Building Internal Champions: The Secret to Winning High-Value Clients with Dylan Hoyle

Dylan, welcome to the pod. Thanks, Hishem.

Looking forward to a good conversation. It's weird being on the other end of a podcast for once.

So joining me today from your new home, Tampa. I am. From Manchester to Tampa.

Well, from the lakes to Manchester, then to Tampa. So it's a bit of a different one.

Fair. I was going to say, I was thinking I should actually know that because This is probably the first time on the pod that I've interviewed someone's dad, and now I'm interviewing their, their son.

I've got some big expectations.

Love it. So today we're gonna really break down some of the key areas when we prepared for this that you feel like have had a big impact on you continuing to keep growing your success over the last 5 years with Strive. So gonna dig into a couple of things that I think everyone listening are gonna really enjoy. So some of those things are, we've got it called here, the internal champion strategy, which we're gonna go into, leveraging VC relationships, maximizing an existing account, mindset, and underpinning this is all about building a market from scratch. Before we do that, I think let's give everyone a bit of the highlight reel. Let's sort of let everyone know the journey that you're on and you've been on so far. Um, yeah, you've been at Strive now for nearly 5 years. Obviously, uh, career and recruitment has always been with Strive, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. First, uh, first job at 19, I didn't know I was getting into recruitment, so I was lucky enough to choose Strive.

Love it. First 2 years you entirely focused on the German market, and then the last 3 years has been entirely focused on the US, and that's why you've now moved there. Obviously it's always been permanent and in the SaaS space. And then I guess the last bit to mention here in terms of like performance— let me know if I'm getting this wrong— but first year I got here, I'm assuming this is pounds, not dollars, because you might be talking dollars. Yeah, nice. So first year, £190K. Second year, £240K. Third year, £400K. 4th year, $600K, and then 5th year, on track to do $800K, is the goal.

That's the plan.

Love it. Um, and then along that journey, you have been, um, a manager, but correct me if I'm wrong, I think right now you're really focused on being an individual contributor. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. I got into management and then, uh, quickly dipped out of it after a year. Cool.

All right, so I think to give everyone a bit of final context, I think Core responsibilities now then, just to paint a bit of a picture, is your role— what you're entirely focused on is maximizing accounts, um, relationships and potential. So how can you get the most out of the relationships that, um, you've built or have already in the business? Um, we've also put, uh, yeah, get as many roles as possible for, for the team. And a third of your role is probably BD, a third account management, and then the third the rest of the other stuff that you might be supporting with bringing the business forward. Uh, for Strive.

Exactly.

Yeah, love it. So why don't we start then in these core areas? I think let's start with mindset. So, um, like, talk to us about this because I know when we were preparing for this you came across really passionate about, uh, this being something you're, you're proud of or like being really pivotal in terms of getting to where you're going and also probably going to be behind the future success you have. So I'll leave it over to you, like, where do we want to start with like the mindset piece? Because of course it's an overused thing that we probably use and talk about in recruitment, but what, what does mindset to me mean to you and how has it been impactful for you, for you on your journey so far?

For sure. Um, and I think like obviously in recruitment when everyone talks about mindset, a lot of the things that people touch upon is like the grit and resiliency piece because you constantly take punches to the face on a daily basis. So I think people focus on that. I think for me, the one area which I really believe in, I think is something that I excel at and I'm lucky because my dad is just around like ruthless optimism and genuinely believing that there is no limit to your potential and what you can achieve. I think a lot of people compare yourself to others within the industry. And when you set yourself out an unrealistic goal, people are are bound to call you unrealistic, but in my opinion, it's the best thing that someone could possibly say because you're only ever going to achieve unrealistic things if you set out to do them. And the people who called you unrealistic at the time will probably kick themselves in 10 years because it's your job to speak things into reality and really manifest things to happen, as corny as that sounds. So I think ruthless optimism is One of the things that, one of the top traits of like a high-performing recruiter is genuinely not believing that there is a limit to your potential and setting yourself some objectives which to others might seem extremely unrealistic. But the reality is if you genuinely believe that you can do it and you work towards it on a daily basis, I think that's what separates the average performers and the top performers in recruitment, if that makes sense.

And have you always had that? Ruthless optimism, because I would definitely probably describe myself like that. I'm always— I, yeah, like, I, I view things in a very positive lens, maybe sometimes to my detriment when it comes to like the world and, uh, these things. But like, have you— do you feel like you've always been like that? Is that how your friends and colleagues would probably always describe, uh, describe you, do you think?

I think so, yeah. Like, I came from a very small town, so it's like people set limits. They've got that small mentality where people set limits on what they think that you can actually achieve. And I played a very high level of cricket, luckily enough, growing up, so I always knew there was something more to what everyone else does. And like, you know my dad, and a few other people know my dad. Like, he believes there is no limit to what you can achieve. If you set out to do something, you can go and do it. And I think that's like pushed me. And especially as also the other side of it is like always being one of the youngest. I got into recruitment at 19, so it's like you're always— you've always got that chip on your shoulder to go and prove something. Um, so I think I've just had it ingrained in me from, from a kid, to be honest.

Yeah, no, that's fair. And how do you handle and manage— I know you're out of management now, but I'm curious— not everyone is ruthlessly optimistic. So how do we manage this in like a work context, particularly in recruitment, because you're going to be dealing with people that are being negative. They've had setbacks, they've had that dropout. Like, it's very easy to let those things ruin your day, maybe even week. So how have you gone about making sure you're not the annoying person in the office who's like always positive when sometimes you— people may just want you to listen and not try and solve their problems, you know?

Yeah, do you know what, that's one of the things why I stepped out of management. Because like, it is like, if you're— somebody's coming to you with an issue, right? Sometimes, and it's about your adaptability, right? It's understanding that certain people don't want to be told that everything is going to be okay. Some people want you to have some sympathy and some empathy for them and to recognize that not everything's all right. And sometimes it is Well, it's not the best, but then it's about painting the picture as to how we can solve it. But it's like having that adaptability, whereas some people, they want that visionary, they want that someone to rile them up and believe in them and motivate them. So it's that adaptability. And I think just in a generic recruitment sense, think, I've probably always been guilty of being over-optimistic, and I think they call it happy ears, or we call it happy ears, right? And to be honest, like, you know, John, obviously at Strive, he's probably one of the greatest when it comes to that. He's one of the most paranoid salespeople I've ever met in my life, but it's probably one of his greatest attributes because being paranoid at every single stage that something can go wrong and trying to mitigate against risk at every single stage, it's perfect. Like, you should have to risk entirely every single deal, every single day, interview stage, but don't also let it affect your optimism. Believe in yourself and your ability as to what you set out to do. But of course, there comes that other aspect of like sometimes optimism is just failed optimism and you do have to be realistic at some point. But don't let that stunt your belief in what you can achieve, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, yeah, for sure.

For sure.

And before we move on then, I think something that you also mentioned that came under mindset that I wanted to touch on which I think is going to be key when we get onto the, the sales side, was you said to me quite strongly, like, you— and a lot of people do this, and I, I'm definitely guilty of this as well— of putting people on a pedestal. So talk to me a bit about that, because I think that, that's also part of this mindset, mindset equation, where maybe you might think you're inferior or not as, yeah, like whatever you think when you're calling decision makers or people that work in private equity, whatever. You was quite passionate about that when you said that to me around like, it's so important to make sure that you really try and not put people on a pedestal.

Yeah, and it's like, it rings, depends on the seniority, right? Because sometimes if you're recruiting entry level, then you automatically believe that there is equal business stature. And it's when you take that step up to like, We recruit in SaaS sales, which is like the top 1% of salespeople globally. These guys or girls are earning 3, 4, 500K a year. They've done it for 15 years. And I remember at 19 coming into the office and I was like, oh my God, I've now got to try and bring this guy to pack up his bags, move jobs, and change his whole life. I was like, how am I even going to do that? But I was lucky enough at the time I had Adam Harrison and Alex, who were the founders. They really ingrained it into me is that just because someone is doing this, it doesn't mean that that person is better than you regardless of their ability, right? They are more experienced, they've done a few more things than you, but it's still equal business stature. And I think the thing for me when I personally got over that hurdle is just by like understanding how to master your craft, study, learn, watch how the top billers operate, try to emulate their process whilst putting, you know, your own spin on it because only once you truly believe in your ability and you know you can genuinely impact a company by hiring great talent and you can impact someone's career by giving them the opportunity of a lifetime and you can really solve complex business problems for companies, that's when you start to believe in equal business stature. So I think tying it up, it's like, it's genuinely believing that you can make an impact, whether it's on a company's hiring process, whether it's on an individual's career, like the equal business structure comes from, not because I earn the same amount of money as you, I've got the same level of experience, but it's the impact that you can make to that individual, that company's lives, promotes that equal business stature.

Yeah, that's great. I think you put that really well. So just to tie that out then, only because you mentioned it a few times, there's a lot of young people that come into our industry. Like you said, start when you was 19. I think that can also make it easy for you to fall into like, oh God, these people, like you said, they've got a lot more life experience. I'm just a 19-year-old in Manchester, give him a call up. Like, what, what should— what, like, what should some of the self-dialogue be if I'm listening to this podcast right now and maybe I am feeling a bit of that? Whatever age you are, you're dealing with— you're trying to get into more of the senior end of the market, or you might have just started your recruitment career and you're young and you speak to people that have a lot more life experience to you. Um, what, like, what, what should we be making sure the self-dialogue is more of versus not.

Yeah, it starts in the morning and it's like amping yourself. I go back to like mastering your craft and learning all that stuff. It's like at the start I wasn't very good. I didn't know how to make a pitch and I wasn't confident in my ability to ring someone and get them on the phone and handle every single objection. And the reality is, at the start of your career, you're not going to be able to do that. right? So it starts by like genuinely being insane about learning your craft and mastering your ability and sitting there and handling objections to some of your colleagues, doing role plays all the time, getting yourself to a point where like you genuinely believe in your ability to do what you've set out to do. And then it's about having conversations with yourself because like, I remember, this is one of the biggest things. So I made a cold call in the office when I first joined and I got a 30-second pitch out, the guy hung up on me. And I was like, Adam next to me is going, "Ring him back." And I'm going, "What do you mean ring him back?" He's going, "Ring him back right now. Ring him back straight away." I was like, "Adam, he's just hung up on me." He's like, "Ring him back." Rang him back. He was like, "I've just hung up on him. What do you want?" Gave him a pitch. 5 minutes later, I've got him on a call, introduced him to the client. And it was like that first hurdle for me. It was like, "Right, I can really do this." And it's about getting them little small wins. The guy didn't get the job, but it was a small win which I believed. Right, this is it. I can genuinely do it. And it's like that equal business stature. I've now got the stomach to just go and ring him back and I'm not scared to go and do it. And it's just about amping yourself up. You might get the same in recruitment, right? You might get 15 nos, but the 16th might be a yes. But like everyone says it because it's genuinely true.

Yeah, it's always scary calling someone back when they've just hung up on you, isn't it?

It doesn't always work, by the way.

Love it. Right, so let's get into this building out a market from scratch piece then, which I know a lot of people listening would have either had to do at some stage, might be doing it now, or might be even looking at taking their career to the States like you have. So just give us a bit of context of like, obviously you started in Germany, but with the US piece, when did you start this and was it like, was you part of the journey from building it from the bottom up? I know obviously John was involved in that as well. Like, what, just give me a bit of context and then we can just talk a bit about this journey and some of the things that you feel you've done really well that have helped you grow this part of the business and grow your desk.

[Speaker] Sure. So when I initially interviewed at Strive, like, if you, taking a step back from that, if you look at software as a whole, the holy grail of software is San Fran, it's the Silicon Valley, right? So if you look at it from an opportunity perspective, The US is where the opportunity is. It's where the most amount of investment happens. It's where the most companies are founded. And it's where you will get into a company the earliest where you can make significant impact. So when I interviewed at Strive, they said, this is our vision. We wanna set up an office up in the States at some point, and we're looking for people to build out the Manchester HQ with a viewpoint at some point to go over. And I immediately was sold on that dream. I wanted to be a part of the American expansion. I said it from the interview and I just kept reinforcing it. Every QBR, I had every yearly wrap-up, it was like, when are we going to the States? What's the plan, et cetera, et cetera. And then for the first 2 years, I think 2020, 2021, focusing on the German market. And then I remember at the start of 2022, obviously we just had that boom, right? Recruitment had just gone nuts. People were making a boatload of money, billings were through the roof. We were like, right, now's the right time. We had a good established client base in Europe, which meant that we had existing clients to then go and tap into to try and get into the US market. So, it was myself and John that basically sat out, we were like, "Right, we've never touched the US, let's go hell for leather from the start," essentially. So, that's how the journey works. We worked for close to 2 years doing the US from the UK, extremely late nights, but knowing that the vision was going to be there to to go to the States. Um, so that's how that, that all came around essentially.

No, I appreciate you sharing that. So, and then just quickly on that, because I think people are interested, like what typically on average— because I'm sure sometimes it would change— like what were we saying, was we starting at like 11, 12 there till 10, 11 at night? I'm sure sometimes it was later than that, but what— because I think As I'm sure you've seen, like, I have a good friend that's recently just moved to Austin. Like, it's a lot of graft to do it from the UK first. People might just see on LinkedIn like, oh wow, like they're over to the US, these things, but probably didn't see all the sacrifice and late nights that they had to do before getting to that point. So like, what did an average week actually look like when you did? Yeah, good question.

So like, I was I was stupid enough that I kept on all my European accounts at the time because I didn't want to take a step back in my billings. I didn't want to take a step back in my earnings. So I'd basically come in 8 till 12, 1 o'clock, I'd work on my European stuff and then I'd start rolling my US from 1. So 1 o'clock is 8 or 9 AM Eastern. So literally the start of the day for them is when I'd start. My day then would look like from 1 till 7, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, probably in office, getting all my things done throughout the day. I typically then either go home, go to the gym, get some food, and then log back on at night. So maybe I was logging on at 10 PM at night, doing my West Coast calls, probably till midnight, 1 in the morning some nights. And then sometimes you're not insanely busy, so you stop at 10 and you log off. I think the difficulty that people don't realize, and I didn't realize it at the time, is that when you work that late and I'm constantly getting messages from hiring managers at 11 at night, 12 at night, 1 in the morning, it's just always on your mind. Like you don't ever stop recruitment. And it changed when I came to America because everyone logs off at 6, 7 o'clock. So it's like, right, I've got my evenings back. What people don't realize, the sacrifice is not just working till late, it's that like constantly being on your mind and getting messages and being reminded about stuff. And you're exactly right, people don't understand probably the the sacrifice you've got to make, but it is worth the sacrifices. How I'll end it.

Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, if you're really committed and like in the trenches of building out your desk, your career, I'd probably say most of the time you might get better at it, but it's difficult to like not think about that interview that you know is happening the next day, or like that pitch that you've got, or whatever. So I can, I can totally see that. That was one of my biggest challenges in, in COVID was I was working still because I had my own business, and I worked— by the end of it, I'd worked in like every room in the house. So there was no— there is no like separation, you know. So I totally get that, like when you're getting messages and you've seen a hiring manager that you've been trying to get hold of in the day come back or whatever, it's going to be even more harder to, to switch off.

Everyone needs to have your work rate, Hishem, because you're one of the hardest working recruiters I know. You're not even exactly in recruitment anymore, but like you are here, there, and everywhere.

Yeah, so I, I do totally get that. Like, that's made even more difficult when you're getting LinkedIn DMs and things happening when, yeah, maybe other people are winding down. So you did it just to understand them. So you really tried to build things, build traction for like 2 years before you went over there. Was it— was that intentional?

Yeah, definitely intentional. Um, I think we actually wanted to move over a little bit sooner than than we initially planned to. Navigating the visa process the first time is tough, Hishem. And I know a lot of— I pay extreme credit to Mackenzie Powell because she worked as hard as she possibly could. She's our operations director. She worked as hard as she possibly could to navigate everything. It's navigating the lawyers, it's going through the banks, it's setting up a business, understanding where to set up the entity. All that stuff is like, it takes a lot longer than you initially thought. We couldn't come over to the States and not have a presence and not have an existing book of business going on. I think one of the things that we— our strategy was quite good earlier on because we built such an established client base and such a good brand representation in the market in EMEA, is that we basically just looked at our existing accounts rather than prospecting into new business where we've never done recruitment in the US. We had no case studies of the work that we've done. So to then go prospect a new business and say, give us a shot, like it's tough. So what we did was we had an existing client base and we mapped out every single account to see who was hiring in the States, prioritized where our key relationships were, who we had the biggest champions with, who would then be more likely to give us a shot in the States. And that's exactly how we did it. So we just went in our existing accounts, created a couple of case studies. Then we got to a point where we had, 3 or 4 case studies in the US of successful projects that we'd completed, um, then that's when we started prospecting into new accounts essentially.

We'll get back to the episode in just 1 minute, but today I'm excited to talk to you about one of our partners, Firefish, the recruitment CRM that accelerates data-driven growth. The problem with most recruitment CRMs is that they are just a database of records, meaning they become just one of the many tools that recruiters use every day. Like of all systems, the records are only as good as the data being captured. Our sponsors Firefish know that for agencies to win faster, data needs to be at the heart of their business, making your CRM the single source of truth. With over 10,000 records created and updated every day and 85% of placements from existing candidates, Firefish enables recruiters to enrich and engage their data, equipping you with real-time insights needed to win faster. To learn more about Firefish and take advantage of an exclusive Recruitment Mentors Podcast offer, make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the Recruitment Mentors Podcast when speaking to the Firefish team. So let's get into this internal champion piece then, because you pretty— you pretty much just shared— because I'll be honest with you, Dylan, I've heard— we've had a number of people on here now talk about taking their career to the US, and I'll be honest, I do feel like a lot of the time people have come up short when relying on existing accounts that they knew had a US presence. Like, I'll be honest, I've heard that a lot. Like, they were hoping or expecting that that would generate more opportunities. So I think, why don't we get into this internal champion piece then? Because clearly that— and I'm sure that continues to be a way, um, the way that you work— but clearly that, that really helped you at the start. Would you mind just— because I know this is a common sort of language in the SaaS space, internal champion, but why don't you just define internal champion for us and then we can go through a bit more like what the strategy looks like?

For sure, for sure. So firstly, an internal champion is someone within a company who benefits from your product or service, so benefits from your recruitment service, that can advocate for you internally and has influence within the decision-making. So whether that's the main decision-maker or whether it's someone who's got access to this decision-maker, but they need to have access to the economic buyer or influence within the decision-making cycle. So it's someone who benefits from your products and services, therefore is an advocate for the way that you work and the results that you provide, and has influence or access to the person who makes the decisions. That's how I would define an internal champion, so to speak.

And what would this person typically look like in a recruitment context? Is it a candidate that we might have worked with at some point? Is it an internal talent acquisition person who built relationship with— like, what, what, like, you can use the US context, like, what did those internal champions typically look like, uh, that helped you potentially get some of those first opportunities to work on projects in the US?

Yeah, so it's unless you do exec search, it'll never be a candidate that you place.

Okay.

Because that person's not really got access to an economic buyer or decision maker. So in my context, for example, it's the person who is responsible for the hiring. So whether that is a line manager or whether that is a second line leader, so in my case, it's typically a VP of sales is the decision maker. And then you've got a founder who calls the shots or a CEO that calls the shots, but I look to build a champion in a vice president of sales, or if it's an engineering company, a VP of engineering, or it might be a line manager, but then you've try and got to make, try and got to find a way to navigate from a line manager to the second line, et cetera. But it's, it's someone who has hiring as their responsibility in their job description, essentially.

So if an internal champion for you would be VP of sales, How do I become an internal champion for Dylan then? Like you said, a big part of it is, yeah, the product and service piece. So like, what, like, would we have worked together potentially? Or like, what, how does that typically play out?

Yeah, so I'll take a little bit of a step back from there, right, to make people aware of, of why it's such an effective strategy. So I started getting very familiar with the concept to ultimately imitate the people I was prospecting to. So software companies all over the planet, they use this exact strategy which is champion building. So at first I did it because it gave me mutual respect, and secondly, I understood why it was so valuable. So the reasons why it's so valuable is because the individual has influence and advocacy for you. So those champions can influence decision makers, they often either have a seat at the table or influence that seat, and can therefore fight your battles internally on behalf of you, and therefore can help you to overcome obstacles, which therefore helps you to risk deals, right? Because typically a champion will be able to provide you information that you wouldn't typically know throughout a deal process, whether it's positive or whether it's negative. It'll help you basically understand information that you wouldn't necessarily be aware of, and it therefore helps to create a predictable pipeline because therefore I know if— there might be 3 people in the decision-making, right? 2 people love my candidate, but 1 person doesn't, red flag, deal might not go through. So it helps me create like a predictable pipeline. And then the last aspect of why it's important is the long-term partnership because it feeds into maximising an account, which is something that we'll go on to, which one, it'll lead to a bigger account, more revenue from an existing, it'll lead to repeat business. And more often than not, if your champion that you're dealing with is at a high level and well thought of within the industry, it leads into client referrals, which for me is like a very large portion of my BD strategy, is getting referrals from one person to another company to another company, etc. So I'd say they're the reasons why it's such an effective strategy. And then we can go on like how you identify a champion and how you build it.

Yeah, yeah, you brought that down really well. Like, I do— I think that's a really good insight on if you have that internal champion, you can get that direct, honest information around something that could be potentially risking something happening, which you might not have got from the hiring manager because they didn't want to say at that point or whatever. So that, that does, that does make complete sense. And also, like you said, like, then also what else you could potentially do in the future with them, um, because of the, the position they're in. So that, that does make a lot of sense. So I'm sure people are going to be thinking, like, you, you can tell me where you think would be best to start. Maybe it could be like, how do I go about identifying who internal champions can be in, in my market? But I definitely also, just whilst it's top of mind, I want to hear your take on like, do internal champions know that they're internal champions? You know what I mean? Are you like, I don't know, like, are you saying, oh, I don't know how that plays out? I was just interested, like, do these people actually know that they're being described as Dylan's internal champion. Like, are you having that conversation? It's just something that's top of mind, but you can help us understand how can we first maybe identify who these people are in, in my market, or like how you can go about understanding who they are.

Yeah, so there's two things to it, right? One, the people in my industry who I work with, the sales leaders, they do this day in, day out. They're not idiots, so they know that I'm building a champion in themselves. But like, benefits them, so they don't mind. But let's say, so I've done some— there's aspects of go-to-market sales recruitment, which is sales engineering, where the engineering leaders aren't as familiar with the concept. So they might not be as aware that they're your champion. They might just think they're your mate and you're their person on the inside, essentially. But like, I have jokes all the time with sales leaders where it's like, right, you're my champion, I need you to go do this for me, right? And it's like having that, that conversation and that humour which helps you to build that relationship. So I'd say in my instance for salespeople, they know that you can't pull the wool over their eyes, whereas for other markets such as engineering or procurement or operations, they probably won't be as aware with the concept. So you've probably got to play it a little bit smarter.

Yeah, fair. Okay. And then what are some of the most effective— because I feel like a lot of this is around building trust, credibility with them. Like, these people aren't going to be willing because, like, when these people do something on your behalf, they're not just doing that for you, they're also putting their reputation on the line. I think that that's like such a key thing to remember. So I think if anyone is referring you, you've got to really make sure that you respect that, be grateful for that, take that seriously, because when you ref— when you ever get asked for referrals and you say, oh, Dylan, like, I'm gonna refer you to this podcast editing, uh, company or whatever, when I make that referral, that's also a judgment of me. Or like, you're gonna make also judgment of me on how good my referral is. Or like, so I think, yeah, like, this even more so if they're in a position of influence and they're going, no, I think this is why we should give Dylan an opportunity. It's like that. Yeah, like there's a lot that you could vary, or like the stakes are even higher, I'd say, because it's like you could— they're— yeah, like their reputation is in, um, play there as well. So what are— like, how will we get into that point where someone's willing to do that? Like, how— what is the most effective way there? Because I'm sure this is something you're intentionally doing, isn't going to happen overnight. So like, what are some of the biggest accelerators of having someone be your champion within an organisation?

Good question. So literally, like, starting from the exact beginning, like, first, like, you've got to map out the account. Everyone knows how to map an account who does business development, right? And you map out an account and you've got to understand the hierarchy within a company and understand how these companies operate. So who has influence within the recruitment cycle? Who has influence to pull the trigger on a hire? In my instance, it's a VP of sales, a line manager, or a founder line CEO, and from there, that's how you identify who that champion could potentially be, right? So let's say that you've now identified a specific champion, you know who's got influence, you know who can pull the trigger, and now it's about establishing— so in sales or in recruitment, I believe there are two types of relationships. I believe you either have a trust-based relationship or a credibility-based relationship. The first one, the trust, you have to earn someone's trust by doing an extremely good job for someone, right? I might have to fill 1, 2, 3, or even 4 roles for that person to then say, right, Dylan's the man, I trust him, I can now be his advocate. Or secondly, you've got a credibility-based relationship, which is basically about what you've done before, who you've done it for, and how you handle yourself throughout the business development process. So like, in my opinion, you've got to establish which type of relationship it is, and that takes a decent level of emotional intelligence to be able to understand that. And I won't go into like the nuts and bolts around it, but it's about establishing which of those two relationships it is. And then when you go about, how can I build a champion, right? It starts literally from the beginning. So have an executive presence and demonstrate an equal business stature, like we discussed, right? Showing this person you are an expert in what you do. And it starts by taking a very, very detailed and very comprehensive job brief where you can showcase your ability to know what you're talking about. You ask extremely difficult suggestions— sorry, extremely tough questions— and you can then make suggestions and push back, right? Because we've all been it where a hiring manager wants a needle in a haystack, and some recruiters won't bill that much because they just say, "Yeah, okay, Mr. Hiring Manager, I'll go and do it. No problem, I'll find it." They know they can't go and find it. They know that like they can't. So it's about having the guts to challenge the client as appropriate, right? So asking the tough questions, making good suggestions, and pushing back and challenging them based on what they think is right. Nextly, it's about nailing your weekly syncs. So I book in every single time I'm running a project with a client, I've run a weekly sync. So I've got half an hour in his diary, and then there's other ad hoc bits of communication, but I've got one half an hour a sync in his diary, and I nail that weekly sync, I come to it with data, I come to it with my process, and I come to it with candidates. And if I've set out that I've got an SLA to hit, you have to nail your SLA. You've gotta nail it, whether it's a certain amount of candidates, a certain amount of conversations, a certain amount of data, you've gotta go in and nail it without fail. Next, it feeds into never say you're gonna do something that you're not willing to do. So always like, Always do what you say you're gonna do, right? If you give your word to someone, you've gotta deliver on it. And then when you're in the recruitment cycle, Hishem, it's about being proactive. So let's say that, let's say we're working a job, this job's not going anywhere. There's certain issues, we've identified these issues, and a good recruiter will address those issues, right? They'll say from week 1, the get-go, this is a problem, and if we don't solve this problem, that's how it's going to impact the rest of the recruitment cycle. So it's about identifying and addressing those issues early. And then other aspects to it feed in, and this is talking right from the beginning, but it's like looking after the client and their interests. So like, there's many examples, Hishem, where I've run a process and I've got 5 people in process, and there's 2 of them who I don't really think are right, and I also don't like the way that they've handled themselves throughout the process. They might be pushing back interviews all the time, they might not treat you with a certain level of respect, and I'll just be honest to a hiring manager, say, right, I think I'm going to pull Nick out of process. Why? Well, I don't like the way that he's handled himself. I don't think his experience is absolutely nailed to what you want. And I think from a culture fit, probably won't be right. And that shows that you're looking after their interests and you're looking after them as a client, you're a client-first business. Commercial acumen is always important in these things, right? Nailing out your account planning, asking good questions, navigating throughout the account, speaking to different stakeholders who are involved in the interview process. Then the last two things, like extremely, extremely simple. In the industry I operate in, the salespeople are just active from 6:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night. If you're dealing with a recruiter who will respond to you at 6:00 AM and they'll respond to you at 10:00 PM, you know this person's committed. You know this person's going to do exactly what he set out to do and he's working as hard as he can to go and do it. Hustlers respect hustlers at all times. Then the last thing is just deliver. You will never build a champion if you can't deliver. So Alex Elliot always says, deliver, deliver, deliver, and then the rest of it will figure itself out. But if you can't successfully solve this problem or fill this role or build this team, you're never going to build someone. So I know that was probably quite a long list.

No, yeah, it's great.

But that's how I go about it.

It's a great breakdown. And then, I hope this doesn't make you feel like everything that you just said doesn't matter, but Can I build a champion? Because I feel like the things that you just went through there— let me know if I've misunderstood this, but everything you mentioned there was in the context that me and you were working together. So can I build a champion without us working on a brief and these things? Because they were great breakdowns and what you can do to really showcase, as you said, like who you're, um what you're about, what you're capable of doing, all those things, which is why these people are then going to be willing to put their reputation on the line and be your champion. But can we do the same thing without working with them?

You can do the same thing without working with them if you've worked in their business. So if it's a VP of sales, I've maybe built his SDR team, right? I've then showcased my ability within his business, right? And I might have got a small champion within the sales development leader but he's not the decision maker, he's not the big influencer. So I've then got to try and get him to intro me to the VP of sales, but you won't be able to build a champion with someone who's not, you're not doing any work in the account. I don't believe so anyway, it's because you've got no value. People will only be a champion for you if you provided value and you've shown that you can do something for them. Like Adam Richardson has ingrained this into me from 19 years old. Every single question, every single conversation you ever have with someone, they think with it. What's in it for me? What everyone thinks. I think it all the time. If I'm speaking to someone, I think with them. You do the same. So I think unless you work with that business, I don't think that you're in a position to be able to go and build a champion with someone.

Yeah, understood. And then with the US piece, then was like, how was the, like, what was the most effective way of getting these US opportunities. Obviously the internal champion get that, but was it getting those introductions on email, getting these people to like vouch for you? Is that, is that sort of how it went down in terms of getting those, getting your hands on those initial projects and then doing all the things that you just said? Like, was it those email intros that you relied on that, that play, that, yeah, pay dividends?

Yes and no. Like, at the start we didn't really get many intros at the start. It was hard cold business development, cold call, all the typical new biz stuff, right? What we're talking about is quite like strategic sales. It's not like hard cold dials, outbound emails, making things happen in the broad sense of business development within recruitment. That still happens. That's not what I'm saying doesn't happen. The more time that you spend in a market, the more strategic you can get and the more you start to operate on that level. At the start, mate, it was just, let's make 100 dials in a day, let's speak to as many hiring managers as we possibly can, and let's get someone to give us a shot. And one of the things that we'll go into in the conversation that I want to go into is where I think people go wrong when building a market around turning their nose up at contingent work and only saying, I'm only going to work it if it's exclusive or if it's retained. You can't turn your nose up at contingent work if you're building a market. You can't, because that's your chance to have a shot.

Yeah, that was going to be my next thing, because I wanted to go into the sort of maximizing of an existing account. And I think part of that is, yeah, getting an opportunity and then maximizing it and doing what you, you do. Um, so yeah, do you want to talk to us a bit about that? Because I think I've got it written down here. Yeah, type of recruitment, contingent, and then upgrade. This is where you had a lot of success, is what I wrote down. It's really interesting because I literally spoke to a founder this week where all of their work is 100% retained, but over the last 2-3 months, they do UK SaaS. The conversion of like retained pitches to close just hasn't quite been there. And yeah, I, I said to him, I was like, look, I know you really want to protect the experience. They're big into their candidate experience. They have like NPS, which I know you guys are big on too, in terms of, um, you know, really, um thinking about that. And I was like, look, like, I meet and interview a lot of people, and although maybe you'll see them always talking about exact search, retain, these things, a lot of the time these people still do 30-40% contingent work. And I was like, look, you can still deliver the experience and value that you— that's really important to you if it's exclusive, if it's contingent. Like, that, that's down to you. And also, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a product suite, right? Like, at least saying like, this, this is the product, that this is how we're going to work together. But like, making sure that they also know that these are the other ways that they work with organizations and companies. And it like— because a lot of recruiters I speak with, they, they just have one way of working. Like, they don't have, you know, the, the different services, however you want to do it. So do you want to tell us a bit about this then? Because you can share your experience with this, but I just thought I'd share that because that's something that I was chatting about this week on that?

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the biggest, like, everybody wants exclusive and retained, Hishem. Everybody who's listening to the podcast now, but I only really want to work exclusive retained business because it's less risk. I know I'm going to get paid and that's the be-all and end-all. If you ask me, I work 100% exclusive retained. I don't want to work any contingent, but in a recruitment company's infancy or in a market's infancy, I think people go wrong by turning their nose up at it because if I look at my 5 top accounts now, 3 of them started off contingent, 3 of them I was battling against other agencies and I treat it exactly as I would an exclusive or retained accounts. Like I, let's say like I'm opening a market and I haven't got any compelling case studies to go after. It's going to be tough to go exclusive or retain straight away, right? But if I've got a contingent account and somebody's giving me a shot, because like for a company, it's a lot less risk to bring on a contingent recruiter, it's pay on success, I can still use my other agencies and my other models, perfect. But I'd treat a contingent account like it's exclusive only if I believed it was high potential, right? If it's got hyper VC backing, they've got some extremely high credibility, high caliber sales leaders in the business, the product is really good and they've got some really good team. I think that's a really good ICP account. So I'm gonna treat this as an exclusive account and I'm gonna follow the same processes and the same level of commitment as I would. Again, you might fail, right? It's a contingent account, somebody else might spec in, you might fail, but some are gonna come off. And in my opinion, that's the risk that you've gotta take when building a market.

Whilst we take a short break, I wanted to take a moment to chat to you about one of our amazing partners, Sourcewell, the industry-leading recruitment engagement platform. I'm using myself and I don't know what I would do without it. From building personalized messaging cadences across a variety of channels to automating follow-ups and data tracking straight back into my CRM. It's really made an impact in streamlining my workflow and most importantly, accelerating my sales results. My favorite feature by far is the live feed. By being able to see in real time who's engaging with your campaigns, it enables me to prioritize my outreach with the most engaged prospects, which helps me get way more out of what I put in. So I'm gonna be honest, if you haven't got Sourcewell and you're a recruiter, I really believe you're at a disadvantage. To find out more and see the platform in action, make sure you click the link in the show notes and mention the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. Because you listen to this podcast, you're gonna be able to get access to an exclusive offer, free 50 phone credits, 50 email credits, which is at the value of circa £500 per user. So make sure you mention the Recruitment Mentors podcast and click the link in the show notes. So what is the most effective way of upgrading then? Because how do we make sure that the framing and perspective of these hiring managers, of these VPs of sales, of when working with Dylan is that we pay on success? Dylan, we've— you've done a really good job of finding this, uh, business development manager for us, or this BD lead, or whatever. Um, yeah, would love to work with you again on, on this, uh, like, let's just do it how we just did it, you did a good job, you know. I'm sure you run into that, or that's often sometimes the expectation or assumption that people listen to this, is like, you don't want to be put in that box. Um, so how, how do we make sure that, yeah, their perspective of working with you isn't, he's a contingent recruiter and that's how we work with him?

Yeah, two things to it. One is setting very, very specific upfront contracts, right? So it's every single time that I always go into a conversation or it's a new business meeting to try and sign a contingent account, I set an upfront contract. If I do a good job for you right now, how happy would you be to make me your exclusive recruitment partner? Some businesses do not go exclusive, right? Yes, it's detrimental. We believe it's detrimental to the way that they work. But it's worked for them in the past and they might not want to go exclusive. Sometimes you're wasting your time. With others, I'll say, right, if I do a good job, can I become your exclusive partner? Yeah, I'll think about it. Okay, well, let's set some specifically objective requirements that I need to achieve in order for me to upgrade this account. Okay, what if I fill one job? Yeah, I'll think about it. If I fill two placements on this team right now, can you give me your commitment that I'll become an exclusive recruitment partner? And there's occasions where it's a gentleman's agreement, or there's occasions where it's genuinely written in the contract, right? I might sign terms with someone, and in the terms I'll say, right, if we do a good job, we will go from contingent to exclusive. What's the benefit for them? All the exclusive selling and all that stuff. But the benefit to them is I'll reduce my terms, right? I might sign them up at a high percentage contingently. I'm willing to drop 2.5% to go exclusive. That's the benefit to them is a cost save. And also they've now showcased the— I guess, does that all make sense before I go into the next bit?

Yeah, I was gonna— yeah, no, that, that makes sense. So upfront contracts, out like really asking that direct question of like, what needs to happen for us to get into this position for us to work with each other? Probably a lot of people aren't doing that and being that direct and asking, and at least trying to find out like, what needs to happen for us to work in this way? I was going to say to you, like, yeah, let's go through the what's in it for me if we work in exclusive. So it sounds like you were just going through that, um, on there, uh, as we're going through it.

Yeah, well, that's a different topic, but I'm happy to go into it. So what's in it for them if they go exclusive, right, is one, you like, you've showcased your ability. And I always say with the contingent account, I'm going to treat this like an exclusive account. I'm going to give you my 100% commitment up front that I'll do everything that I can to this role and for any other of my contingent accounts, you will get a drop in service. I won't be able to allocate as much resource because we internally are too busy as a company with exclusive work where we can only allocate resource to the things that we believe are going to get good ROI from it. We're speaking the same language as they are because they do the same with their sales reps. But the things that I do is I'm very data-driven. So the information that I will collate throughout hiring projects, I will feed back to you. I will feedback to you on what people think of your employee value proposition, what people think about your products within the market. I will talent pipeline for you, right? There may be 20 people that I speak to are perfect for the role, who aren't ready to move right now, but they've said that in 6 or 12 months' time at the end of their fiscal year, they're then willing to make a jump. One of the biggest things I offer is I've got a talent bench for you. In 6 to 12 months, when I know that that headcount's going to open, I've got a bunch of people ready to plug in straight away, they know about your business, they know about you, they're ready to go straight away. And that's like a really big thing. The other aspect of it as well is that like I'm protecting your brand within the market. You employ 10 different recruiters who are pitching the same 100 candidates, you're burning the market. Nobody is going to want to work at your company, Mr. Hiring Manager, because they've been heard about it from 10 different people. And if you're being that aggressive with the recruitment, It tells me that you don't really put that much time and value and respect into bringing the right people on board. I protect it. You know how well I work. You know how good my network is. You know how compelling I am when I sell your value proposition into the market. That's the experience that I'm giving you. It's the exact same experience that I give to candidates. Or you can stay contingent. You can be one of my other 20 accounts where they don't get the same amount of allocation of resources and time and effort put into it. but you are going to fail in recruitment if you do that. And I'd say like, they're the things I offer from an exclusivity perspective, which is the big whiff for a hiring manager because they get it a lot of the time.

And do you do anything around like first refusal on like candidates out of interest? I don't know if you do anything there in terms of like, yeah, you'll be, I will be sending you this person and I won't be sending them to your competitors for the first 2 weeks or something like that? I don't know.

100%.

Yeah, okay.

It's something that we didn't used to offer and then we started offering it because one of our competitors— you've got to sell against your competition and not badmouth them, but understand where they fall short. And a lot of hiring managers didn't like one of our competitors because they will send a candidate to them, that candidate will get to offer stage, and then they accept another offer.

That's what I mean.

It happens consistently because he sent him to 5 of his best clients. So by us offering that exclusivity, it gives them more chance to get the time.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a good point. Is there anything else that you want to add on maximizing an existing account, upgrading, and talking about there before we get on to the VC piece?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I always say with this is like, start small. Um, and show them how good you are at absolutely nailing 1 or 2 roles. Because like, people have offered me 5 or 10 roles to start off with. One, I know I can't deliver on them, so I'm not going to set unrealistic expectations. And I don't think that's how you foster a positive business partnership. Just start off small, start off by nailing 1 or 2 roles. And within those 1 or 2 roles, it gives you an opportunity to network within the account, get your contact to introduce you to the other people in the hiring process. Let's say you've got 4 different stakeholders within the interview process, make sure you speak to every one of those directly. It helps you out because you have more control and you have more influence within the process. And then the last thing I'll put on maximizing account is that like, you have to understand their business objectives. So what is that business outside of recruitment? What does that business want to do over the next 3, 6, 9, or 12 months? What does that look like? And then you've got to figure out how hiring feeds into those objectives. Which departments do they need to hire for? What does the quality of those hires need to be? What is the negative business impact made if those hires don't happen? And that's how you position yourself as a strategic partner who's going to help the overall business achieve the objectives. So it's about understanding what the objectives are, but how recruitment feeds into those objectives, and that's how you become a strategic partner. Um, that's what's the last thing I'll mention about maximizing an account.

Yeah, no, that's mega.

I love it.

I just love— because you know how it is, you can be scrolling on LinkedIn, people shitting on contingent work saying like, I only work retain, these things. But I just love how honest you've been there on like one of the best ways you can turn an opportunity into an account, a client that is spending six figures with you in a year is by grabbing that opportunity with both hands and like standing out that way, and then doing all these great things that you've said. So yeah, like you said, like I think you put it really nicely, like don't, um, uh, yeah, don't look down your nose on contingent work. Particularly, I think if we were to put an asterisk on there, particularly when it's with organizations that have great potential, that are in your like dream client bucket that have the potential to be some really great players in your space, it'd be silly and maybe naive to do that. So let's get on to how does this— I think this has come up quite often when I interview people that operate in your space. Obviously, as you said, when it comes to SaaS, all of the most— correct me if I'm wrong here, but you said most of the investment or the most amount of investment in this space will happen in the US. Versus anywhere else in the world. So of course it makes sense that if Dylan— if Strive can be perceived as a brilliant talent partner to a PE firm that backs SaaS companies, that's going to be a potential great partnership, right? Because as we all know, despite what people think about recruiters, companies will not achieve their business objectives if they don't have the right people in the right seats. It really does boil down to that. So if you don't nail recruitment or you don't get very good at recruitment, um, are you going to go public? Probably not. Are you going to IPO? Probably not. So regardless of what you think, recruitment is a real fucking problem, and it's why so much money is spent on it. So a PE firm having a talent, like a partner that they trust, that they can say, hey, you do, you know, we've— congrats, Series A, it's in. I want to introduce you to Dylan. You know, you know, a big part of this raise is going to be about getting this go-to-market team, whatever, etc., etc. Like, like, that's going to be a pretty important introduction that can generate a lot of great things. But how the hell do we get there? Because from the conversations that I've had, it takes a lot of work where, again, we've got to build trust, credibility, um, probably got to stand out. These people, you know, smart people operate in this space, so probably understand that these people could potentially unlock like crazy potential and revenue opportunities. So they're probably, you know, always being asked for time and people trying to get in front of them. And then also I've had a lot of people say that if Dylan becomes like a preferred supplier, the gates do not open. Like, you have to still— there's a lot of work. Like, you might get signed, however it works, and you're like, oh my God, like, guys, we've just been signed by this 'We've won, like, US, we've completed it, we've completed it,' and then it's tumbleweed, like, you still got to make shit happen. So, yeah, give us, like, yeah, anything that— where you want to start with there, but I guess hopefully that helps people listening, like, why, you know, having some solid relationships in the venture capital space would make sense for someone like you.

Mate, I came on this because I thought you were going to tell me. No, listen, it's something that It's constantly evolving, right? We haven't, by no means have we nailed it. I don't think, I don't know many recruitment companies that have nailed it, right? It's something that's an extremely complex challenge. The why behind leveraging VC relationships, well, the biggest thing to firstly say is that it is a long-term strategy. You are not going to get quick wins by adopting a VC business development strategy. It's just not going to happen. There'll be VCs that we spoke to 2 years ago that are now only starting to pay dividends. We had one recently where we'd been hammering them for 18 months. Well, Adam had been hammering them for 18 months constantly. I met him at an event in person, face-to-face. The next day we had an intro. So it's so weird how the whole world works, but the why behind why you do it, ultimately you get more ROI for your input. Like I don't have to prospect, if I have a good VC relationship, I don't have to prospect 20 different accounts. I can theoretically prospect one account, which is the VC, and get 5 intros to 5 different vendors. So one of the aspects, it's more ROI for your output, but also it's a stronger endorsement because if one of your investors suggests to you that you should use this recruiter, it's a much more positive endorsement than me just approaching you direct saying I can solve one of your problems. So let's say for me, that's the why you would use it if you want to dig into anything there.

No, I think that's bang on. But like you said, you can like how, like you said, I think you shared again, it's a longer term, like things can take a while. So yeah, you can talk to us a bit about how you've been able to get in front of some of these companies or what's worked versus not worked so far.

Yeah, I think firstly, you have to have done successful work within their portfolio. Like maybe you've successfully completed a project in one or two of their portcos that they've invested in, and your champion in one of those companies will happily introduce you to the investor if you're operating at a C-level or a VP level. Or maybe you've got a fantastic case study within their portfolio where you've completed 10 hires for one of their investments. You've got a really great case study, marketing have made it look all pretty, and now I can approach the the investor directly and say, "This is the work that I've done for your portfolio." There is no promise that that person's then going to take a meeting. There's no promise. You may take it, you might not, but it's just about continuing that grind, that hustle. Let's say then you've got that meeting with the VC, it's nowhere job done. I'd say it's job start. Going back to my previous points, it's then about having that executive presence within that meeting. It impressing that investor. So talking them through your specific focus. VCs like to know that you've got a niche, right? My niche might be cybersecurity, or my niche might be developer tools or DevOps hiring. The VCs like to know you've got a specific niche rather than being a generalist. So it's about talking them through your specific focus, talking them through your niche, being extremely compelling when you're talking them through your value proposition about how you go to market, how you build elite teams, right? So I'd say that's one aspect when you get the meeting, have that executive presence, really being compelling in the way that you talk them through your strategy and why you do things and how you do it. And then the other aspect of it is as well in terms of like constantly proving value to these investors, introduce senior leaders to them. Like I might have a couple of VP contacts that I know are confidentially looking for a hire. Typically, the investors will only get involved in like C-level or VP-level or high-level recruitment, right? They might endorse go-to-market recruitment or lower level, but they only really get— the board get hands-on when it's like a really high-level recruiter, high-level position, sorry. So keep introducing senior leaders to your contacts. Hi, this person's looking confidentially, not sure if there's any appetite or he can fit into your portfolio, but just wanted to put him on your radar. Wow, Dylan really is well networked. He knows the space. He works with some great people. And yeah, I think he's someone that we can really seriously contemplate.

So you've got to give— you've got to— there's— yeah, the give equation is probably you've got to give a lot.

A lot. Yeah.

And then have you got any stories or examples of so far in terms of like you did all that legwork, that hard work, and then what have been some of the like wins so far, if any?

I don't know.

Obviously it didn't it didn't come up when we prepared for it, have you had any like stories of wins so far or still on the journey?

So this is, I don't want to say it's luck, I believe in what we do and in life you create your own luck. Like, luck is for people who give the output and people will say they're lucky but you've done everything to get that result. I remember recruiting in Germany, probably, I don't know, 18 months into recruiting and I headhunted a woman, to get in process. She was unbelievable, she was great, she was good-looking, great at sales, carried herself really well, had executive presence. I was like, she is getting the job, there is no way she doesn't, right? She got to offer process, she declined the offer. So gutted, I was like, I knew she was getting the job and she declined it, she was too good. Anyways, I was speaking to her and she goes, oh, I was thinking the other day, I was like, oh, I might introduce you to my boyfriend. I was like, "Right, how come?" She was like, "Yeah, he does a bit of investment here and there." I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm always happy to chat to people." This guy was the founder of one of the biggest VCs in Germany. He didn't just invest in a few things. He was literally what he— that's how I built the market in Germany because I got in with this one investor after about 18 months. He turned out to be an absolute hitter. He managed like a billion-dollar fund. He invested in all the leading startups in Germany. And because I got endorsed from his girlfriend, again, good champion in his girlfriend who then endorsed me into him, I signed maybe, I think we probably signed 8 clients in the space of 12, 18 months on the back of that. And they were some of our highest performing clients in 2021 and 2022. So that's just like one example. There's numerous examples in the US, but like that was the first one for me where I was like, the strategy pays off if you do it well.

Yeah, I love that. That's class. Right, to round us out then, I want to hit you with just some US pieces because I know like there's plenty of people listening to this that maybe been spoken about by their current company about taking their career to the US. They might be as excited as you were about it, or might be, you know, being hit up by a rec-to-rec saying we can take your career to the US. Why do it in rainy Manchester when you could do it? Yeah, exactly. So I just want to hit you just some quick fire on like the differences, you know, maybe, um, bust any myths. So I'm just going to hit you with this common assumptions that, that I hear. So I guess firstly, how much has your average deal size increased on the recruitment side from German to the US? Has it increased much? What does that look like? Because a lot of people say, yeah, that tends to be a lot larger.

It's gone from between 20 and 25 to between 30 and 40 on average.

Nice. And then how about typical terms that you're agreeing? Again, that's a common one. Typically people can secure better terms in the US versus Europe, definitely in the UK. Have you found that? 25%.

That's like the, the average is 25%.

Yeah, okay.

There is instances where it's 30, but like in the market that we operate in, in SaaS, there's so much competition and like certain companies now are saying to drop in the pants and say we'll do 15%. Wow, we won't, we won't do that. But like, they're having a negative impact on the industry. But I'd say on average it's, it's about 25, 25 to 30, I'd say.

And then you mentioned competition. Now I think you'll see slides on like the amount of UK recruitment agencies versus how many in the US. Like, are you— do you find yourself like, is there more competition? Like, how do you find that?

Yes, more competition. I don't know, because the majority of recruiters that recruit in the US are English. So, there is more competition, but like, in terms of ease of recruitment, I don't want to say it's easier, but it's much easier when I start off the conversation with an English accent. Oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from this. Bang, we're having a conversation. And that's true in personal life as well, by the way. It's not just recruitment. Your ability to pick up friends and build a network in your personal life a lot easier if you come with a different accent and you can have those types of conversations.

Yeah, I was listening to— I don't know if you're a fan of Modern Wisdom, but that's like my favourite podcast. Yeah. So, yeah, Chris was talking about the UK accent in the US, how it's very valuable or highly useful.

And then—

Say no more. Yeah, I was gonna, uh, say, what about, um, in terms of— I want to ask you, so we mentioned average deal size, the terms, the competition. The way that I've been framing it to people— you can tell me if you agree with this or not as well— is like, sometimes I think people will perceive the US, and how people talk about, is that they say that it's easier. I don't believe people are saying that. What— the way that I frame it to people is that it's just as hard maybe even harder to land that first client, get that first opportunity to get in with someone. But when you do, you can like really triple your income opportunities from that client. And the potential spend could be a lot larger in the US maybe versus Europe, the UK. But actually it's just more about being just as hard, maybe even slightly harder, but the payoff could be 3, 5x. Than what you're used to?

Well, if you just look at it on a map, it's a bigger opportunity, there's more jobs, there's more candidates, and Americans love to buy. They will buy anything. I mean that, like personal, professional, they love to buy and they also love to be sold to. So like, it's just a bigger opportunity and they're just a different culture. They respect recruitment and salespeople, whereas I think in the UK you're still, sometimes seen as a pretty low-level salesperson, whereas over here you're treated with a different level of respect, to be honest. Love it.

So look, round us out then. What's the big goal? You know, we're on the US takeover now, so what's the big goal for you over the next 6-12 months?

I need to cross the million-dollar mark.

Yeah.

That's me personally, the biggest goal is the million-dollar. Insanely focused on that one objective.

Love it. Well, when you do that, let's jump back on and we can hear all about it. So look, Dylan, thank you so much. Been an absolute pleasure.

Appreciate it.