out who the managers are in the company. Find out absolutely everyone so you can really maximize the account, and that account will look at your company as a supplier and as a partner.

How long have you got anything? Obviously, um, don't want to know who the, the client is, but like, how long would you say it's taken you to crack one of your biggest accounts, out of interest?

Yeah, so my biggest account, it took me about 6 months before I cracked it. Um, really, really hard company to get into, loads of red tape, loads of legislation, wasn't really happening. Um, and the whole reason I got in there is because, uh, the contact knew me, of course, and we had previous contact before. Um, but it was a case of I kept staying in touch, um, trying to find the chink in the armor. And then it comes to a point where their other supplier basically messed up. They wasn't performing, wasn't doing a good job. That's some really urgent projects that needed help. And I was knocking on the door and probably driving him crazy. And he eventually was like, look, I'm gonna give you a shot, give me some time to see what I can do. He went away and managed to find a way for us to work together. But that was, um, you could say it was luck and good timing, but I just put it down to being very consistent. Like, 6 months it took me to crack into the client. A lot of people will give up after like 4 or 5 calls. I had 30+ conversations with him before I got in there. So yeah, I think I was just very persistent, and luckily it got to a point where there was a chink in the armor and it was the right time for me to get in there.

You delivered.

Yeah, that's, that's the main thing. He'd give me 2 roles the first time, and I delivered 2 people in like less than 12 hours that were spot on.

Yeah, happy days. But no, I think you put yourself in that position 100%. Yeah, like, defo. Um, have you found— I was just gonna ask then, have you found typically the best way to try and network, grow that, uh, grow the number of relationships you have in an organization is introductions? Typically, is that, is that the best way?

Yeah, so my formula of working is I won't call anyone or reach out to anyone unless I've reached out on LinkedIn first. So I'll connect on LinkedIn with a little note, a little message, introduce myself, and then once they connect with me, um, I then call them, voicemail, send an email, and cover all touch points. But I always try to make conversations as warm as possible. So the best way you can do that is by someone physically seeing your face, where you work, your job title, see your profile. So if they see my LinkedIn profile and I call them and say It's Ethan Hall from the Interex group. Straight away they know me, they know my face, where I'm calling from, and it's a lot more warmer. Um, and that's always my approach. So it doesn't matter if it's an existing client or new client, I have the same approach. And of course, if I know somebody in the business, um, I'll get them to make an introduction by setting up a Teams call, an email introduction. I'll set up a conversation. I'll get them to maybe give a reference on us. So I'm always leveraging relationships and partnerships, or if I know a customer is working with a partner and I have a relationship with them, I'll ask the customer to put me in touch with a partner and vice versa. So I'm always leveraging relationships no matter if it's internal, the customer, or the partner.

Yeah, nice. Love that.

Or a contractor as well. You can always use a contractor. So a project manager, a program manager, or a solution architect, someone senior preferably. And use the contractor to then put a good word in for you.

Yeah. And then if you found— you mentioned it earlier, this, this is something that come out of, um, one of our training sessions actually, that you'd be surprised how many people be willing to give you like an org chart if you ask for it.

Yeah, yeah. If you don't ask, you don't get.

Yeah, that's quite interesting.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, uh, some companies will say no because it is, it is very inside intel. But, you know, if you're working with a client and you've got NDA signed, all that kind of stuff, that they should give it to you. It saves a lot of time. No one wants to be sitting there on LinkedIn mapping out clients until silly o'clock. Make things easier. Just ask the question. You might feel uncomfortable asking them. It's always the uncomfortable questions that get you the furthest. So ask the question, make it easy for yourself. Ask them who's in charge. Have you got a map of the business? Makes things easier.

Also, we're talking about here existing relationships, maximizing the accounts, right? So I think you're also going to be asking, hopefully from a point of leverage. Like, you've maybe done a good job, you're starting to build some rapport. So I think, like you said, you don't— you don't ask, you don't get. Okay, so then we've got— I think that this is a, a big one, and I think there's always come out of when I've interviewed really great contract recruiters, which is— we've got here: sell different solutions. Anyone can sell contract, perm, contract to hire.

Yeah.

But businesses want more value. And then we've got sell, statement of work, managed services, RPO outsourcing, white labeling. So do you want to talk a bit about this? Because I feel like this is quite critical, isn't it, if we're gonna do the big numbers?

Yeah, definitely. Um, I, I hate being called a recruiter. Really? Yeah, it's just, I don't like it. Um, and why is that? The reason I say that is because I think the relationships I've had over the years and what I've done and what I've been involved in I see myself more as a partner, more of a consultant rather than a recruiter, because I'm— look, don't get me wrong, I still work like a recruiter in terms of chasing posted jobs, chasing leads, all this kind of stuff, right? But every time I get onto a phone call with a client, I always tell them there's two parts of my business: offering traditional staffing services and offering projects delivery services. The two very separate things. Staffing services is just your boring contract, permanent, contract to hire. Anyone can do that, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry selling them solutions. Um, even now when I say, look, I've been doing a job 10 years, I'm a specialist, I'm the highest billing consultant in my industry, all these things I can talk about, clients are always going to put me in the same box as someone calling from my competitor. Even though I can confidently say I'm better than all of them. I can't be taken out of that box. And the way you make yourself different is by selling a different solution. Clients are bored of recruiters now. Clients are getting called by tens and tens of recruiters every single day, every single week, with the same pitch. Everyone can improve their pitch and get a better pitch, but the way you make yourself different is by pushing yourself to being more of a partner and adding value. Sending a CV only add so much value. But if— are you actually offering a service with some kind of responsibility and accountability? Are you taking time off of the client's hands so you can do it for them? So a lot of my agreements I have now that are really big for me are, for example, managed services or white labeling services. So managed service is essentially where you're, you're still providing, let's say, recruitment where they want to increase capacity or they want to increase their headcount. You go to market, you find the resources, but they don't do the interviewing. The client completely outsources all the interviewing and the recruitment to us. So that way, all they're doing is saying, this is the request, Ethan, go find it. We identify the resource, we have the interview, we run the technical interviews, we do all the onboarding and so on. We then manage that resource in terms of their onboarding, their learning and development, their training, escalations. If there's problems and issues, we deal with it. Um, I have a service delivery manager that we've hired, um, off our own back who would then manage those resources, um, deal with situations. So those resources focus on delivery and the client hasn't got to deal with the day-to-day boring management tasks, the problems, the issues, all that kind of stuff. That's fully outsourced to our business. So we're providing talent but also managing the talent as well.

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The problems that you'd be solving for a client there would be what? So like, I guess, time, and then also just like, what would be not like— do you know what I mean? I think that'd be helpful just to understand. Like, again, it'd be nuanced, but what, like, what is— why is a company paying you to do that? There must be like things that they just don't want to deal with, or what the main pains.

Yeah, I mean Everyone can say the most time-consuming thing about this job is process. You know, you win a job, um, you might agree a profile call, they push it back, you jump on the profile call, oh, this person who's interviewing is off, you've got to work a week for the interviews, you confirm a date to catch up on the call, they push it back. Process can literally make you blank in a month because it might take a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks to close a process, and it can happen, right? So if you can control the process, you can control the deal time. Because if you've got a managed service, a client will give you that, um, agreement. You manage the process so you can do deals literally within a couple days, right? So first of all, yeah, we're the ones running the interview, we're doing the technical interviews, we're doing the onboarding, the selection, the feedback. It's all run by us, right? So we're now in full control of the process, right? So saving time and having ownership and control is one of the key things. Um, and it's all just, it's about partnership really. Clients just want to feel like they've got a partner, not just someone that's, you know, invoicing them a margin every month. Because in reality, that is what we do. They give us a request, we send a CV, we send them the person, and we kind of step away and we invoice a margin every month, right? Um, and that is the reality. And clients want more than that. They want to, they want to, they want to feel like somebody's part of their business. They're sharing the pain, they're sharing the responsibility, this, this sharing the accountability for the person. Um, and then they want to feel like you're more of a team unit rather than just, okay, you send a CV and there's a margin. Um, I'm just really big on value and partnership now because that's, that's where I'm seeing recruitment heading now. I think a lot of business owners are seeing now that the industry is changing and it is going down the SOW route. It's going down managed services, support services, white labeling services. It's moving down that route now because people are having to get smart and, and beat competition.

And is this all typically, when we think about the end customer, all project-led? Like they've got—

not always, not always. So there's a difference. There's project-led work and then there's support services, right? So I do both. So I'll provide project delivery services as well as support services. So when a client has gone live, the project's done, and they need just people to deal with like business as usual, escalations, problems, tickets, all that kind of stuff, change management.

Okay, so yeah, okay, that makes sense. Okay, so curious, and this might be a good way to talk about it. Let's just assume if anyone's listened to this, they've got the infrastructure to some degree that Interact have, right, to be able to fulfill these types of services. But the only way— like, I might be listening to this and I understand what you're saying, that's where I want to get to, like, that, that's my aspiration. I want to become a partner. I want to, I want to add way more value to my clients, um, and I've got the infrastructure, I've got the, the support, I've got all of that. How do I what, like, what are the steps to go from doing the one-to-three contract deals with end clients, maybe more just spot business? I built my book that way. Like, what, like, how do I start going from there to start having conversations with clients around managed services, SOW, these things? Like, what, what are the, the steps to that? Because I feel like you do have to start thinking about how, what you do differently, do you know what I mean? Like, there's going to be a different process because I feel like you're not going to be so focused on, oh yeah, you need this person with this experience, I can get you that. You're actually going to be more willing to take a step back and go like, what's important here? What happens if you don't get this person? What matters on the project? Or I don't know, do you know what I mean? I feel like you need to start having different conversations almost.

Yeah, it is a different conversation. Um, so look, I think if you want to get your foot in the door and place a contractor, that's a good way to start because you're proving your capabilities. They're getting a bit of an insight into your service, your models, what you like as a partner. It's a good way to start. So you can start off by placing 1, 2, 3 contractors, and then, then it's a case of, look, speaking to the right contact and booking a call, booking a meeting to talk about other services that we can provide you. We're not just a staffing company, we're also a consulting business that can offer you more of a managed service and offer you more of a of a partnership. Um, let's book a call to go into that. And then you go into that conversation and you pitch them the idea, you pitch them the case study, uh, you talk about the value, the benefits, and, and how it can benefit them more rather than just providing CVs as a staffing business. Um, once you open up that conversation and you talk to them about the benefits, the advantages, uh, the value case studies, for example. Once you go into that conversation, it's— you'll naturally be seen completely different. You'll stop being put into that box as just that other HR recruiter. And I always think naturally you get a bit more respect. I feel like when you're having those conversations of being more of a partner, you know, you get a bit more time, um, they listen to you a bit more, you get more of a stronger connection with them, and it leads to bigger pieces of work. Bigger agreements.

Yeah, so there is definitely, there is definitely like a bit— there's a different process then, isn't there, in terms of like sales process?

Yeah, it's different, it's different. It's, you know, you're not having to deal with, um, let's say HR, you know, um, line managers, competitors with other agencies, you know, interview feedback, profile calls. That is all gone. It's completely— it's a different conversation.

Talking about the bigger picture, aren't you? You're talking about the, the actual— obviously how you can support them in different ways, but you're obviously going to anchor that to if they're going through, um, a change transformation, or like you just said, the, the services when they've gone live with things. You're going to be talking, you're going to be asking them questions around that. You're not going to be asking them like, do you need this skill set, or do you need this, someone with this experience? Yeah, speaking about the bigger picture.

And it's, it's all— again, you start talking about project budget as well. You're not talking about HR headcount and that kind of stuff. It's all about project budget, which is it's, it's all in the form of an SOW. It's a work order. It's a different kind of agreement and it's a different kind of budget. So it's very separate from HR vacancy to projects budget.

And how— and then final bit on this then— how can I, how can I as a recruiter get more educated on this? Any different? Because I do feel like if I work in a business and they have a good contract team, this is an important part of their business. They should be thinking about these things, right? So as an individual recruiter, how can I just— how can I educate myself on these different types of ways of working? Is it again through my network, through the contractors? I don't know.

Come work with me, that's good.

Um, but like, I don't know, I'm just curious. Obviously, hopefully this helps, right? But I'm just interested, like, is there anything that you did, or is it actually you just had the internal network and you've got the internal expertise that you lean on?

Um, look, in this job you spoke— you speak to partners, consulting companies, outsourcing businesses, et cetera, et cetera. They all do the same kind of thing. So these partners that you're pitching as clients, or these companies you're going to to subcontract some of their resources on projects, they do the same stuff. So you can naturally speak with them, learn from them about how they pitch it, what they're doing, the kind of services they run, and then use that yourself to sell to other businesses. And then of course you can just research online, go on YouTube, You know, researching things online, even looking at competitors. There's a lot of recruitment companies doing it. Go look on LinkedIn, go on Google, look at other recruiters that are selling these sort of solutions and these consulting models. Um, and even speaking to contractors, some contractors that own their own businesses, they also sell these services too. So there's a lot of people that you can talk to to get this information.

Yeah, I think that, that would be really helpful for people. What have we got here then? You, you might have mentioned this, so we've also put here, um, uh, to be fair, we touched on it here. So yeah, you said one of the things that you have to be doing, LinkedIn, just a really important tool. So if we want to find out and identify the biggest partners, consultancies, look for the big companies that have got 1,000+ employees and filter out partners to find end customers. So what we're saying here is a lot of the time, if you are market mapping, you're making sure you know who are the biggest enterprise and customers.

Yeah, I, I'm guilty of this. I wasted a lot of time talking to companies with like 200 employees, 300 employees. You know, you might get lucky getting the odd spot business, placing one contract that's there for 6 months and they move on. But you know, you ain't gonna get rich doing that. You're not gonna grow accounts doing that. Um, the reason why, because contractors aren't cheap. Um, and if they're paying 200 grand, 250 grand a year for a contractor but, you know, their revenue is, let's say, could be $10 million, for example. It's a big portion of their revenue, right? So it's not going to happen. So you also need to work with companies that are international, because if they're running these projects, they're not just doing it in London, they're doing it in London, in Paris, in Frankfurt, in New York, and so on. So you need to work with companies that can scale. Um, they've got big infrastructures, big teams, high revenue, and global businesses. So I'd always focus on working with companies that have at least a couple thousand employees, um, because they're the ones running projects, they can afford contractors, they can scale, they can grow teams. Because you're only going to have a good contract book if you're winning accounts where you're getting, you know, 4, 5, 6 contracts into a project as a minimum. Um, again, the reason I got to such big contract books because You know, when I had 10 or 11 accounts, they were accounts. They weren't just like one contractor. I had, you know, between 3 and 6 in a lot of them, and then the rest were like 20, 30, 50+.

And you just found in your experience the best, the best chance of you actually getting that is companies that, like you said, have way bigger budgets, way bigger turnover. So they're likely going to be in that enterprise space.

Use LinkedIn filters. LinkedIn filters are the best way to do it. Go on LinkedIn, change the filters, the location, the company sizes, the industries, and identify all the biggest companies in the area, um, to identify the best ones to work with. That's the best way to do it.

And does that mean then I should— if that becomes my strategy, if I want to break the ceiling of like maybe we said 10, 12, 15, 20K a week, does that mean that it might take me a bit more longer? To crack these accounts? You found— obviously I know you said 6 months was your longest, but is that also part of what you've got to expect?

No, that, that wasn't normal though. I mean, it wouldn't normally take me that long to break into an account. Um, I mean, some of my biggest accounts I've cracked into, I have cracked into from 1 or 2 calls, 3 at most. Um, so yeah, I mean But again, it was kind of like right time, right sort of place. So 6 months is not normal, but, you know, usually most accounts take between 1 and 3 months to crack into. I'd say normally 1 to 2 months. It depends if you get them on the phone. If you get them on the phone and you can have 2, 3, or 3, 4 conversations with them, you know, you're either going to get a no or a yes. But that's how it usually works. But I wouldn't say that, you know, it's going to take 6 months for everyone, but if you're going with the right pitch, the right contact, staying in regular contact with them, it should happen a bit more faster.

I think that is helpful to know though, like if you map out these, uh, end clients that fit what we've said, like, and I don't know, maybe there's like 50 on that you've got on your list that you should expect at the very least.

If you're way more than 50. All right, yeah, yeah. What Um, my, my client database have like over 1,000 clients on there, like companies.

And that'll be because obviously you're doing a lot of different geographies.

Yeah, but even for example, if you're doing Netherlands, for example, if you've got like 100, 200 companies on there, it's nowhere near enough really. Like you need like 500+ companies.

Why is that then?

Um, because I've always sort of broken down that if you pitch 100 companies, between 3 and 6 of those will convert into a buying client. Usually. Might be high, might get 10, for example. But, um, you can't, you can't have a massive success rate if you've only got 100 clients that you're calling, because you can go, you can do $100 to $200 a day quite comfortably, um, if you just, if you're just doing BD all day, nothing else. $100, $200 quite comfortably. So if you're calling the same 100 companies every single day, day in, day out, and expecting different results each time, Insanity. You, you need, you need to have a big network and a big amount of clients to go after because, you know, for example, if you're, if you're going after 500 clients in, in one country, you know, or in one sort of area, for example, you're covering a big space. But if you're only covering 100, it's not a big space to be covering.

Yes, we need, we need that to be okay. So there's, there's got to be plenty to go at.

You've got to be finding, you know, at least 25 minimum, ideally 40 to 50 new companies a week. When you first start off in recruitment, they're the kind of numbers you're dealing with. But I mean, if you haven't— if your client list is less than 500, you've got work to do.

And for you, if you was to give advice to anyone— obviously depends on your strategy, right? But if we're aiming big, you want to make sure those companies are what we've said, the 1,000+ employees Yeah, multiple locations.

Yeah, yeah. So I always said 1,000 as a minimum.

Look, you—

I mean, even a couple weeks I've done a deal with a company that was about 500 people, so you can do deals, but I don't see any growth in that account. I think they'll work there for a year and that'll be it, and I don't think there'll be more hires. Um, but you, you want to have a focus on, on getting big clients above 1,000 employees. If you get a lead or you see a posted job, fine, chase it, but don't have a strategy of just pitching companies between 200 and 500 employees all the time. You want to make sure if you want accounts, and for example, if you're, if you're in between, let's say, $10K and $20K a week right now and you're hitting a brick wall and you find it difficult and you're analyzing the clients you're working with and you're realizing, you know what, I've got quite a lot of clients that are below 1,000 employees, you might find that's the reason why.

That doesn't make sense again because of, like you said, it's not, it's not cheap to have these types of, yeah, people, uh, supporting your business. That I think that'd be really helpful for people. Okay, what's the recently moved contacts on filter? What we're saying on that?

Yeah, so I'm kind of giving away some secrets here, so I shouldn't be really saying it, but a good way that I normally work is that, um, you all in this job, right, where we're always late You know, where we're information gatherers, we're lead chasers, you know, we're always getting information secondhand. So, you know, we're not a consultancy or a partner that are finding out the customers that are starting projects that are completely greenfield and brand new. We're always late to the party. So the best way to be first when you're late is, um, go on LinkedIn Recruiter and set up alerts for when people move. If somebody moves to a business, um, and they're within your market, that's a new project.

That's something's going on.

That's a company that's recently hired somebody within your market. That means there's something going on, there's a project, they're doing stuff. Um, that's a good way to keep up with current projects because you can waste a lot of time calling clients and pitching clients, um, that might be live on their projects. They've been using the system for years and years and years. And there's not much going on. So the best way to do that is of course getting leads from candidates, talking to partners, finding out what projects they're working on. But it's also using LinkedIn Recruiter, uh, recently moved, that as soon as they move to a new company, it alerts you. You go on their LinkedIn profile, see where they've moved to, find the contacts and pitch them because they've just hired somebody within your market. It's brand new, there's stuff going on, and that's the best way to get into projects in the early days. And the way I always say it, right, um, you, you need to be first in this game.

How else than that?

You need to be first because, uh, if for example, you know, you, you pitch a client, if you're the first staffing company or the first partner to pitch them, you've got a pretty good chance of winning. If you're the third person, you still got a good chance. If you're eighth, probably not.

So is that because what, they've heard it all before, or they've heard it all before?

Um, you know, there isn't really a need, and you know, you don't need to be brassing yourself out working with, you know, 8 or 10 suppliers. It's not good for anyone. So, um, if I talk to a client and they say, oh yeah, we've got like 5 or 6 suppliers, I, I won't work with them. Um, it's got to be either just 1, 2, or 3, 4 still, it's not great, but, uh, it's just a rat race. And, you know, we've all got the same candidates. It's just kind of who calls them first, and it's a shit way to work. Um, and it's not really a great partnership. So, you know, you need to make sure you're first because you, you might not be the best pitcher or the best recruiter, but if you're first and then that client decides they're not, they're not going to work with anybody else, you might have had your lucky day and you've cracked into account that's going to be your mortgage payer. So I've always said be first, and that's a good way of cracking into clients.

And I guess also, if you are— if you're good at what you do and you are first, you're also going to be able to really understand the scope of what's going on and actually also like ask good questions, understand what's going on, and also like properly see the potential.

Yeah.

Whereas maybe 3, 4, 5, 6 conversations down the line, they speak to recruitment agencies, maybe stuff's already happened. But again, if you are first, I guess you're going to also be able to really realize like yeah, they're probably gonna need maybe 8 contractors.

Yeah, the need is less. I mean, even though I can, I can give them all my case studies, tell them who I work with, the stuff I've done over the years, and they might be able to see on paper that I'm probably the, the better recruiter to work with. But if they're working with a recruiter that's giving them a service and it's working, why would they work with me? I can sell against the other competition and sell myself and pitch them of why they should work with me. But if they are seeing the value from somebody else and they don't need the help, why are they going to work with me? You know, it's like, for example, if your internet at home, if your internet's working, it's cheap, it's good, it's fast, why are you going to move?

There's no pain there, is there?

There's no pain. Like, again, like, we need to be good salesmen and know when to sell and when not to sell. Like, it is what it is.

A couple of last bits then. So we've got— so we've already mentioned, uh, you found if you have the freedom to deliver across different, uh, continents, geographies, that's going to be a big plus.

Yeah.

We've also then got here delivery, uh, delivery teams for project-based work and also support work, long-term ongoing billable hours.

Yeah, so it goes back onto, um, the kind of services that you're selling, right?

Okay. So, um, is that the difference you send the two different categories?

Yeah, so a lot of contractors in my market, they are involved in project delivery. Um, but not so much on support and managed services.

Is that less sexy, or people don't enjoy doing that, or—

It is less sexy. Yeah, it is less sexy. Um, smaller margins. Um, work's a bit more boring for the contractor, not so much me.

Um, what's the long-term ongoing billable hours bit?

Yeah, so I mean, when you're talking to a client and you're supporting them on the product delivery side, that's great, you know. It's going to run for a long time, um, and it's— you're gonna get peaks and troughs. Um, with, let's say, support and managed services, they usually buy blocks of hours each month, or they have like a fixed monthly fee. So you might charge, for example, €20,000 a month for this service. If they use those hours or not, you still get paid, right? Um, so it's guaranteed income, full-time, 100%, all the time. Whereas project delivery work, sometimes there's peaks and troughs. You know, they might go on holiday, they might be sick. You know, there's downtime, there's bench time. You might not get billable hours. Support services, managed services, it's always 100%, it's always paid. So you're paid all the time.

So there's pros and cons to—

pros and cons. The margins are going to be smaller, it's less sexy work for the contractor, but you're getting, you know, a year, two, three year agreement. Full-time billable each month, and it's guaranteed.

Again, it's diversifying your contract book, isn't it?

And it's a different conversation. Um, yes, Mr. Client, I can help with project delivery. Yes, Mr. Client, I can help with support services too. So it's, it's— you open up the, the sales avenues.

And then how long— this might really vary, but just curious— like, how long typically— because you hear this word a lot when I speak to contract recruiters— but typically in your market, how long do like projects last?

Um, yeah, so my longest project right now is running for 6, going on 7 years.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, going for that long. Really long. Yeah, so it's one of my— it is my oldest account. Um, yeah, I mean, I've done about 25 placements there, and I've got about— right now there's about 12 contractors left, and they've been there between 4 and 6 and a half years now. Yeah, so luckily ERP is one of the best markets you can work in.

So is it quite typical that they go on for that long, or like, what's, what's typical, like, average?

Uh, on average I would say like 18 months, 2 years is like quite normal. But like, I would say within the kind of projects I go after, especially the global and international, you're, you're always looking at between 3 and 5 years normally. So yeah, very rare that I'll place somebody just for 6 months. It's always like 12 12 months to 5 years normally.

And this is also— we'll get— we're talking about this earlier, but like, that's also part of the strategy from— it is like the market, right? And what the work you're winning. So like you said, if you know you're doing all that hard graft and you do win the, uh, the partnership, that, you know, that should mean that you're going to have the contracts that you do place, they're going to be there for—

yeah, we had the conversation before we started the podcast and I said if you're working in a market where your contracts are working between 1 and 3 months, good luck, you've got no chance. The only reason I've been able to get to these numbers is because my contractors have been working there a long time. When there are certain quarters where they're a bit slower than usual, you know, you might bang in, you know, a few deals, 3 or 4 deals, 5 deals maybe in a quarter, and it's a bit slow. When you've got long projects and they're continuing and you haven't got finishers, having that slow quarter wouldn't really matter because you've got the security and you've got the base there. If you're having to replace people every month and you're having slow months, it's a hard game. It's a hard game to keep on top of, you know. So you want to make sure you're in an industry and you're working in projects that are going to guarantee you at least 12 to 18 months if you want to get big accounts.

So let's round this out then. The last one, we might, we might touch on it, but we put leverage partners, uh, leverage partnerships with smaller partners, leverage their resources and sell their services to help you win projects.

Yeah, make this job easy for yourself. Um, you know, I've been in situations where I've had a team build of like 17 people and I'm about to deliver 17 rolls on my own, and it's not fun. It takes a lot of time and it is really time-consuming. Um, there's a company— there's a couple companies I've worked with over the years. One of them is 9 years I've been working with, and he's provided me probably more than 50 people over the years.

I need 2 people in WhatsApp for his company, right?

So there's contractors. Yeah, so there's a contractor, there's contractors that will own their own companies. Yeah, they could have 5 people working for them, 10 people, even 100 or 200 people working for them. Um, and to make my life easier, if I win a requirement from a client, I'll just outsource it to him and he'll provide me with a team, the resources and it's very easy. Um, my second biggest account that finished this year, um, I outsourced 25 people to one contractor who has employees.

And the problem that you're solving for him is you're getting, you're getting stuff for them to be working on, right? Yeah, they're not having to do any of that. Well, you're giving them what? You're giving them—

it was still contract recruitment, but I wasn't going to market, finding the candidates, qualifying people.

Oh yeah, but I'm saying for them for that to be also the reason why that's beneficial to them is like you're bringing them work, like they're not having to do anything.

Yeah, so I mean, when he comes to London once and, um, he got me some gifts because he said to me— this is when he had a smaller company— he said, uh, more than a third of our company's revenue comes from you alone. Well, like, thank you, like you've really helped us grow. And I was their number one salesman on their side.

Yeah, that's what I mean, that's the benefit to them.

Yeah, exactly.

But obviously you also get the benefit because you're not Like you said, you know, obviously I'm assuming you'd only work with them because you know it'd be a high quality, uh, resource, etc. Yeah, that obviously, yeah, it's a partnership again.

Yeah, I'm not sitting there till 8 o'clock sweating like trying to find people. It's just, it makes my job easier. So, and I've outsourced all the delivery to him. I can crack on doing BD now. I can win new jobs and it's the gravy train. You keep going and going and going.

How did you meet him then?

Um, he was a contractor and I placed him on a project years ago. When he probably had about 10 people in his company, and then over the years it's grown to hundreds. Uh, we've got a really good relationship. Um, I always introduce him to my customers. Um, he didn't speak to my clients directly. If he pulls jobs, or it always goes through me, he never does direct. So we've got a really good relationship. Um, if I'm talking to clients and they want a managed service or a support service, I'll introduce his business, you know, so it goes Vice versa.

So again, what you're saying there, again, that's just like, can you work smarter, not harder? Yeah, but again, it's all done relationships, networking. Yeah, these are the things that you can benefit from if you're really committed to your space, building relationships, you're doing good work, you build a good reputation. These are the, the things that you can also leverage potentially later down the line, right?

100%. This job, like I said, your network is your wealth. And again, if you've been doing this for a long time, no one wants to be sitting there doing delivery. So make your life easier, get the right contacts, and leverage partnerships to make sure that you can deliver quickly and build and scale.

I love it. So what, um, what's like— what are you really going to be doubling down on then over, like, you know, you said you're back to the grind, mate. What?

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately I'm not on 70K a week anymore.

Um, so what, what's top of mind for you, mate, as well? Yeah, what are you doubling down on?

Yeah, so it's getting back to basics, um, it's not being complacent, and it's being consistent. So all the things we've gone through right now, um, these are all the things I'm doing, plus the basic stuff. Um, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, it's just doing the basics, and it's just discipline and hard work and working like a robot and not changing things. You know, this job isn't rocket science. Here's the structure, You can work smart, be a bit different, but ultimately it's all the same, right? So it's just a case of working the same as like when I was on 5K a week. It's just being hungry. It's just smashing the phone, having conversations, pitching, pitching, pitching. That's all it is. Um, you know, I was guilty of being in a situation where it was 2022, life was good, life was easy. I had a big account, I was getting a lot of roles coming my way.

Um, 4 days a week, working 4 days a week, life was easy, right?

Um, 2023, it got a bit tougher. 2024 is still tough, right? So it's just about going back to market, doing things great, and sticking to it. And that's all it is, really.

Yeah, no, I love it. Look, I think, um, there's always going to be years like that, right? But I think what you can't— like, you've done this for such a long time now, and I feel like it's never— I feel like that's always gonna be part of the story. Like, in terms of there's gonna be moments where you get to and you're like, this is nice, this is good, I deserve it.

It would be boring. Yeah, if you're, if you're sitting on a massive contract book and it's easy, trust me, you'll get— I was bored. I was bored at the start of this year. I was like, this is boring. I'm not really doing BD anymore, you know, I'm not really winning new clients. The work's quite easy. It was boring. I actually prefer cold calling, chasing clients, and winning new business. Yes, okay, my earnings took a bit of a dip. Um, but I enjoy chasing, I enjoy the grind. That's what keeps you motivated and energetic, not sitting on a massive account and jobs coming your way, because it will make you lazy. And I was guilty for it.

No, yeah, no, for sure. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure, mate. Cool. You should definitely be proud of everything that you've achieved, and, um, so much great stuff in there, mate. So I appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you, man. Appreciate it. Nice one.