Building a £1 million desk from scratch, losing it all, and then rebuilding it with Elliot Jones.

If I look back through, through my career, particularly in the US, the best candidates that I've placed over the years have then gone on to place their friends, their ex-colleagues, the best people that they've worked with. They're the same people who have then opened doors for me, and the clients that I now support are their previous clients.

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 Elliot Jones from Venturi. You've always been in recruitment and worked for one company, Venturi, which you're still with now. You're now actually over in the States, but for the first chunk of your career, you worked in the UK market. It was always dev, tech. Elliot's always been in contract recruitment, and for the last 4 years, he's solely focused on the US market. He moved over to specifically New York just over 2 years ago, and he's been on some journey. He was the first in the company to break a number of milestones where he got his contract book up to 35K weekly GP, but then it took a massive hit. His book went all the way down at the lowest to 3K weekly GP in January 2023, and he's now got this back up to circa 25K weekly GP. So in this conversation, we cover how he got to his peak, how he opened up doors, how he has become exceptional at understanding feature, advantage, benefit when selling contractors. Just so much value in this conversation. What information are you then looking to gather that would make your market map? Because I think that'd be helpful for people, because like, what does that look like?

Yeah, for me it's about—

let's get into this week's episode. Elliot, welcome to the podcast.

Welcome. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, looking, looking forward to this. Obviously, uh, I was sort of— I, I said to you that I've had a lot of perm recruiters on, on this podcast, and, uh, I'm really excited to dive into the journey of some, uh, successful contract recruiters, that there's a real difference I'm sure there's a lot of crossover, but there's also a lot of nuances that comes with making it in contract recruitment. So I'm looking forward to really digging into this journey that you've been on. So just to give everyone some immediate context, I'm going to give everyone the highlight reel. Okay. So if I, if I get anything wrong, please correct me. All right. So when we prepared for this, these are the things that you shared with me. So You've always been in recruitment and worked for one company, Venturi, which you're still with now. You're now actually over in the States, but for the first chunk of your career, you worked in the UK market. It was always dev, tech, and the first couple of years, correct me if I'm wrong here, 2016, I think we did weekly GP, didn't we? So I think 2016, your weekly GP was around £2,500-£3,000. 2017, you got up to 6.5, 7. 2018, your third year is around 6.5, 7.5 again. Then you actually went a bit more hands-off and started to manage a team. And then Feb 2020 is the next sort of key bits that we've got because you then started to do the US market. Is that right?

Yeah.

So you— the plan was to do it for under a year for sure. It might have been 6 months and then go to the US. But as you all know, COVID happened, so you was absolutely grafting your socks off in the UK, then the US hours. But now, how long have you been in the US actually on the ground?

Uh, on the ground, 2 years.

2 years, yeah. So you've been in New York, in the US for 2 years. So from the US side of things, let me just scroll down here because you give me— you looked in your backend. So February 2022, you started the US. So December 2020, you hit $10K weekly GP. By March 2020, you hit 20K weekly GP. By May 2020, you hit 25K weekly GP, um, and then you held, um, it around there, uh, until 2021 May, you hit 30K weekly GP. And then the end of May, you peaked, you surpassed 35K weekly GP. And then from October 2022, we hit doomsday, mate. It started to, it started to dramatically drop off. And then at the lowest in March, I'm assuming— was this March 2023? It was—

no, no, that was 2022.

Okay, sorry. Yeah, so at the lowest it then got down to 3K weekly GP, 2020, uh, around 2020.

Yeah, sorry, 2023, that is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah, I thought so. So from October, you said from October 2022, it really began to dramatically drop off at the lowest around March time this year, it was a 3K, and then now you've got that back up to 20 to 25K weekly GP.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a roller coaster.

All right, cool. So that, that's the highlight reel. So let's start with the million, the million dollar question in your world. I'd love to get your thoughts, perspective on what does Elliot believe are the common characteristics and traits of a successful, top-performing contract recruiter in today's market?

Uh, there's so many to cover, um, and you hear kind of the same answers get thrown around— work ethic, resilience. Intelligence helps, obviously, not so much being book smart, but emotional intelligence, your EQ, but also problem-solving abilities. A lot, a lot of Recruitment is, is kind of solution selling and being able to uncover that solution and, and find, uh, uncover that problem, sorry, and find the, the most kind of suitable solution. Um, same as like, be a sponge, take on kind of every bit of advice, learn from what the good people do well, what the bad people don't do so well. Um, but if I had to kind of Narrow it down, I think the big one for me and Venturi as a whole is relationship building. It's so important to be able to kind of build those strong relationships with both your candidates and your clients. But also, I find being able to kind of build those relationships, but then leverage those to open doors for you. If I look back through my career, particularly in the US, The best candidates that I've placed over the years have then gone on to place their friends, their ex-colleagues, the best people that they've worked with. They're the same people who have then opened doors for me, and the clients that I now support are their previous clients. The biggest names that I've kind of broken in with over time are typically off the back of top relationships I've built with candidates who have then moved on but helped me open doors by giving me good intel on the businesses, often directly making introductions because they received a good service. So yeah, got to be able to build those relationships but also be able to leverage them, uh, to, to benefit. Um, so yeah, I love it.

So relationship building is, is at the core, and then being able to, like you said, actually, like, if you do have a great relationship, then these people are going to be willing to help you, um, and doing that effectively.

So, sorry, I was just going to say, I think over time my kind of attitude to this stuff slightly changed. It's funny, I saw a post on LinkedIn the other week, um, and it was from someone out of the industry, um, but they'd posted like a, basically a study that had been conducted, um, by JP Morgan or Goldman on like the top performing investment bankers. And the highlights, it was like out of all the top performing investment bankers, the kind of only one consistent trait that all of them had was like this inflated kind of self-belief and self-confidence. And I read it, I was thinking, that rings so true for our industry. Um, like, for me, that's where my kind of resilience comes from, because I'm always thinking— I've always had this belief that I'm gonna do well in the end, so the only way I can kind of fail is if I quit. Um, and obviously that's got to be married with humility and being humble, but I think an underlying like self-confidence that you're gonna succeed in whatever industry you're working will certainly fare well in, in this, in this space.

Absolutely. So the sort of what I want us to like really dig into is this US journey that you've been on, because I feel like this will be most front of mind And I just think it's just like the right period to really focus on. So I guess what— where I want us to start is at that beginning period, because I've got here on my notes when we prepared for this, and again, feel free to correct me, but I think you said in the first 6 months you found it extremely difficult and didn't do one deal, right?

Yeah, I think I did one in my first 6 months. So it was—

yeah, so you did one contract deal in your first, first 6 months of like building the US market from scratch? Because you was the first person to do this, right? For Ventura, you was doing it from scratch, is that right, or is that wrong?

Not fully from scratch, no. We had it, we had a team on the ground doing it already, so we had a small database. I think there was 3 or 4 of them on contract when I started. Uh, no, yeah, 3. The 2, 2 kind of directors who set it up, they'd hired a few people who didn't necessarily work out, and then one, one lad who, who was, was doing doing, starting to have some success and doing well, but it was all very green. It had been kind of no more than a couple of years of kind of setting up the US and getting things off the ground.

Okay, so you, but you was doing it from the UK, and then the first 6 months, like you said, you did, you did one deal. So would you mind, let's just start in that period, like what was, what was the game plan? So did you have a niche that you was focusing on, or did you figure that out as you, as you went, what were some of like the initial goals that you wanted to, to try and achieve in that initial period? Like, what was the initial plan, um, in those, uh, early days? What was the strategy?

So for me, it was a relatively, relatively straightforward transition because I was always doing dev in the UK, moved over to do dev. I was doing JavaScript in the UK. The team I oversaw in, in the UK on the London market were JavaScript recruiters, so it was kind of plug and play from a technical side. Um, but in terms of the plan, like, it's relatively straightforward. It was to speak to as many candidates as possible in my core patch, establish what good looks like, because once you have kind of a point of reference on what a top candidate looks like, what kind of work they've done, but also what, like, high-bar sites have they worked for, you know where to spend your time. And then spend as much time as possible, particularly in the initial period, speaking to as many of those candidates as possible, on the premise that good candidates will give you good leads and good information.

Okay, so speak to as many candidates as possible. So just help me understand then, why have— as a— let's just take the example, as a JavaScript developer, why would I give you my time when, you know, like, what would you have to offer me? What would be the value exchange if you know, you can't speak to me or highlight any potential projects that they might be interested in. Like, you know, understand like why you'd want to do that, but why would they— why would they give you the time? What was the, the compelling reason that you gave to people?

Yeah, well, fortunately I came in and there were people on the market already, so we did have jobs to work. I could bring them some value, be that not to the level that I would like or, or we're at now as a business. So it was always coming with with something, um, but so often in recruitment it's not plug and play, and a lot of the candidates that I'm speaking with might not be perfect for the roles that I'm working, particularly if you're targeting the top candidates. And then it can be a slightly kind of disappointing conversation on their side if you're coming with a role but you can't get to the numbers that they're expecting, or from a seniority perspective it's not at the level that, that they would want, um, But then it's about displaying your understanding of the market and trying to kind of extract information from them, but bring value with what you know about what's going on in the market, who is hiring, be that my clients or others. I'm always of the attitude that every conversation is, look, I might not place you now, but I want to know what makes you tick and what's important to you so that when the right opportunity does arise, you're first, first kind of port of call. Um, and I'm confident over time I will place you at some point, so I want to be on your radar and I'll be in touch. Set the precedent there that I'll be in touch every kind of 3 to 6 weeks to see how things are going. The contract market evolves so quickly and people start contracts, work for 6 months, do a great job, and could move on. And be available again. So building those relationships and kind of them seeing the value in connecting with you consistently is really important.

So let me, let me ask you this then. So I, I'd probably say that, you know, if, if I'm listening to this and I'm, uh, you know, even a perm recruiter but a contract recruiter, I'm gonna hear very quickly, speak to your candidates, get leads, get information, build relationships. Like, these probably things that everyone has like heard time and time again, particularly from their managers who have been doing it for a long time. And you know, you've already stressed the importance, uh, of that in this short time. So what, what I'd love to just like hear your take on is I wanted to answer this question from like two perspectives. One, like, what did Elliot's calls with candidates sound like when you wasn't doing a very good job of what sounds like fundamental to being a contract recruiter in terms of building relationships, getting information, like Yeah, like get maximizing the candidate relationship so then you can get leads and do what you need to do. So what did your call sound like where maybe you wasn't doing that good of a job of that? You was doing it, but maybe not as good as you are doing it now. Like, what would be some of the differences? Because I'm sure you help people with this. You tell them, do this, do that, but then they're just not very good at it. Like, what might the call— how different will the call sound and what are you doing that's different?

So Yeah, I think from a lead gen perspective, I love the whole give to get kind of, um, method and thought process, but we've— you've got to kind of, uh, and what's changed for me quite dramatically is the concept of calling a candidate, talking through their experience, and asking them where they're interviewing isn't going to get you where you need to be. So it's being super granular on everything. Contract recruitment is, is kind of so 360 in the sense that everything comes back around. The more kind of granular you can be and the more detail you can go in about every single one of their projects where they worked as a contractor and get them to spell out for you what did you do, what were the projects that you delivered, what was your focus, get them to explain the feature, advantage, benefit of what they've delivered so that not only can I then take that candidate and sell them into other clients with true credibility because I understand what makes them valuable, but I've also then got where that candidate provided value to their previous employer and can find other people with similar skill sets that can kind of align with that kind of Fast forward to now and where we're at, my network is so big and the team that we work with have their own network that there is so often correlations with who I know, who I've placed, who I've worked with from the sites that they've worked at. So in terms of give to get, if I'm going into a call with Hishem from Hector, I've got a market map up in front of me of every manager or candidate I've spoken to who's worked at Hector before, and I'm going to name drop. I've placed X out of Hector. I've worked with this candidate. Did you know any of these guys? And as soon as you get a yes, your credibility goes through the roof and their walls come down and they're so open to giving you information because you're already in. As far as they're concerned, you know these people, so they're not divulging any kind of trade secrets by telling you who their manager was or who the best people that they worked with on X project were, because you've already given them, oh, I've worked with this person, I placed this person here, and that really kind of breaks down barriers. And it takes time to get there, but we're all so commonly working with teams who have done this before, so you've got to lean into those networks. And when we bring new people on, I'll sit with them and talk to them like, who've you got calls with? Great, this guy's worked at X site, I placed this candidate. Who used to work there, ask him if he knows him, and the barriers come down so quickly, and it makes it so much easier to extract information because it's a two-way conversation.

So it sounds like, okay, so it sounds like maybe early on in your career it would have sounded like Elliot was just trying to get information in a fairly straightforward way of like, hey Elliot, can see you've done this, this, and this, just sort of checking that this is all correct. Also, like, where else are you interviewing? Like, it was very much like get and you wasn't giving anything. And then what you're saying is, as you obviously built out your career, you've really had to learn how to leverage the relationships and the people that you've worked with in the past that can give you credibility. But also what you've had to get better at is rather than it just being like transactional in the sense of like, okay, so you've done this, you've done that, Um, where else are you interviewing? You're also then really trying to showcase your credibility by, uh, like you said, the FAB feature advantage benefit, really trying to understand what they've done, um, in the projects that they've worked in and these types of things.

Yeah, and then your questioning goes a level deeper. Early on in everybody's career, they'll typically ask a question because it's a question that they've been told to ask or that they've learned is a good question to ask. They'll get an answer, they might even make note of the answer to refer back to it, but then they'll move on. Whereas the, the why is always 3, 4, 5 questions deep. So when you get on to kind of specific project details, don't stop at the first answer that you get, because typically the first answer that you get is surface level, and that's not the valuable information that you're looking for from candidates. It's what, what was the, the true why? Get as deep as you can to understand what makes these candidates tick, but also where do they add value, because that makes selling them so much easier, but also makes you uncover the problems that they were solving for the clients that they're supporting. And that then makes your solution selling so much easier from a lead gen perspective.

So let's, let's just round this out then, and let me ask you this. So like, if I'm listening to this right now and I feel like I can improve my contractor conversations just in terms of maybe like either improve them by— I want to improve them by trying to showcase my credibility more, or I want to improve them by, like you said, like just trying to get a bit more deeper, not being the surface level, and ultimately like build those relationships at a better level. What's like one thing that I could incorporate in my next contractor call that you think would help me achieve some of those things? Just one thing.

Research. Look at who you've got connections in common with, ask them about them, look at where they've worked, reference people that have worked there. Go in seeming like a subject matter expert because there is crossover with things they've done, people they've worked with, and people that you've worked with or placed or worked jobs for.

Love that. Super smart. And then just quickly on that, Can do— because I'm thinking if I'm listening to this, like, well, I haven't got anyone to reference, right? Can I— have you found it? Could you also reference what you're like, what your colleagues have done, if you get what I mean? So like, absolutely, yeah. Because I think sometimes a bit of a cop-out, isn't it? Well, Elliot, I haven't, I haven't got a track record yet, but you know, can I do the research and find out who my colleagues— I'm sure everyone listens to this, have— has some senior people around them. Can I leverage who my company or my team have worked with to gain that credibility in what you just said.

Absolutely. Just use the word we, because yeah, it's like, oh, we've done loads of work with X. I actually might not have done any of that, but I know what my colleague's done, and it still attributes the same value. Um, and I would highly encourage all of them to leverage my network. If you're on a call with someone and you know they've worked at X company and I've placed loads of people out of there, ask me and I'll give you a name, the names of the best people, so you can reference that and it'll instantly build your credibility.

Yeah, no, awesome. So I was curious, when you're going for that period of time and you've done one deal, and obviously you'd been used to doing way more than one deal previously, like, and I'm sure again, like, you've had to go through this when you're, um, book took a real hit. What, what are like some of like the important metrics that you look at that just give you confidence that things are going to turn and things are going to start going your way and things are going to start picking up? Do you know what I mean? What are some of the, the sort of league, um, leading indicators that make you feel like, you know what, no, if I keep doing this, I'm confident it's going to pay off and hopefully in another couple of months' time I'm going to be doing way more deals and this might open up What are some of like the core things that you look at when you're not getting like the end outcome of contractor deals in, but you might be having, I don't know, like multiple conversations with hiring managers that say in 6 months' time we are going to be kicking off a project? I don't know what the leading indicators are, but what are some of the things that you keep a close eye on, a close eye on, that help you feel confident if you keep doing what you're doing it's going to pay off?

Um, yeah, like I'm a big believer like measure what matters. It's really easy in recruitment to go get really granular and look at every single KPI to assess what the outcome is going to be, but I try and keep it really simple. How many candidates am I speaking to? And of those candidates, what hot leads am I getting? What hot site information am I getting? And then how many clients am I speaking to and how are those calls progressing? How many of those calls— typically every client call I have, there'll be some follow-up booked in off the back of that, whether it's a month down the line, 2 months down the line, a year down the line, as long as you can set expectations on if not now, when can I be of value to you? And if that's never, no problem, I'll chat with you again in 6 months and see how things have progressed. As long as they're a contract hire in your space, that makes sense to keep that conversation in your world.

So you said that you mentioned something there, which I just want to make sure people understand because I haven't heard that terminology before.

For.

So you said number of candidate conversations. Yeah. Um, number of hot leads. And then you said number of— what did you say? Site something.

Oh, just client conversation.

Like, no, so you said hot leads and, and site, um, projects or something, or like something like that. I might be wrong. I feel like you said hot leads and you said, and you said the number of sites.

That's just, just contract sites.

Yeah. What does that mean, contract sites?

The, the core difference between contracts and perm, and why I personally find business development on the contract side so much more challenging, is because every company who hire software engineers in the world typically will have at least one full-time software engineer and will hire them. But such a finite number of companies hire contractors, never mind contractors at volume. So by tracking sites who hire contractors, right, there we go.

Site, that's what you said, sites that hire contractors. Got you.

Over time, you're gonna build a list of credible companies who, you know, take contractors. And by staying in touch, delivering good content—

yeah, sure, okay, that makes sense. So hot leads in terms of like actual jobs that you could potentially place contractors into. But the other thing is, how many times a week am I learning and understanding what companies hire contractors, right? Okay, that makes sense. Got you. All right, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure that we define that because maybe not everyone will use that terminology. I'm not sure. So And then you said number of client conversations and how they're progressing is, is like the other just key things that you keep measuring. Um, and then, okay, cool. So why don't, why don't let, let me ask you this then. Um, if it's difficult to know, you might have a bit of an idea, just might be helpful for people. What does good look like on the, on those sorts of key things? If we're keeping it simple, like, what are like the, the core metrics that you found always to be like, if I'm having these sorts of number of conversations, it should result in good outcomes.

It's hard because your KPIs evolve over time, and the more junior you are, the more you need to do to execute on the same volume. But I try to keep myself to a minimum of 5 candidates a day and 3 clients. Um, if you're speaking to 5 candidates every day, should— if you're spending your time outreaching to the right people and connecting with the right people, good candidates will bring good leads. Likewise, if you're reaching out to contract sites who you know hire contractors, speak to 3 a day and you will grow your client network, and you will begin to do business with them. Where people so often go wrong is those 5 candidates, if they're all off AdResponse, they don't have visas, or they aren't top candidates in your market, they're going to give you crappy information. Likewise, if those sites are just anyone who hires, in my world, JavaScript engineers, 80% of them are likely to not hire contractors. So your time is wasted if we're not targeting the 20% to 30% who do hire contractors and speaking to the top candidates that you've identified as these are good guys. Good candidates, good clients will give you good information. So it's about speaking to the right people, but a good volume of them. You always need the volume to get there.

Nice. 5 and 3. Yeah, that's fairly straightforward. That's— I think people always interested in like what do other people work to and stuff, so that's super helpful.

I started 10, 10, and 10 when I, when I was like— when I—

what, 10 years ago?

Recruitment, that was 10 candidates, 10 clients, and 10 specs. And okay, in terms of kind of the quality that diminishes with the volume. So it's, it's all a balancing act.

But yeah, well, that's good to know that, right? As, as you were coming up, that it was pretty much double. Um, so talk me— like, when I say to you, what, what started to shift? What, what was like the lead domino? When did you start to notice things were shifting? Because by the end of that 2020 year, first 6 months— so you started in feb, first 6 months, did one deal, but then by the end of 2020 you got up to 10K weekly GP. So looking back at that, what, what changed? Or like, what were some of the things that started to happen, uh, that then enabled you to start building momentum?

I think it was a build process. We had a market established, but I didn't really have clients that I could come in and straight away have access to working jobs. I had to kind of eat what I killed, um, and that takes time. Building a market takes time. I think it probably took me, um, a bit of time to establish who the best hirers were in my market, um, which is something now that is a little more prescribed when people come in, because we can guide them on, look, this is where if you spend your time on candidate gen around these sites, you're going to quickly uncover high-caliber candidates who will give you high-caliber information. And then your market maps, building the hierarchies of these companies and understanding who the decision makers are, what makes them tick, what their interests are, and how to reach out to them, again took time. Had a few things that didn't land my way. I think in that time I had 2 or 3 offers that just didn't, didn't land. And from perhaps a number of reasons. But, um, yeah, I think the things started to turn for me as I started to really understand the market. Uh, at that point I'd then built kind of credible market maps on the companies who I was targeting, and it was a lot easier for them to start to topple. Um, also I took a little more pride in my content on marketing. And that was a big kind of turning point for me when I began obsessing over FAB in every kind of element of my career, be that specs, tailored kind of specs to hot leads, e-shots, selling candidates on the phone. The more I spoke in terms of feature, advantage, benefit, and selling against time, quality, and cost, the more results started to comment. Um, and I think that was a— particularly in a hot market, was it— was a, a major turning point.

Talk to me about what does— because you've mentioned it quite a lot already— when you're aiming to market map, like, what, what are like the, the core pillars of, of the market map that you're looking to build? Like, so if you're if you recognize that there's a site that hires good quality, good caliber contractors because you managed to build a relationship with one, they're very much up there from your view in terms of like a great contractor. You know that they've got 8 other contractors there at the moment but you haven't been able to sort of open up the door there but you found out that information. What then are you looking to— what information are you then looking to gather that would make your market map? Because I think that'd be helpful for people. Because like, what does that look like?

Yeah, for me it's about building a hierarchy, understanding who the top decision makers are and who sits underneath them, who can influence the process. Um, it's so easy to get a hot lead, and if you do get the manager name, obsessed that that guy or girl or individual is the only person who's going to be able to get you in the door. Particularly the way I approach it, my market maps, particularly those on target sites, these are bigger companies, these are kind of enterprise brand names, and there's so many people who can influence the process and open the door for you that you've got to spend the time speaking to as many different candidates that work there as possible to understand all the different teams, the different setups. But not only that, how did they get the job? Do they even work with recruiters? Does everybody come through a consultancy or a pass-through vendor. And if that is the case, great, that gives me a complete new market map to start on said consultancy, or a new approach to a specific pass-through vendor. This is who I need to speak to and kind of build a relationship with to place with X client. Um, and I think that's slightly different to the UK and wasn't something that I was massively privy to um, it was a little more you get in direct and that's that. Um, whereas, yeah, that's been a huge part of kind of our success and business model is understanding who, who the, who the hiring managers are that I need to target and open the door with, and then how do they actually hire, see if it's feasible for us to work together or how it's feasible for us to work together.

And are you putting this all in what, old school spreadsheet Or—

No, I'm a little obsessive with it, so my market maps are like pages and pages long. We use Bullhorn as our kind of database, and we have kind of a market mapping system where I'll target clients based on their location, industry, and the tech stacks that they typically hire for. Being a JavaScript specialist, they're all pretty replicable, but in each of mine, I'll take pride over the way it looks because I'll use them all day, every day. Every candidate—

it's all in Bullhorn.

Sorry, all in Bullhorn.

Okay, cool.

Every candidate that I speak to from a certain site will go into my market map. Their manager name, their team name, their project information, the skill set that they used, what problem they solved. If you get on a good rapport with the candidate, what their manager likes, what their sports teams are, what their interests out of work are, um, because that stuff all goes into getting reference when I'm reaching out and being specific. Um, so yeah, I'll track all of that. And then for every site, as I said, there's multiple different teams, multiple different hiring managers who can influence the process. If you've just got one, you're probably never going to break that door down because You need more data points to, um, to open those doors. So take your time. If you have a specific target client who you know hire at volume, you know, a, a good hirer in your market and pay the rates that you're looking for, obsess over that client. Go and learn everything about them. Jot down every candidate who's worked there, and it gets easier the longer you do it. Every candidate I speak to from X site, I reference the 10 other candidates I spoke to, and one of them they'll know, or the managers that they've spoke to. And the more you speak to, the more you get the same team names coming up. It's like, oh, you work in the marketing applications team? I'm guessing you worked under Jeff. He's like, oh yeah, well, Jeff was my manager's manager. Oh, so who was your direct manager? And then you've got more kind of information, more points of contact to reach out to.

So it sounds like, and for everyone listening, take your admin fucking seriously. Yeah, and it's funny, really, really commit to it, really commit to it.

I thought I was crap at admin, and then I showed people my marketing apps and they're like, wow, this is really in-depth, because I kind of obsessed about them. And this was just data gathering rather than— for me, that wasn't admin. Admin is adding my notes on board or, or logging my interviews. It's like, this is just recruitment. This is, this is data.

Your perception of it changed, what you were doing.

Yeah, and that's when it gets fun as well. Like, your conversations are so much better quality, and it's, it's like detective work. It's fun because you're working out like who these companies are and how you can best approach to get in with them. And the more granular you go the better the results seem to be.

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. So let's sort of— let, let me ask you this. I think this would be helpful, and then I really— because I feel like we've really doubled down here on like the candidate side, but every conversation I've had with a contract recruiter, that seems so fundamental. I mean, even definitely on like the, the perm side, particularly when you're, you know, opening up new markets, building things from scratch, like information gathering is so fucking critical. And people that take it seriously, um, like you're just talking about, uh, then, you know, have the upper hand when they're speaking to people. And also then, you know, you're going to give yourself a real— you're just going to thank yourself later on down the line, right, when you're 12 months, 24 months in. you're just gonna be like, I'm so glad I documented all this information. And, you know, I hear this time and time again, even on the perm side, when recruiters are building markets from scratch, like, absolutely fundamental to doing that successfully and having success more quickly is through the candidates and building relationships. But let's sort of move on to, you know, business development and client acquisition, because I think, you know, I've often heard that that's even more difficult when it comes to being in contract. That, that can sometimes be even more challenging compared to the perm side. But would you mind just sharing, you know, at your, at your peak, so when we was at, you know, when it was absolutely flying around that 35K weekly GP mark, would you mind sharing like what your client spread looked like? Because I think that would be helpful. Like, how many clients did you have around that time, um, and how many contracts did you have around that time? I think that would be helpful, and then we can work back from there in terms of what were some of the most common ways and the most effective ways that you brought on these clients? It might come back to candidates again, we'll find out. But what, what did this client spread look like, and what did things look like when you was at your peak?

So ironically, my spread was pretty good at the start. I probably across— yeah, I was running at high 35K off about 30 to 32 runners, um, and the spread of kind of clients across that spectrum was pretty broad. The market was hot, so it was relatively— it was easier to open doors with SMEs, and that meant that kind of I didn't think it would ever drop off as kind of quickly as it did. But yeah, it was Yeah, around, around 32, 32 runners, uh, a peak. Um, and I, I think from a BD strategy, a lot of that came off the back of obsessing over my content because your SMEs have fewer barriers to entry. You can—

when we say SMEs here, we're talking about small medium enterprise, like smaller companies, right? And what did that look like in the US? What did an SME look like? Like how big? In, in the US typically?

Uh, again, that could be anywhere from 100 employees to 2,000 employees. It's quite a broad spectrum, but in terms of their tech presence, I'd kind of classified them as an SME. Um, and yeah, they typically were slightly easier to bring on as clients, um, but in a hot market when everyone's hiring and anybody opens a contract, it's is receptive. They're a lot easier to bring on. There's fewer barriers to doing that. And, um, it meant that I was consistently pulling business off relatively straightforward business development practices. Pull hot leads, get manager names, chase leads, send out kind of mass content selling your best candidates. And through a combination of all of that, it meant that on a monthly basis, I was bringing in a lot of new business and placing it all. And of course, quite a few of those were just 1s and 2s, and then I had 2 or 3 clients who were 4s, 5s, 6s, which were the ones that kind of toppled when shit went south.

So how— sorry, so you said you had about 32 runners, did you say?

Yeah, between 30 and 32. 2, while I was fluctuating around.

Yeah. And how many, uh, if you, if you're not entirely sure, that's fine, but like roughly how many, how many client, how many sites then were you working with?

Probably 10 to 12.

10 to 12. And then what you're saying is 3 or 4 of those which were SMEs had like 4s and 5s?

Yeah.

And then, um, there's some of the ones that then stopped and and said they no longer needed contractors.

Yeah, yeah, I, um, because I, I held around 25K for about a year and that kind of fluctuated. And some of the bigger repeat businesses continued to hire, and at some point I might have had 8 to 12 with a couple of different sites. And some of the one-off businesses dropped off, um, but that was okay because I was propping up with, um, some of the slightly bigger ticket business, but we're still in that medium-sized kind of category. Um, but again, that meant that when the market did turn and certain businesses took a hit, it was a much quicker and more stark drop-off.

Yeah. So what— just describe to us like what, what that looked like then. So you're saying— so looking at my notes here, it was— did you say so? Oh yeah, from October 2022 it began to dramatically drop, like, what did, what did that, what did that actually look like? Was it, did you get like multiple phone calls in a week saying, hey Elliot, like, what did that actually, what did that, did it like happen all literally in one? Because I feel like when I have spoke to contract recruiters, this can literally happen overnight, can't it? So like, what did this actually sound like? What did that actually happen? Did you just get multiple phone calls that week? Was it quite a big surprise?

So it was of probably the 3 larger clients who I was supporting at the time, I got a couple of phone calls, we're letting go of X team of contractors. And I'd kind of landed and expanded into different teams. So I might lose a team of 3 on one project, but I've still got a couple over there. And then a couple of weeks later, they all got cut. And then another business I was working with at the time was like, look, we're out of business, we're out of budget for contract hires. Every one of the contractors that we've got coming will see out their contracts, but between now and March they're all going to end. So it was just— and that at that point it was a little painful because I was like, shit, I know these are all finishing. Yeah. And it was quite a high volume, so I was battling to place more than was finishing at that point. Um, uh, and it's funny, I was looking into before this, like from a B, D perspective, when was I kind of performing best? And I'd always say the run-up to hitting your peak is where you're actually performing, because when they all start, you're kind of spinning your wheels. You've got a lot of things going on, and this is why organization and structure is so important, because it came to a point where I was so busy, I was doing 6+ deals every month for a few months on the run that my BD took a hit because I knew I've got to find these candidates. I'm fully 360 model, no one else is doing this for me, so, um, got to go and find the right people. And at that point, BD definitely took a back seat. Um, so this time you weren't, you weren't having client meet—

you were having like no client meetings, or you weren't pulling hot leads?

Yeah, just the volume dramatically decreased, um, because I knew all these jobs were coming in, I had to fill them. And if I didn't, my competition would. I'm quite a competitive person and that drives me. If I know it's a competitive job, I'll deliver and typically will kind of thrive in that situation. But yeah, that meant that during that period I was managing quite a big team at the same time. And between filling my own jobs and overseeing a team of, at one point, 11, um, was kind of eating away at all the time that I had. So a lot of my BD took a back seat, and it was, I get a hot lead, I chase it. But previously, where I'd have employed good cadence and been in touch every 2 to 3 weeks following up, that probably fell to the wayside. Client calls will have dropped. But on a big picture, I probably did 6 months of doing multiple deals every month and it looked green and rosy, but under the hood I knew I'm not being as consistent as I need to be from a BD perspective. That's taken a backseat to other priorities and that's kind of put me in a fresh mindset this time around. Um, now I've rebuilt this on what I would call more solid foundations, um, and It might mean that some months I sacrifice a deal because actually I'm not going to spend my time chasing this that's a little bit off-core, although I historically had a good chance of filling it. I'm going to focus on BD because that's what's going to feed me for the next few months and make sure that new business continues to come in at the same rate. So if I do have finishes and there is a kind of exodus, as there was, I've got enough new.

Yeah, so that— so I want to talk about this, but just before we go into— because I think what I'd be stupid not to ask you is then, like, you know, with hindsight— and it sounds like this is what you're talking about now, you know, for people listening— what can they be doing to protect their book, right? Or protect their book from, you know, getting to the point where it got to. But just before, before we get to that, I, I have to ask because Like, you know, this is, I think, even more true when it comes to contract recruitment. I spoke to multiple people where they've worked their absolute socks off to get to, you know, that peak, um, and then you, you know, find yourself walking in on Monday going, how the fuck have I ended up here? You know, and, and you're back at this other point. So just talk to us, like, personally, how did you, like, digest that? Like, how did you you know, like, what did you do to help you not think like, fuck this, like, oh my God, I just, you know, worked really hard, I'm now here like nearly back to square one. Like, how did you deal with that personally?

Yeah, I mean, I'm only human, so I was in a bad way for a couple of months.

So what, what did that look like? What did a bad way look like? Was you always moody? Was you like just really unmotivated? Like, what did that actually look like?

Um, I think it was more at home.

Okay.

Yeah. I like, I live and breathe what I do. I love it, but I'm also quite a high-energy person. And I think I probably in a, probably in a 2-month period leading up to the low point was lower energy. Um, as I said, my risk was pretty well spread because I had quite a few different clients, so I wasn't expecting it all to drop off. As starkly as it did. But as I said at the start, like when I referenced the kind of, um, the investment banking study, like I've always had this kind of crazy self-belief, but at that point imposter syndrome 100% kicked in. I, I know I was sat there thinking, did I just get lucky and I landed on a few good accounts and then did really well off it, and yes, I executed, but was that predominantly luck and a bit of skill? Or— and but then as soon as I thought that, I was like, actually, that's bullshit. I know I did this. And that kind of fueled me because I knew I was like, other people might think that. If I'm— if part of imposter syndrome is kind of getting to me here and I'm thinking 'Was that a bit of luck?' Someone else is thinking that, and that's the person I need to go and kind of prove wrong. Doing something once could be a bit of luck, but if I do this again, there's no doubt. And if I can do this twice, I know I'm set, because if anything happens, I can go and do it again. I can build a plan, I can rebuild each time on more stable foundations. So I think that kind of really motivated me And it was a case of sitting down, chatting with some of the leadership just to kind of get a solid plan in place. But also I knew that I couldn't let the negativity in. So I was like, no, I'm going to do this and I'm going to hold myself accountable. So I remember saying to people would always check in, like, how are you doing? Obviously you've taken a big hit. You must be devastated. I must say, response to everyone was, give me time, I'll exceed what I did last time. So I was like, if I tell other people that, it holds me accountable. And I didn't want to seem arrogant or cocky, but I was like, that's just what helps you, like, get devastated. Yeah, I'm devastated, but I'm gonna do it. And I fully believed I would. There was times where I was like, shit me, what, what's going on here? How How has it gone from the craziest paychecks that I could imagine to almost back to my base? But deep down I always knew, I was like, I'm gonna do it, I just need to apply myself. The only way I can fail here is if I quit. And initially it took a little bit longer to rebuild than I'd liked. The market was definitely in a turbulent place and I had to kind of rehash my approach to business development. Because of—

let's, let's go into that. But just quickly, if I'm listening to this right now and I am in the thick of like where you was, you know, a lot of people, um, have had difficult years this year, particularly in tech. I think there's definitely— it sounds like what you're experiencing, um, obviously there's a location element here as well, but definitely a lot of people I spoke to the last couple of months looking into next year, there is a lot more positive sentiment for sure. Um, but you know, if I'm listening to this right now and I am at the depths, I am, you know, where I'm questioning, fuck, like, yeah, was I just lucky? Uh, was it actually me that was able to get to that high point? What, what would your advice be to them? Like, what is it that you'd actually say to them? What would be the, the one bit of advice that you'd give them if, if I'm in that low moment right now?

Yeah, um, it's hard because the advice I'd give someone else isn't the advice I'd give myself. I would ask myself personally, do you want it? If you want it and you want to prove it, go and do it. But if you say— I wouldn't necessarily say it in so many words to someone else, but I do think there's got to be yourself, a point of self-reflection. Say, do you want it? Do you believe you can go and do it? Cool, go and prove people wrong. Recruitment's a hard, hard game, but it's simple tasks. It's the accumulation of doing relatively simple tasks consistently over time. If anything you've done once in recruitment, you can replicate. So you've just got to believe that and don't let the voices in that are saying, like I say, you can't do it, or—

So that'd be the advice you give yourself. So why would it be different then if it was to— what would the different advice be?

To somebody else, I'd probably say sit down, build a plan, know what you're good at, execute, right?

Yeah.

Um, how did you do it last time? What's changed? And go and do it again. Um, because I'd probably always be harder on myself than I will on other people. Um, of course, because, uh, that, that's kind of how I, how I am.

And yeah, I'm the same.

That's why I was probably so low, because I was beating myself up. How have I let this happen? Um, but the, yeah, comeback's always bigger than the setback.

So what, what do you— you've said it a few times, so what does building now on more solid foundations like, what does that actually mean? What, what, what makes your contract book now built on more solid foundations? Talk to us a bit about what that actually means.

So I was talking to the, some of the guys on the board at Venturi about this this week, like Earlier in my career, I accepted— obsessed about my content and getting good content out to contract hirers was what won me business, and having the best candidates and selling them in the most credible way. But in a tighter market, you can't spread a wide net because it just leaves too much to chance. We have to be like a sniper and really identify what sites are going to bring my bus— are going to take my business forward, who is actively hiring right now, and what can I do to be— to cut through the noise because everyone else is, is honing in on those and get noticed. So I just became more obsessive about my market maps, about my content to them, not only the sell on the candidate and why they were value, but why they were specifically of value to this company and what solution they would help solve for them. And that's predominantly from data, from speaking to candidates and understanding what's going on. Um, referring back to the conversation earlier about like typical kind of problems when you start your career, uh, having lower quality candidate conversations— that information only comes from really probing and understanding the problem so that you can provide a solution Um, so yeah, got really obsessive about that. Um, and for me, I just picked a handful of big ticket sites who— these are going to take my business forward. I know they're all hiring right now. I know they all hire high quality candidates in my market and pay good rates. I'm gonna make them topple. Um, and I did.

That was one of your— that was on your key insights, wasn't it? It was more, more enterprise clients is like what you shared with me, wasn't it? In terms of when things did get hit, you was maybe over-indexed on SMEs compared to having a couple of like big ticket or big enterprise clients, which I'm assuming— I feel like you, um, I'm just assuming here, you can tell me otherwise, but I'm assuming these enterprise clients can be a bit more trickier to get into. But once you're in, then there are opportunities. But it can't— like you said, the SME is— the good thing is you can open up doors more quickly. Enterprise clients, I'm assuming it takes a bit more work.

Absolutely, it's a hell of a lot more work and there's a lot more room for error. We've been nearly there with tons of enterprise clients where you've got multiple hiring managers vouching for you to get you added as a vendor, but it still falls through. You get blocked by HR or the vendor management company aren't permitting them to add new vendors right now. Like, there's, there's so many things, but You've just got to find your angle and work it. So it is more problem solving, but when you fundamentally understand their problems and if you can leverage your existing relationships as much as possible to get them in the door, that makes it a much easier process. Two of the more enterprise clients that I've placed with in the last year have come off the back of an individual who they already knew, had worked with previously, who I'd placed and I'm taking them to them because I know they know them, but they've not worked at that company, the company they're at now, before. It's like, look, if you want this person, we've got to find a way to get me added as a vendor. Um, I had the credibility, fortunately, with the candidate to do that because I've placed him multiple times before. Um, But, but that really helped. But you've got to find a way, be it through an existing candidate, be it through you find out who the pass-through vendors are and proactively chase them, or you find out who their consulting partners are and proactively chase them. There's a lot more kind of work that goes into making it happen, but there's always a way. Go and find it.

So it sounds like what makes you feel like you're building your book now more on stronger foundations is it sounds like you're being even more intentional about the company, the sites that you're working with, like even more intentional. Yeah, it sounds like. And then what you've also really doubled down on is you've always marketed your contractors and really committed to that and doing that well, but you've really committed to doing that even better. And really honed in on, if I'm presenting this person, am I presenting it to the right person, and am I presenting it to them in a way which will make them feel like, yeah, this person can potentially solve a problem for me. So it seems like you've really doubled down on— is that right? Am I understanding that right?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just kind of making yourself part of their network without them even realizing. And this again boils back to market mapping, boils back to understanding the clients that you're trying to target. When I start a BD call and I can go and say, hey, look, we swim in the same circle, or we're in the same circles, I placed X person, X person, X person, X person who I know you managed at X company, instantly there is some credibility there.

It's like, okay, if they all trust him, I can see what you're saying is— yeah, so what, what I take from that is How can you get one person away? Yeah, like, do you know what I mean? Yeah, so like, if I— it's like, how can I get one person away from that person I know could potentially like be— could be like the person that could keep moving me in the right direction with this client? Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, like you said, but getting their network without knowing it is like just being one person away. You know a person that knows them, but you haven't been able to speak to them yet.

Yeah, that's— and it makes it so much easier when you do know that person. And I've been fortunate with some of these where I can say, hey, I know you had a great experience with all of these guys. Check out my LinkedIn recommendations. All 3 of them have referred me. I placed them all in different projects. And then they're like, oh, shit, Eli actually knows all of these guys and can provide a good service because his network is aligned with the type of people that we want to hire.

So what I wanted to ask you is, I think what, again, I always sort of take this when I speak to people that do contract recruitment is you've really got to be smart with the information that you get and you have to take action on the information that we get. So, I guess the question I want to ask you is, you know, so much has been built on, like you just mentioned there, so much has been built on like using the information that you have to your advantage to move your business forward. Like what is it that you found people struggle with to do that effectively? Like, like, why do you think people struggle with that sometimes? Because I'm sure I can tell you, Elliot, get leads until I'm blue in the face. Or I can say, like, you know, utilize the information that you get until I'm blue in the face. But some people don't. What— why is that, do you think?

I think there's a— there's, there's two potential kind of challenges, both slightly different. One on the quality of the lead and the depth of understanding of that lead. It's like, if you know that they have a problem, great. Why is that a problem? What, what is the potential solution? Have they looked into those solutions? Is that something they're already doing? And then the second side of it is, how are you selling that solution? I think a common kind of— and this is probably more phone-based, and it's fundamentals of sales— when I talk about solution selling and kind of providing solutions to your clients, everybody thinks you hear, I need a React engineer, you say, great, I've got a React engineer. That's not solution selling. Like, we've got to identify a pain point, like a thread, pull up that pain point until there's no thread left and you fully understand the problem. Because what that does for the manager is it says, actually, I know I need a— I know I need a React engineer because my project— why? Because my project is running behind schedule. Easily enough, a lot of recruiters would sell in a candidate at that point. I would always advise go deeper. Cool, so what happens if the project doesn't get delivered on time? What's the knock-on effect of that? Why is the project running behind? What specifically about your existing team are they missing, or what skill set do they have that's not allowing them to do that? And before the end of the call, they've talked to you about what impact this is having on them and their job. They're talking through the pain. So then it's like, I'm not just providing you an engineer because you said you need an engineer. I'm providing you an engineer with the specific skill set that that is the skills gap, or that is the problem, and you've taken 5 minutes to explain to me what implications it has on your day-to-day, what the knock-on effect of that will be for the business, and what the opportunity cost is by not hitting these X goals. So make them feel the pain and talk through that before you provide a solution so that you know the solution I'm providing is actually accurate and the right fit for this problem. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Like, the soundbite that I love using on this is like, you know, high-performing recruiters chase problems, not vacancies.

Yeah.

And that's what you're talking about here. And, and the thing that I get from this, Elliot, I don't know how you've helped your team like get better at that, but I feel like what you're talking about is commercial skills, is is commercial acumen. Because like you said, I could— my ears could be, you know, ringing when I hear you say I need a React engineer. But actually you're saying, hang on a minute, like, before you start jumping down their throat and going, I've got loads of React engineers, like, you know, I can send them over to you, which a lot of people would, you know, a more experienced recruiter or someone that's really honed their craft is going to go, okay, well, tell me why you need that person, like you just said, and actually go the extra step and What you're uncovering there are actual— yeah, I feel like they're commercial skills and the understanding of how projects work and, you know, understanding that this person has to probably report to someone, and if they are running behind, what are the knock-on effects? Like, how are you helping people develop that? Because that's not— I wouldn't say that's like recruitment skills, right? That's like commercial skills. And we have to educate people on, you know, we're actually solving problems here, guys. We're not just placing React engineers.

Yeah, I think a lot of that's active listening, right? And the more people can listen in to calls that are executed well, the better they're going to pick those cues up. But also, like, the more support they have on calls, and you can chip in and say, ask more about that. And a lot of the time it's really simple, it's just why. Like, why is so often the— like, there's a rule about the 3 whys. It's like, if you ask 3 times, you actually get the answer to the first question. And that's so often the case, is you need somebody to spell that out for you. But I personally find supporting people on their calls, trying to let them take the lead themselves, but chip in with little bits of ask why, guide them down the right path rather than— and let them ask those questions themselves, and then review at the end. Cool, what did we get from this? What do we find out? What's the problem? What could be the best solution? Um, versus the old style of telling them exactly what to say, just push them down the right path. Um, but also have people listening on your calls. If I know I'm taking a spec from a client or I'm on a call with someone that could turn into that, great, listen in. I'm on Zoom, jump in, stick behind the screen, hear how, hear how this goes and the questions that I ask and the direction that I go to just try and understand what, what the fundamental need is, where the problem is, and what solution they need, not the solution they think they need. 'cause it's so often what they think they need is not what they need.

I love that. So as we look ahead then, be interested to sort of get your perspective on this. As you look ahead, like you said, you want to do even better than you did in the past. Talk to us about how you visualize the sort of ideal client spread and how that's going to look, 'cause it sounds like that's also part of your strategy to which there's only so much you can control, right? But talk to us a bit about how you're now strategically thinking, if I'm gonna get to 40K weekly GP, how do you visualize that from a client spread perspective? How many runners do you think that will be? Just talk to us a bit about that, because I think that will also get people thinking, um, because I'm sure you thought about that, that could— because you're going to do that in an intentional way, which it sounds like you have been, that hopefully will mean you don't find yourself at that 3K mark again. I mean, hopefully you don't, but you know, there's only so much you can control.

But if I do, I, I now know how to action it and I'll bounce back quicker and stress less. Um, I'm confident I won't with the foundations that I'm setting. So for me, there's, there's a couple of elements to it. This is about in-contract recruitment. Business development is king. We have to constantly focus on BD, but also be mindful of the market. As I said, tighter market I need to be sniper-focused on where my business is coming from. As things begin to open up, for me, I've got to keep that sniper focus on what clients are going to give me the most business over time, hire the best people, but also what clients am I going to provide the best value to. I know where my network is and the people that best suit it, so I know there's, there's select few clients that are gonna value my service most. Um, so they have to be forefront all the time, but then it's all about spinning plates. Like, I've gotta still be— get a hot lead, I chase it, send good content, value my service, be very conscious of the quality of everything that I send out, feature, advantage, benefit every candidate that I work out. Um, both chasing leads, BD into my target sites, and mapping out my candidate network through those target sites, identifying— cool, I've predominantly focused on e-commerce, so I know all the best e-commerce hirers. I've knocked down a lot of those barriers. Now maybe I need to pivot and establish another market focus because we've got a foothold in there. If the market turns for e-com, that's going to be detrimental to our progress. But equally, if you provide a good service, a lot of these clients don't just disappear. So I'm starting to see now the SMEs that I placed with 2 years ago start to come back to me, say, hey Elliot, we need this person. Great, I'll still place my ones and twos with you because in, in different market conditions, they may be the ones that are more stable and they may be the ones that kind of spread my risk. So it's about ensuring that I'm delivering across the board, but my focus is also on who's gonna— who are kind of bell steady and gonna perform well in turbulent markets and have the volume and the resources to keep new contractors on board because they're working on essential projects. But also just focusing consistently on BD, because if every month you're pulling new jobs and placing new jobs, you can do that in any market, then you don't need to worry because your focus is then just, can I place more than finish? Um, obviously with an eye on playing good defense, monitor my contractors, make sure they're happy, things are going well, kind of, uh, be ear to the ground to solve any issues as and when they arise. Um, whilst being cognizant of BD and getting your kind of, um, uh, existing client BD done on those calls. So I've placed with X enterprise company, there's so much opportunity there, I need to make sure every contractor I speak to of mine, I'm checking out, hey, what other, what other new projects are going on? Have there been any hires on your team? Who else do you know within the business? So BD is not just on my target clients is also on my existing clients. It's also with every candidate that I speak to and every kind of hot lead that I gather. Um, just trying to have that BD head on all the time. And if you're pulling enough, your foundations are going to be solid because you're constantly doing new business.

So then, just to round this out, I mean, you might not— I don't know, it might not work like this, I don't know, but I'm just curious, like What do you think your business will have to look like to top the 35? Or have you not already thought about that in terms of like how many runners do you think you'll need? And then how have you thought about what percentage ideally would you love to land? I know it doesn't work perfectly like this, but in an ideal world, would you want it to end up being like 30, 40% with enterprise, big companies, and then 56% of your book is made up of sites that are more SMEs? How do you just think about that now with what you've been through.

Yeah, so 4 or 5 months ago I sat down and I reviewed every client that I work with, every active runner that I had. This was kind of on my way back up, so I was probably 10 to 12K. I was like, cool, rode back to 35K. Like, I need to make sure, because 2023 has been a rough year in terms of annual billings. Uh, most of my obsession is around weekly GP and where I'm at, but I'm also for the year, it's like if I'm not billing over a mil in the year, that's a bad year for me. That's where I need to kind of hold myself accountable, um, and reviewed what clients I've got in with now, where the numbers need to be, and where I can spread it. So I think on that it worked out about 50% spread across a number of businesses. Some of them were more enterprise, but I've only tapped into certain teams, uh, and then I set myself a plan based on existing clients, how many contractors I'd need to get for what weekly GP within each client there, and then how many new enterprise clients I need to bring on in what time periods. I worked out if I focus on onboarding a new enterprise client each quarter, um, over time that will give me enough, enough new business to not have to stress. But also of my existing book and existing clients, Who can I expand more into and who are growing? Um, so taking the market and the current kind of circumstances into account, what do I see as realistic? So each week I can review, cool, I've said I want to have X amount of runners at this site. Right now I only have— I've said I want to have 5 by the end of the year. Right now I only have 3. From a— I need to be more hot on my contracts and monitoring calls with those two and candidate monitoring, uh, client monitoring calls, checking in, seeing how they're performing, asking for internal referrals because that's where I know there is opportunity. So I did a, yeah, bit of research on my existing clients and new and established if I can get a good split and start to grow each one internally, that's all it takes to get to, to where I need to be. And Trajectory-wise, I'm very confident that another kind of 3 to 6 months and I'll, I'll be there, um, providing a few things line up. But we're certainly moving in the right direction and the new business is landing at the same rate as existing, and that's where you know you've got a happy medium.

Yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, if you're listening right now and you haven't done an exercise like this or you haven't made time to do an exercise like this going into next year, it's the perfect time to do it. 'cause I'm sure it can feel like, definitely for me, when I look at a yearly target or where you want to get to, it can feel really overwhelming. But then when you just said, when you just then reverse engineer and boil it down to, oh, so these 5 sites right now, I've got 2 contractors in each. If I just get them up to 4 each, then I'm going to be where I need to be. So if you're listening to this right now and you haven't done an exercise like Elliot has just described there, would highly recommend doing some sort of reflection and looking ahead going into next year so you can go into next year with, you know, more clarity and less overwhelm. And like you just said, like, it then helps you really understand what you need to be really intentional about, whether that be every time I'm speaking to these sites, I need to make sure I'm really on the ball with asking what other projects are going on, what's in the pipeline, etc., etc. So we'd highly recommend that if you haven't done that. Love it. Um, Elliot, look, it's been an absolute pleasure. Uh, kudos to you, my man. Love, love the mindset. Um, no doubt, I'm sure you're gonna get to where you got to and even more. Um, really appreciate you being super honest, sharing everything on here. Um, big thanks for coming on the pod.

Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it. Um, yeah, love the show.