Beyond Targets: How To Motivate Your Team Professionally & Personally with Machiel Kunst

My father has always tried to improve the education system his whole life, and so he's very mission-driven. Probably the reason why I want to do this is because he's just made me so aware that it's important to do something that's good for the world, and he'll make it really clear if you're doing something that doesn't really benefit the world at all except for your own pockets, basically.

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and on this week's episode, I was joined by Michiel Kunst. He's the co-founder of Bluebird. What's really unique about your story is, you know, what you market everywhere is you're an ex-SaaS professional now recruiting for SaaS businesses. You started as an SDR and then you progressed from SDR to customer success manager, account executive, director of sales. When you joined that business, the business was around $6 million annual recurring revenue. By the time you left, it was $250 million annual recurring revenues. And what I love about Nikhil is he is open to trying different things, going against the norm. So in this conversation, we really talk about how they've gone about that, how they've approached growing their recruitment business in a non-traditional way. As well as that, he is someone who is really passionate about building a culture for people to thrive in. So we really go into how Michiel has gone about developing his leadership skills, how he's gone about executing amazing one-on-ones, quarterly reviews, and what he's really done to get the best out of his people professionally and personally. So how have you gone about reminding these people why they're doing what they're doing?

I— there's two things that I hope.

Enjoy this week's episode. Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, sir.

Been looking forward to this. Obviously, we've got to know each other over the past couple of months, have enjoyed seeing the rise of Bluebird from afar. Found it really interesting the way that you're going about your business. So really looking forward to unpacking this journey that you've been on so everyone listening to this can learn from it and also be inspired from it and take things into their own business, their own career. So before I ask you the million-pound question, just to give everyone some immediate context on, you know, who you are, where you're at, where you're going, If I miss anything here that's important, please correct me. Uh, but obviously we've done some prep for this. So what's really unique about your story is, you know, what you market everywhere is you're an ex-SaaS professional now recruiting for SaaS businesses. So, um, you know, a big chunk of your career was in the SaaS space. So some of the, you know, key highlights there of working in the space for 10 years was, uh, for one of the businesses that you, um, worked for for, uh, 9 years was you started as an SDR and then you progressed from SDR to customer success manager, account executive, director of sales. By the time you left, you was managing 45 people. When you joined that business, the business was around $6 million annual recurring revenue. By the time you left, it was $250 million annual recurring revenue. So a really interesting journey, I'm sure you went on there in terms of a growth journey. And then after that, you then joined another business where you joined as a first VP hire, you built a sales team from scratch and took it to $3 million in annual recurring revenue. So I'm sure so many learnings along the way. And then in 2020, you started a recruitment business with your co-founder, Bluebird. And then over the last couple of years, obviously you're in your 4th year now. First year, you ended up being around 4 of you. Second year, 7 of you. And then third year, 13 people, and then you're continuing to grow this year. So I think today, you know, it's going to be twofold, talking about how you've gone about growing this business. I'm sure there's going to be some learnings that you've applied to recruitment that people, you know, listening to this can take themselves. I know you're big into your leadership mindset, so there'll be a bunch of things that we cover. But let's start with the million-pound question. I'd love to hear your take on what you believe makes up, you know, the common characteristics and traits of a top performer in, in today's market.

Great. Thanks for the introduction, uh, Hishem. And I'm also looking forward to it. So let's dive right into it. I think, uh, in order to be an outstanding recruiter in this market, you need to be surprisingly different. Uh, then the next question of course would be, how do you make sure you're surprisingly different? I think that starts with integrity. I think integrity is the number one thing we look at when we hire people. Um, I always tell my team to try to give the best possible advice to candidates and clients, especially when it's not in your own best interest, because that's where you'll really make a lasting impression. I think outside of that, there's a ton of things we can talk about, like grit and drive and stuff, which I've heard a lot while listening to your podcast. But if I'd add two next to integrity, it would be authenticity in order to be able to create a good connection really fast, which I think is crucial, and curiosity. Like, as a recruiter, you need to be great at asking questions, which I think you're a superstar at, um, so I'd add that one to the list as well.

Yeah, really interesting. Um, so let, let's just get straight into this. I think what, what I'd love to just hear your take on, because it's something that you market pretty heavily, even having on your LinkedIn, not just a recruitment agency, we are former SaaS professionals, right? So let's dive into that because I also noticed that you recently announced that you're, uh, launching a, you know, dev and it part of your business with someone who is a full-stack developer, right? So you, you've really committed to this model. You've really committed to this model of we take people who have been in the shoes of the people that we support, help, um, so we can deliver them— which I feel like you believe— an even better recruitment service. So talk to us about your perspective on this. Why is it so important to you? Why have you really doubled down on we're not just a recruitment agency, we've, we're former SaaS professionals, we're now recruiting the space. Why do you feel like that gives you an upper hand, and why have you really doubled down on that strategy?

Yeah, yeah, really good question. Um, so yeah, I believe that people that have firsthand experience in a role that they do recruitment for gives huge advantages. Like, if I'd asked a question to, for example, an accountancy firm, and I asked them who they would trust more to qualify an accountant, would that be a recruiter that graduated a few years ago, went to recruitment and has done accountancy recruitment for a year or two, or would they have more faith in an accountant doing the qualification to see if that accountant's actually good enough for the role? My guess would be that the vast majority of people would have more trust in an accountant doing that qualification. That's basically what we're replicating in the software space. Um, so I think if you— what every recruitment company preaches is that they introduce the best people fast, right? Like, that's the task of any recruitment agency. It's pretty hard to, like, be different from other agencies because everyone is saying that they deliver the best people fast. That's when I say that to a prospect, everybody says the same. They say, yeah, everybody says that. So then the question is, how do you actually do that? Um, And I think, I think when it comes to getting in touch with the very best people in the market, they are very much more inclined to respond to you, to your messaging, to your creative outreach. Obviously there's things you can do in that outreach to increase the chance of being responded to, but simply coming from the industry leads to responses that are significantly different from what a recruiter without that background gets. Like, I get multiple messages every single day of people responding like, hey, it's so awesome that you're from the industry. I typically never speak to recruiters, but like, love to hear a bit about your journey and let's have a chat. And then I've built that relationship. So when they're then looking for a new opportunity, I already have one foot in the door. So that allows us to really get in touch with people that other recruiters typically don't speak with. And then the second part is You also need to qualify them to see if they're actually good enough. I strongly believe that if you do not have a background within that specific role, it's really hard to do that qualification first of all, and it's a big question whether the person you're speaking with will allow you to qualify them, especially if they're high caliber. Like when I spoke to a recruiter when I was still a sales director, if I'd be sitting down with a recruiter, I would want to know which opportunities they have. Like that's the first thing on my mind. If they're then going to try to assess my background, I'm like, hey, that's not why I'm here. Like, I'd like to understand which opportunities you have. But we're talking from peer to peer, so they really allow us also to do that qualification, which means I feel like having that firsthand experience allows us to do what you need to do as a recruiter, which is get in touch with the best people, qualify them to see, to see if they're actually the right fit, and then make the introduction. And I guess an extra part is great companies also recognize that value proposition, and therefore we also succeed at signing up really good clients. So I think it's a pretty big USP, and that's also why we market it strongly.

It's— yeah, I'm— it's interesting, right? Because I feel like I, I take— like, for me, what, what I feel like I'm hearing there is because of— because you have that industry experience and your team do, you get something that a lot of recruiters have to work hard for. You get something that, yeah, a lot more quickly compared to what recruiters have to work really hard for, which is trust. Because like, for me, I feel like the best recruiters do commit to really understanding their industry. Have they ever walked in the shoes of a VP of Sales? No. But have they spoken to over 100, 150, 200 VP of Sales to really grasp and understand what it is that they do, understand what good looks like? I think, I think, you know, the best recruiters are good at that. So I'd like— I definitely believe that, you know, good quality qualification can come with training and experience, because the great thing about recruitment is Like, if I'm speaking to Michiel, the VP of Sales at one business, how many other VP of Sales do you know? You might know 10, 20. But as a recruiter, if you're only networking with, you know, those people, uh, you might speak to 10, 20 a week. So there's so much knowledge and information inside the recruiters get access to. If harnessed correctly, you can do a really great job. So like, for me, that, that's what I feel like I'm hearing is a trust piece.

Yeah, and I agree with what you're saying, right? Like, I'm absolutely not saying that if you do not have that background that there's no way you can do a good job. You've personally connected me with a few people in the industry that I was very impressed by. So I'm not saying it's the only way to do a good job, but it definitely is a huge advantage.

Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. And so you've said there as well, like you said, what, like, why you've also lent into that is it is, it is different. It does enable you to stand out, and it's actually you know, proposition that resonates with your ideal clients. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm, I'm not surprised. I mean, you know, the world that we're in selling a training product where it's actual recruiters delivering the training, it's what people buy into, right? It's people like it. Like I said, I feel like it's that trust piece, uh, and, you know, recruiters consistently trying to build that trust and, and build their reputation. So yeah, I wanted to start there and get your perspective on that because I think that will give people a bit of an insight into what you're about, the way that you think. And I I think because of this as well, you've gone about approaching your recruitment business and maybe in a non-typical way, right? You haven't got the recruiter playbook of working for a recruitment agency for 5 years, become a director, or you as a top performer, like, right, I'm gonna do this on my own, I'm gonna start my own business. And then you bring all the best bits that you perceive are the best bits into your business, and then you build on that, right? So let me just paint a picture for everyone in terms of of like the team, like some of the key things around the team setup, what you're doing now, and then we can dive into the actual business stuff and the things that you've, you know, learned, uh, that you're, you're doing. So again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but obviously from August up until August last year, you was a big contributor to revenue, right? Like you, you was very— you was quite responsible for a large chunk of the client opportunities that came in and you're generating, you know, a good chunk of the revenue for the business. Is that fair?

Yeah, absolutely. About 25% of the revenue.

25%. Yeah. Cool. So that's quarter, right? So that's a good amount. So then from August last year, you've been on this journey of— obviously you're still— I think you said to me you're still going to bill X amount this year, but like your focus has been more of the following: one-on-one coaching, marketing, optimizing CRM processes. You're trying to spend a lot more time on the business. 25% of it is still, you know, driving client pipeline, job opportunity pipeline, uh, and yeah, a large chunk of it is leadership and one-on-one coaching as well. Is that fair? Absolutely. And then you've got your co-founder who's more— I put like operations, you know, runs meeting, uh, runs meeting every Monday morning, organize company trips, salary, paying commission. Organizing, I put— you put organizing, quote unquote, the shit, that was the stuff that maybe you might find difficult to keep on top of. Biweekly training sessions, like, yeah, a great combination.

Yeah.

So let's sort of go into some of this because I think what I found really interesting in putting some of, uh, the— some of these, um, insights together was you, you put here the, um, so I think, correct me from here, I don't know how like up to date this is, but you shared with me how like, like 90% of the customers are signed up through the founders.

Yeah, that's still fairly accurate.

Yeah, so 90% of the customers are signed up for this. So what does that mean? Like, they're coming inbound to you? Are you proactively generating these opportunities to work with companies? Like, what, what, like, what does that mean firstly? How does that happen, 90%? Because that's— so many founders listening would love to be in that position.

Yeah, so I'll have to take a step back from the start, because if I only talk about the way business development looks like right now, it's an unrealistic image and it seems like everything—

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah. When we started the business, so both me and my business partner have huge experience doing business development, right? We've done it for years. Literally, there hasn't been a year where I haven't been doing it. So, the muscle is there. So, when we started the business, we did highly creative outreach to all the prospects that we wanted to work with. I'll give you one example. We prospected out to a company that was called Watermelon. And I actually went to a grocery store, bought a watermelon, and sent a highly personalized video where I started the video with the watermelon in front of my face and then started doing my introduction while slowly lowering the watermelon without laughing. Like, that's how far we went in order to get in touch with companies. So, it wasn't automated outreach, it was highly personalized video outreach to every single company in that was within our ICP. And we built an email sequence that had a response rate of about 35% to 40%, so extremely high. It was also when video was still coming up, like Now, a lot of people are doing it, so it converts a bit less. But it started with me and my business partner putting in a tremendous amount of work in order to start signing our first clients. And then when we started signing our first clients, our number one priority was making sure we executed on that extremely well, and that led to referrals. So, I think referrals is a big part of— the clients that we get today. And that comes from simply delivering towards the clients that we work with and also delivering quite a unique experience to the candidates that we work with. Simultaneously, throughout that whole process, we've— from the moment we started, I, throughout my SaaS career, I already realized the power that venture capital firms and private equity firms have. So like in month 2 of the fact when we started our business, I reached out to one of the top VCs in the software space, set up a meeting with their TA specialist who was happy to speak with because we came from the industry and she liked the value proposition even though we had proven nothing yet. And then kept in contact with her every single month, updating her about like the progress of our company, placements that we'd done, clients that we signed. And then after 8 months, they finally gave us an opportunity to, uh, uh, work with one of their clients. We placed 18 account executives within 2 months in Germany, which Like anyone working in the SaaS industry doing sales roles, 18 AEs in Germany within 2 months is an extraordinary feat. And just simply by delivering, we've built those relationships also with those VCs as soon as we got the chance. And because of that, we continuously get new opportunities. So referrals is a really big part. Partnerships is a really big part, which I consider VCs and PEs also partnerships. But also, for example, we work with sales advisors that work with software companies that advise us get a little bit of a kickback fee. And then we still do outreach ourselves continuously. It's not like, you know, 8 or 16 hours per week. It might be, you know, 1 or 2 hours every week. And we also sign up some clients through that, but the vast majority is through partnerships, venture capital firms, and referrals.

Now, I appreciate you going back there because I know we were jumping ahead, so I appreciate you breaking that down because I know that, yeah, because if you would— if like that stat, then mate, yeah, it's important to go back basically and understand, you know, the key things that have helped you get to that. So I appreciate you doing that. I guess, would you mind— you broke it down quite, quite well there, to be fair, but I think this is where people could maybe— like, I, I found, I found that there's a lot of people now, or more and more people are starting to learn and take things from the SaaS sales space into the recruitment world, or like more and more people are anyway, I find. So it'd be interesting just to hear like what, in that, in that first year on the go-to-market strategy, like what were the, like, what were the like core parts of that plan that you deem to be really important? Like how did you actually approach that? You mentioned the word ICP, um, but you mentioned highly personalized outreach. You mentioned, you know, your experience of knowing how important VC relationships are. So you mentioned quite a few things there, because what's really interesting there is it sounds like you've, in a really smart way, built an ecosystem that, yeah, can be a bit of a referral engine really, off the back of you doing an exceptional job, right, and building that credibility. But if we were to just focus in on, you know, how you and your business partner did— what did the go-to-market strategy look like in that first year? What were like the fundamental parts of that plan? That I'm sure you took from your SaaS sales career and then applied to building this recruitment business. What were some of the, the core parts of that?

Yeah, I have a hard time not laughing a little bit because I don't consider myself a big strategist at all.

Oh really?

Yeah. Um, I think I'm operationally good, but I'm not a huge strategist. So when we set up the business, just to give an example why I was laughing, um, our first candidate interviews we did face-to-face, hour-long with me and my business partner, like completely inefficient. And so, I think— I don't think there was a really clear strategy. If you would look at what our strategy was, the strategy was making sure we delivered an exceptional service. That was the strategy. And I also really like to keep things simple, and I think it's still the biggest reason for our success is the fact that we just deliver a really good service. And for anyone who's listening who hasn't read The Challenger Sale, like, I highly recommend listening to the— reading The Challenger Sale, which in The Challenger Sale, they also basically say in order to build a good relationship, it's not necessarily knowing about someone's dog or their wife. It's about delivering great value to their business. That's how you truly build a relationship. And then the other things are not even that important. I think we could do more of the traditional relationship building, meeting people face to face and getting to know a bit about their personal life. But companies in the end stick with us because we deliver really good value to their business. So I think that was like, if anything, that was the strategy. Other than that, I did— there wasn't a long-term plan, a business plan that we create or something. We just dive right into it.

How How often do you and your team use your track record to partner with clients?

Can you repeat that question?

How? Because you spoke about it a lot. Like, what I found is a lot of recruiters don't use their track record. Like, like, so it'd be interesting to hear your take on like you worked really hard to get these results behind you and ultimately build up evidence to back up not only are you ex-SaaS professionals, you're also great recruiters that can deliver an exceptional service. You said you kept highlighting to that, you know, the VC, like, hey, we achieved this this month, we had this hiring project, we did this. So just curious to hear your take on how often do you and your team utilize this track record and your results in the sales process? When speaking to clients, when closing clients? How often do you do that?

Yeah, that's a really good question and a very current question for us because now we've built this huge track record, we have some really impressive results, we don't really market it at all. Like, we have these face-to-face conversations with clients where we explain what we've done, but we don't properly keep track of, you know, what we've achieved in the past. So, I've now hired an office manager, my sister actually, and she's pretty good at marketing, she's documenting all of these things now, building case studies and everything, and making sure we're revamping the whole website, building an entirely new website. We've started working with a new marketing agency. So if you ask me how we have been doing it, I don't think we have been doing it in a structured way. If I look at the future, we're looking to do that in a very structured way and making sure we communicate all our achievements really clearly with the companies that we work with.

Yeah, that's definitely a missed opportunity for sure. I'm sure you've been doing great by now, but having visual assets and supporting assets to back up these track records, case studies, hiring projects, that's, that's an absolute no-brainer.

I think this also has to do with the phases that you go through as a company, right? Like, um, when I was— and also the importance of moving from founder-led sales to at some point having your team do the recruitment piece and creating more availability for yourself. Because now with this new website that we're building, with this new marketing agency that we're working with I literally have to spend days to speak with them about the core messaging, ICP, which channels we're going to use, create video content, create written content. And creating really good copy is not something you can just easily— you know this more than anyone else probably, creating good copy is really difficult. So, it requires a lot of time. I simply would not have been able to do that at a high level a year ago. But now I really do have the time, so, and that's why we're starting with that now.

So let's get into some of these other things that I think you've done in an interesting way. So we've mentioned that 90% of customers sign up through founders. So like what we've learned there is at the beginning you really double down on doing the reps, getting your name out there, getting in front of people, but most importantly, absolutely commit to delivering a world-class service, achieving results and then continuing to build on that. And that's, you know, built a bit of a referral engine, but you've also been smart with the networks that you've built, whether that be, you know, partnerships like you said, like sales, uh, SaaS sales advisors or advisors that operate in your space, the VC community, and then you're going to have clients that are going to recommend you if you do a great job. So super interesting. I think what I then found was, again, correct me if this is wrong, but you said, yeah, so 90% of customers sign up through founders and then it's up for grabs in terms of anyone placing with these clients. And I think you said, so whoever places with this client that might come through the channels of you or your co-founder, they would get 75% of that, and then 25% of it would go towards the founders. So your team don't have targets?

No.

So let's just talk about that. Why do your— why do your team— like, talk to us about your philosophy here. Like, why Why do your team not have targets?

Yeah, that's a good question. Why don't— why doesn't my team have? No, the reason we did that is like, if I look at myself, I was never overly motivated by targets. I definitely wanted to be top of the board. That was really important to me, but targets less so. And I think targets can also lead to complacency if you're working with people that are very intrinsically motivated and have clear personal goals. Like, if someone has a personal goal of being financially free at a certain age, I don't have to give them a target because they're just looking at that personal goal, calculating back exactly what they need to do, and then trying to achieve that goal. I love speaking with people. You know, I really enjoy training and coaching. I really love having conversations with people like, what are you working towards? If they don't know what they're working towards, okay, let's create what you're working towards, and then let's see what you need to do in order to get there. If they have that personal goal, that's way stronger than me giving them targets. Um, that's the reason we're not doing it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to every company. It works for our organization because we hire, um, people that have quite a bit of experience and maturity. Uh, and I only hire people that are highly intrinsically motivated. So therefore it's not really a requirement for us.

How— just on this, like, I'm sure everyone, every leader leading, uh, listening to this can relate to— of course they may have commercial targets that they're aiming for, but then what's really going to drive them and, um, you know, have them perform more consistently is that person really understanding why they're doing what they're doing and that intrinsic motivation intrinsic goals. Like, how, how do you get good at like continuing to reinforce that? Because there's one thing uncovering in an interview process that what's really important for that person is buying a home for their family, or, you know, putting their children through private school, whatever it may be. But then, you know, to remind them of that daily, weekly, monthly, I feel like is— can be quite difficult sometimes. Like saying, hey, this is your target this month, like, where we're at is way more easier, right? So I'm just curious, like, how have you— how do you then bake in on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, quarterly basis, these intrinsic motivations? Because that, that's the only way it works, I feel like, is You find one, hire the right people that are intrinsically motivated, but then you have to— we all have to remind ourselves of these things because day to day gets in the way. So how have you gone about reminding these people why they're doing what they're doing? Curious.

And that is difficult. I'd be lying if I would say if someone's not performing, I'd say, hey, remember your life goal and that everything is going well. Yeah, no, that doesn't really work that way, unfortunately. Um, but, but to your— to your— so everybody goes through difficulties and periods where it's not going as well as they would hope it goes. And, you know, of course that requires different types of approaches to get people back to where they need to be. Um, but as, as we've discussed, like, I have a pretty rigorous cadence with, um, my team which exists out of weekly one-on-ones. And it ex— and those weekly one-on-ones are, you know, really focused on improving their skill sets, what, like one measurable and one intangible. And I do quarterly reflections where, which is actually also now part of your training program, which I recommend everyone to use, where I share my quarterly reflections document where we ask questions like, you know, have you felt fearless this quarter? Are you happy? What would you change about the culture? What improvements have you made to your beliefs and thinking, stuff like that, which is pretty abstract type of questions. But those quarterly reflections are the ideal moment to reflect back and say, hey, you know, when you joined the business, this was what you're working towards. How's that going? Like, where do you feel you are as opposed to where you thought you would be at this point? So those are probably the moments where we can refer to back and take some time to reflect on it.

This podcast is proudly partnered with Vincere, the all-in-one recruitment agency software that over 20,000 recruiters trust daily. We're also partnered with the award-winning 1UP Sales, the sales and motivation platform that enables you to maximize the potential of your teams. We love partnering with both of these organizations because they share our mission in helping you get the most out of your people and your business. You can get exclusive offers because you listen to this podcast and get up to 10% off the usage price forever. Use the link in the show notes to get your hands on that. Let's get back to the episode. And then, just interested to get your take, because I know this is something that you're really passionate about— building a business, a culture that people love being part of, love working for. I know that's something that's really important to you, and this is a big part of it, right? Truly committing to trying to understand what is important to your people at a human being level. Right? So if I'm listening to this right now and the only thing I'm talking about with my people, with my team, is the tangibles— you haven't got as many CVs out this week, you didn't hit your target last month, this is your target this quarterly— like, just the tangibles, the things that you just spoken about in terms of the intangible— you said you use the word quite abstract— that might feel really far away from like where I'm currently at. What would you say is a good step in the right direction to start introducing opportunities to really try and understand more about your people or understanding what drives them or reminding them what drives them personally? Like, what, what is a good first step? If I'm just talking about the tangibles, how would you start trying to bake in the other elements which are as important?

Yeah, I'm going to take a step back again because I also have to touch upon the measurables and the tangibles that you mentioned because In my opinion, the way you're describing it, I'd call that micromanagement. And, um, there is a time and a place for micromanagement, and that's when someone needs it and you need to dive into the nitty-gritty to see where something is going wrong because someone's not achieving their numbers. Um, but when I think of tangibles, it's working with someone who's consistently struggling to do a certain amount of introductions to clients. Like, that is a very tangible one. Maybe they're doing 8 every week and we could try to get it to 11. I'd say that's something tangible to work towards. Um, that's a constructive way to work with someone in your team to see, okay, how can we improve those numbers? Like, you know, where, where are you doing something differently from the team that you're not succeeding at that? And like, how do we make sure you get better at it? That's a very positive reinforcement, constructive type of coaching for a measurable outcome. When I'm talking about intangibles, which these are difficult to find, and again, this is why we use those quarterly reflections in order to like get, get those out of the people that we work with. People also need to feel really safe within the company that they work at in order to be able to share those types of things. I'll give you an example, like one of my colleagues And she approached— she felt more strongly about the negative things that happened at work, which every recruiter listening to this podcast, there's way more negative stuff happening, happening in this work than positive stuff. Like, you know, from the 100 introductions that you do, maybe 3, 4, or 5 eventually become placements. So if you focus on the negative, you're gonna have a tough time, which I think, you know, there's something to say for hiring like a bit more optimistic people, so they will at least enjoy the job. And, uh, um, but she wouldn't easily share that if she didn't feel safe to share that with me. Um, and, and because she shared that, we had like discussions at length about how that impacted her, so she would really understand, uh, you know, what is the impact. And, and, and then ask the question If you would think that the future would have a positive outcome, how would you feel then? And, you know, that immediately changed the way she felt about it. I recommended a couple of books for her to read. And this is not something you can easily change over the course of a couple of weeks or a couple of months or maybe even a couple of quarters, sometimes even a few years. But that's where you can truly impact someone's life if you're able to help them see something from a different perspective and help these deeply ingrained beliefs and behaviors, uh, to change towards the positive. And that is what I personally love most about my work, like coaching people and have that type of impact, which goes way beyond just doing a good job.

Yeah, I know that's, uh, really like something you're really passionate about. Why don't we, why don't we also then segue into, because I think this, this would also be good to get your perspective, we're speaking about like how to get the most out of your people, understanding how you can motivate them, maybe against the typical way of, like you said, micromanagement or just having their targets, really committing to try and create a safe environment so you can truly understand who they are as people. So you can, yeah, hopefully create an environment for them to create what, uh, to achieve what they want to personally, not just professionally. But I was just looking at some of your recent posts, and I think something that might be interesting to talk about here then is how we can also use this methodology approach, or how you believe you've used this approach to keep your best people from quitting. And you shared a few things, right, in terms of talking about your perspective on how you've gone about, uh, yeah, hopefully positively impacting the attrition of your staff. So why don't we also just talk about it, because I just build on some of the— this perspective of how you've also then, um, approached like keeping your, your best people, which again is something that recruitment agencies often find hard to do. Talk to us a bit about your approach there.

Yeah, I think whether it comes to choosing a company to work for or staying with that company, I think most people make that decision based on 3 criteria, which is personal development, culture, and money. I think those are the 3 that are typically most important. We can talk about those at length, but we've just touched upon personal development, right? Like every quarter, taking a measurable and an intangible skill to improve on, which means at the end of the year, you can just literally see like, hey, you know, these 4 measurable ones you've gotten better at. And you know, these 4 core characteristics we worked on, and do you feel like that improved? Yeah. Okay, you became a better person this year. Like, just imagine if you do this for a few years, you get that excitement around coaching. Um, so we've talked about personal development. Um, when it comes to culture, this, this is a bit of a broader topic, I feel, because with my last employer, I had a really bad experience with my sales leader. So my core motivation to setting up a recruitment company was predominantly to build a culture where there are certain values that the company really stands behind. Think of things like integrity, honesty, transparency. I think those are some of the key ones. And rewarding people the way they should be rewarded, not how much you— how little you can reward them and kind of get away with it. So everything in our organization is also built around that, which means I don't want people to feel that it is work. Of course it's work, like I'm not going to be an ideologist, of course it's work in the end. However, we do make it as fun as possible. And realistically, I think people that really like board games or like gaming are typically pretty good for recruitment because it is also a bit of a game, right? It's with lives at stake, so it's an important game and you have to take it very seriously. But you have your pipeline and some go-to, you place one and you celebrate a deal and you can kind of give a little a lot of moments where you can win. So, completely lost my train of thought.

So, you're talking about culture, you said how you impact people's staying is personal development, culture, money. So, you're talking about culture.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so with the culture piece, like the work itself is quite fun. If you, we put a lot around that, like For example, if you hit a— and these are targets, right? Like, again, I can be an ideologist and call it goals or something, but these are kind of targets. Like, if you hit a certain revenue number, we go out for lunch Friday afternoon at like a beautiful Michelin-star place. These are things I think most recruitment agencies do. If they hit a certain number, we give them a weekend away to a 5-star hotel together with our partner. And if we hit a certain number, Every 6 months, we go to a luxurious destination for a week, stay in a beautiful place, and, you know, work but also have fun and further build that culture. So, we invest a lot in that culture piece. And yeah, and that really comes from the fact that I had a bad experience at my previous employer and wanted to do that completely different. So, profit with the potential of exiting the business at some point is not a driving force within our company. Growth Like when it comes to headcount, it's also not a driving force in our company. We only hire if it doesn't impact the chances of the people within the company to be successful. For example, if there's too little opportunities, we're simply not hiring, or when the person that we hire is not an addition to the culture. And because we're doing all of that, we keep the culture really, really strong within the company, and we only hire people that really fit that. So that's the culture piece. And then the money piece, this is where we're just lucky in recruitment. If you do a tremendous job, you can earn, in my opinion, a ridiculous amount of money. If you, if you checkmark those 3 things, um, I think it's really hard for people to leave. Like, you know, they have a great culture, they have fun with their colleagues, they're learning, they're growing, and they're earning really well. Why would they leave?

Now, thanks for breaking that down. I guess why don't we talk about— because you've been on, you know, a bit of a journey from last August on, you know, I guess become less and less like reliant on, right, as like a business to, to generate— the business reliant on you to generate 25% of its revenues. What, what does that journey look like? Like a lot of people listening to this would have started their business, it's founder-led sales, it's you know, they'll like— oftentimes it's what founders really enjoy, particularly if they come from a recruitment background. Um, so what does that look like for you? How have you, how have you gone about becoming less and less reliant on— from a revenue standpoint, what did those first 3, 6, 9 months look like, uh, when maybe you've still— you still have clients saying, hey, I want to do a You?

Yeah, I didn't get that too much, to be honest. I don't know what that means, but, uh, but like 99% of our clients were like, we have a team that delivers really well. I don't think there's a huge quality difference whether they work with me or whether they work with one of the team. So I don't think that's necessarily an issue. Maybe for like chief revenue officer or VP level roles, they prefer to work with someone who's actually, you know, kind of had seniority in their, uh, in their role before. But we also have people that have that type of seniority. It, first of all, it's difficult, like, because if I'm going to tell a story here, like, hey, I stopped doing the recruitment piece, and, you know, that, that meant 25% of the revenue became available for the team, and they did that, and everyone was more successful from the start, it's not true. Like, we, we lost revenue in first instance. Like, our revenue this year is going to be fairly similar to the revenue that we did last year, despite the fact that we're with a bigger team. And that is because my revenue dropped. The only thing is that's not really an issue because, well, first of all, I don't really care about the fact that there's immediately like revenue growth. But what it shows is that the part that I dropped, the team actually picked up. Not straightaway because I stopped last year in August and revenue definitely dropped the months after. But this year, I can now see that because I have more time to coach people, train people, because I have more time to strategically think about what partners to work with, we got better clients. Because I've been spending more time on marketing, we've seen an increase in inbound leads. Um, but all of that stuff takes time. It's not from one day to the other. So, so I think the moment you step out of that recruitment piece, which I think in order to be able to take the leap maybe from like 10, 12, 13 people to 17, 18, 20, you will have to do it. So either you remain at that level or you step out of it and you take, uh, take the leap. You're always going to take a hit. And the worst part there is like our profitability probably got slashed in half, right? Because the revenue you bring in yourself is highly profitable. However, the revenue that your team members bring in, I think— anyway, we pay big commissions. So, uh, the profitability on the deals that our team members close significantly lower. So when you stop doing the recruitment work yourself, profitability-wise, you take a huge hit. Um, and I'm fine with that. But you do know, okay, like, now we're doing this profitability with 10 people, and what we're gonna have to grow to 20 people to get the same profitability. That feels really weird. But I think also from a personal development perspective, I'd rather do that than continuously do the recruitment piece myself, despite the fact that I really like the work. Um, I feel like I will grow as a person And also from a retention perspective, we need to grow to give the best people the opportunity to grow into leadership roles.

Yeah, now that's, that's a really interesting share. What— so what, what have been— is it— is there any, like, I guess what I think would be interesting for people is, is there anything in there that has been like the, the biggest challenge or the, the most common stumbling block out of interest, just in general, or that we are making good transition. As you continue to, like you said, you want to get to 20, like you've broken it down really well in terms of you've got to face the facts that you are going to be less profitable. You might think, what's like, what am I doing here? Like you could, like, like you said, right? But like, what, what do you, what, what do you have top of mind of being laser focused on to like continue to overcome or make sure you do a really good job of? So I guess, yeah, it's less of a bumpy road.

Yeah, yeah, that, that is a really good question. And I think I have an interesting question for it that people that went through this transition will really recognize. When you're doing recruitment, like, it is, it's crazy work, right? Like, you're, you're doing so many things at the same time. You're getting LinkedIn messages, you're getting text messages, WhatsApp messages, emails. Like, it's super overwhelming and you need to do a million things at the same time. The moment when you step out of that recruitment piece, it also gives you a lot of dopamine. So you're consistently like wired and just working, working away. But the moment you step out of it, you're gonna have a day where you're used to having days where it's action-packed, you have meetings the entire day. And all of a sudden you're gonna have days where you have 4 or 5 hours of nothing. Like I've had moments in the beginning that I was sitting there and thinking, Yeah, okay, but like, what do I do now? Do it? I should maybe, maybe I should set up a search in LinkedIn because I don't know, like, I don't know what to do with my time right now. I'm lucky because my father is a leadership coach. Like, he's, he's been my biggest mentor throughout my entire life. And I do say when I made this transition, I already went through that learning phase because I went through it before in my career when I transitioned from sales rep to sales director. But I called my dad and I asked him like, "Yeah, I don't know what to do. I'm just sitting here. I don't have meetings in my calendar. What's next?" And my dad said, "Don't do anything for a little bit. Just sit." I said, "Okay." And he said, "Yeah, just do it." And okay, so I did it without really asking any further questions. I was sitting and my brain started working. It was like, "Okay. Improve this, we should— this process is a bit broken, and this— it got this feedback from a client that we could have done a better job there. And okay, I'm gonna— that's something I— and you know, the ideas come to you, uh, the moment you do nothing, the ideas come to you. Typically my best ideas for the company come when I'm on holiday, uh, it's not when I'm like in the middle of all the mess. Um, so I think that's probably the biggest learning, being comfortable and patient enough for good ideas to come with you even, you know, when you don't have meetings in your calendar, or especially when you don't have meeting senior calendar and getting comfortable with that uncomfortable feeling.

Interesting. Is that— that is interesting. I spoke to someone the other day who spoke about this exact thing, and I might like paraphrase this really wrong, but he spoke about— he spoke about it being like when you're in the trenches doing the doing, like maybe when he was more in, uh, like August and last August and before that, it's more like bottom-up leadership. You're in the trenches with these people, you're doing these things, and then the— what you're talking about there is more— he, he would describe as like top-line leadership. So actually your job is to think about the business, how it can be improved, and whatever else comes with that. That's, that's what you need that space for.

Yeah, I think Franklin Covey calls it working on the business instead of in the business.

Yeah, we've all heard that, but I don't think people visualize that being sitting with your thoughts.

No, I definitely didn't.

Yeah, so it's interesting, right? So talking about the future then, what is it that you and your co-founder are really remaining laser focused on and doubling down on that you feel is going to continue helping you get in the right direction over the next 6, 12, 18 months with this recruitment business you're building? What you're really doubling down on? You've obviously now got this new division, which I'm sure you've thought about, thought was going to add another really great pillar to your business. Like, what is it that you're really doubling down on?

Yeah, to answer this specific question, what we're doubling down on is marketing, which I have to say so far has been a perpetual disappointment, and it led to zero results almost. Um, It sounds like it's weird to double down on it because 2 times nothing is still nothing. However, so disappointing, um, we haven't successfully gotten high, high quality inbound leads. Um, we spend a lot of money without just barely seeing any result, basically, either on the candidate or the client side. Um, you know, when we do lead attribution, people always knock on our door because they heard from us from someone else, not because there's many referrals rather than Yeah, like I saw this video or content or I downloaded this or— Yeah, and we just invested quite heavily. Like we're talking, you know, we're with 13 people, we're about to do a 6-figure investment into marketing. Maybe some people listening think, yeah, you've already should have done that. I don't know, but I feel quite uncomfortable with such a large purchase. Sorry? Yeah, I didn't—

Okay.

Yeah, so we're doing a 6-figure investment in that and like building an entirely new website, which is also expensive. So, we're talking like not a low 6-figure investment, but a decent one. With a company, like I spend a lot of time speaking with different marketing agencies together with my sister, our office manager to qualify all these different marketing agencies and find out exactly what we need. That feels like— it really feels like a waste of time, because you're speaking with a lot of agencies that are all saying the same thing. Until we met one from which we thought, hey, we think this is really good.

What does the same thing sound like?

Yeah, like, you know, we do SEA and we do SEO and we do LinkedIn campaigns and yeah, like, you know, you have to pay this and then yeah, you're going to get an outcome, but you never really know what you're going to get because yeah, it is marketing. That's what I've heard a million times. And this marketing company that we spoke with, first of all, did a real analysis, got access to all of our channels, did a real analysis of what we were doing right and what we were doing wrong. The first one that truly spent time on understanding what our structure looked like. And then they're doing marketing for their own company in a really good way that aligns very well with who we are. Like they use a lot of video, a lot of thought leadership, and their inbound leads numbers and statistics are very much what we would like. Um, that was really convincing. So we're starting that partnership. I have high hopes. However, like, I don't know how it's going to work out, so ask me again in a year.

What are you— so I'll send it, I'll send it to you after. But, uh, so I watched something recently, um, which— and they spoke about how to utilize agencies, and it was a really interesting, uh, perspective where This guy was talking about being really upfront with agencies and saying, hey, happy to pay you for this work, we'll view this, but just so you know, the objective is for us to really learn from you on how you're doing this, so then we can start then doing it for ourselves. And then hopefully then we can get to the point where we're doing it ourselves and we work with you more on a consultancy basis. And then when we're not getting the value there, then we can part ways and it's been a great relationship. Like, what is it that you're really— how are you really hoping this is going to impact your business?

So there's two things that I hope. I think that's a really smart approach, by the way.

I'll send you as well. Alex Hormozi is like the— I think has the best business content. I'll send you the video.

Nice. Appreciate it. Coincidentally, I thought about that yesterday. I was like, if they do a tremendous job, we should just copy it and hire good people for it.

Yeah. So what he says is— I'll butcher it, but basically is like be really upfront and say like, hey, like really excited for this partnership, we'll work together, etc., etc. But I want to know, I want to work with you and we want to know exactly how you're doing what you're doing with us.

Yeah, it's smart, it's super smart, really smart, really smart. So, so I was hoping two things, and due to the way I was educated by them, I'm now hoping three things. But the, the two things that I was hoping was one of them just, just capturing, uh, demand that's out there, like companies looking for a recruitment agency should at least find us. That was one, and then the second one was simply awareness, like that people know that we exist, because there are people that see what we do and are like, wow, that makes a lot of sense, like I have to speak to these people. And because we come from the industry and they really like that value proposition, they want to work with us. There's a third one, and that is because of them, I'm hoping for that now, which is really building that marketing funnel, which I don't have a good amount of experience with, but like creating awareness, sharing more educational content, doing your own LinkedIn posts, and that being a funnel that at some point leads to a company becoming interested. And I do believe in that because the moment I spoke with, or I checked out the website of this marketing agency once, I saw them everywhere on YouTube, on LinkedIn, whatever I opened, I saw them. That was pretty convincing because that's what I want to, like, I want people to be confronted with our company all the time if they've shown a little bit of interest. So They're basically practicing what they preach.

And if, if that does go to plan, you execute it, are you then going to feel even more confident with the platform you can provide your team? Because, you know, as well as all the referrals, all these things, you've then got this working funnel where then you can, you know, really support your team and having good quality leads to call when everything's down. Yeah, is that what you're hoping?

Yeah, it would be great if that's scalable. Like, so, so the reason I'm interested in it, it's just an engine that isn't running. Like, I, I look at our company as a boat with a couple of engines behind it, uh, and, and an engine is, uh, working with VCs and PEs, and engine is doing cold outreach, but an engine is also marketing, and that marketing engine is not running right now. Um, and I do feel that the potential is there, so that's why we're doubling down on it despite the fact that we haven't seen result there.

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interested. We'll have to get your perspective on how it goes because I think people feel really mixed about, uh, these things. Things, but I, I'll make sure I send you that video. So becoming 40 years old, becoming a psychologist, do you want to help younger people with depression, mental health challenges? You've given yourself a number, 5.7 million. So you can do this. Talk to us about this. Why, why do you, when you're 40 years old, want to commit to supporting young people with, with this?

Yeah, I think, um, since my father has always tried to improve the education system his whole life, in whatever capacity, he's always tried to improve education in the Netherlands. And so he's very mission-driven. And, and probably the reason why I want to do this is because he's just made me so aware that it's important to do something that's good for the world. And he'll make it really clear if you're doing something that doesn't really benefit the world at all except for your own pockets, basically. So that's probably part of it, but I really like training and coaching people and helping them. And as already discussed throughout this podcast, especially when I can help them with things that really impact their life. And I feel like there's lots of people between their 20s and 30s that go through depression. If they get a little bit of guidance, it can go into the right direction. If they don't get the right guidance, it goes into the wrong direction. I feel like I would be a person that's capable of helping those people take the right path. So, that's my goal. And I need €5.7 million to be able to provide for me and my girlfriend and a couple of kids and lead the life that we want to have. So, that's what I'm working towards. And I'd like to achieve that when I'm 40, which means I have 6.5 years to go. I like touching upon the topic. I also dislike it partly because it makes me sound like a saint. On the other hand, I haven't done it, right? Like, so I can talk about it, but right now I haven't done anything like that before. But I would really like to do that at some point. So I am quite vocal about it just to, you know—

Well, if you're talking about that's what you want, then it's more likely to happen as well, right?

I agree. I actually read somewhere recently that said if you have goals, like, you shouldn't share them. Someone posted on LinkedIn, I think, and I was— I disagree with it so much.

Yeah, I feel like you've just shared this with like thousands of people. So for me, it's more about by sharing these things, it's you, you then even hold yourself more accountable.

Absolutely. And there's people that say, like, I've, I've had people that said to me, oh, you should speak with this person, they also became a psychologist. I've had those conversations, and that then made me more aware, what do I need to do in order to get there? So It, throughout my entire career, it has really helped being vocal about my goals, uh, so not planning on stopping anywhere soon.

You must be getting plenty of practice working in recruitment and helping.

Yeah, although, yeah, like, I'm open with sharing these numbers now speaking to a lot of recruiters, but obviously I wouldn't quickly share that with, um, yeah, the companies.

In terms of like, recruitment is difficult, so like helping, you know, people who are between, you know, 20, 30 years old with the highs and lows that can often come with recruitment mentally. Like, I'm sure you're getting some good practice in with that.

Yeah, that's true, absolutely.

Um, it's been a pleasure, really. You know, love your approach, love your mindset. I think it's really cool what you're building and like just continuing, uh, yeah, gonna continue to be excited to see how it unravels. So Thanks so much for joining me on the pod.

Yeah, likewise, Hishem. I think what you're building is really cool too, so we'll stay in close contact.