From WWE to Entrepreneurship - The Journey of Ricky Martin

You all of a sudden you've got, I don't know, 15 cameras following you around, a camera crew, sound crew, and in the back of your mind you know that's going to be televised.

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 Ricky Martin.

If they are not taking it seriously and giving it all, they are taking someone else's opportunity.

10 years ago, Ricky started his very own recruitment business called Hyper Recruitment Solutions.

And I'd always say you're hiring, hire, fail fast, let people make mistakes. That's fine as long as they learn from the mistakes. But if it's failing, fail fast. And it took me too long to realize that.

He actually won The Apprentice in 2012.

I'm the reflection of perfection.

So to start this business, he got £250,000 worth of investment. He became 50/50 partners with Alan Sugar, and his business journey began there. Now they have just over 45 people in the business. They did £15 million worth of revenue last year, 6% 40% contract. They have offices in Essex, Manchester, and are in the process of going over to the US as we speak. I asked him all the questions that I think people actually want to ask him. Is The Apprentice scripted? Is it fake? Is it real? And also, how helpful has it actually been having a business partner who hasn't invested in a recruitment business before? Does Ricky regret giving 50% of his business away? We discuss it all, along with scaling, what he learned, his biggest mistakes. Ricky's nothing but honest this episode, so enjoy it. Into the episode. Ricky, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, mate.

Thanks for, uh, making the trip from, uh, Essex, hometown.

Sunny Essex, right? Yeah, sunny Essex.

No, I appreciate you coming over. Uh, really looking forward to dig into this journey that you've been on. Um, super interesting. And I think for people listening, I just always like to start by just giving people some immediate, uh, sort of context as to like where you are. So today I think we're going to really focus on this entrepreneurial journey that you've been on over the last 10 years. And obviously one of the first key milestones was you won The Apprentice in 2012, so that meant that you got £250 grand worth of investment, but then you also became 50/50 partners with Alan Sugar. And your business was a recruitment business, so Hyper Recruitment Solutions is what you started, a business serving the life science market. And that's the, the journey you've been on over the last decade, building that business. And And from what you shared with me, the last sort of financial year and sort of in and around where you are today, you've got 45 people in the business today, did £15 million in revenue last financial year, 60% of that was perm, 40% of that contract, 80% of the business at the moment in terms of what you do and the clients, companies you serve, the UK, and then you have 20% in EU. Just obviously we'll touch on this, but also in the process of taking your service and proposition to the US, which is exciting. You've got the main hub in Loughton, uh, office in Manchester as well. You've got a network in Edinburgh, and I think that's, that's about it.

Yeah, you've covered a lot. Like, are we done? Yeah, we're done. But I said to you before, like, there is no taboo topic with me really. Just fire away at me, and if it's awkward and I squirm, that's cool.

All right, let's do it. Okay, sweet. So first question that we would like to start with, which is the million-pound question In your opinion, what characteristics and traits do you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in today's market?

So many answers you're going to get for this, so, so many. But I've got two kind of outcomes here. I think first of all, somebody who's really, really passionate about a space. So context for me is I studied biochemistry at Cardiff University. I'm a scientist by academics. So why do I recruit the life sciences? Well, I studied a field that I really thought I could make a difference. I was just a shocking scientist, but but I like to talk. So speaking to people about science made sense. So the context there for me is somebody's passionate about a field, they'll go above and beyond. So when you're bringing people into your company, you want people for your business, particularly at the front end, to go above and beyond in what they do. So if they really, really care about something, you don't need to be qualified in it, but if they do care about it intimately, they will succeed. The second thing has to be energy. I don't care— and I say this to people in German— I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how knowledgeable you are about a field, If you are dull as dishwater, you are never going to survive in recruitment because people not just buy from people, people work with people, people interact. So for me, passion in the topic will really make a big difference. Secondly, a whole bunch of energy, because you know what, lightens up the room, lightens up a marketplace. Um, you can make anything from energy. Um, what you can't do— long way— what you can't do is bore people to death in recruitment. And, um, there are a lot of people who do that, unfortunately.

So look, let's get straight into this. So, um, I was watching different interviews that you've done and these things. Let's just, let's just talk about The Apprentice part of this journey, right? Because it's clearly an important part of the journey, right? So firstly, what I wanted to ask you, uh, is— so I used to probably— when you, uh, was on the show was when I actually liked it, The Apprentice. Because I feel like now it's just— I— the reason why I liked it was I feel like you actually got genuine insight into business and people being put into business situations. And I felt like I actually used to learn from it, whereas now I feel like it's way more reality TV, you know, um, how can we provide as much entertainment as possible, make people feel— look stupid or whatever. So I was just curious firstly, like, how much of The Apprentice is actually like real compared to it being scripted?

There's zero script. I think that's one thing I will say. It's not scripted reality. So like, my office is in Loughton. Loughton is one of the homes of TOWIE land, right? So you've got a lot of scripted reality in and around where my office is, but The Apprentice isn't scripted in any way. At no stage have they said, push a bit harder in this direction, talk about this topic, or— don't get me wrong, it's production. You might have conversation, they say, look, can you say that again but make it shorter? So they are producing a program at the same time, but everything— if I go back and And I haven't actually rewatched it since it was on TV. And to be honest, when it was on TV, I was also in the process of getting married. So I was so consumed with personal affairs, i.e., my wife and I looking to kind of say I do to each other. And we are still together now, which is great, 10+ years on. When I watched it back, there was nothing that I said that I'm like, I can't believe I said that because they asked me to. Or there was a few occasions like, I can't believe I said that because I'm a complete idiot on occasions. But it's not scripted. Um, but let's kind of like be true to the word, like the program still is for TV, it's still an entertainment program. So again, going back to my what makes a good recruitment consultant, if you get a dull as dishwater person in recruitment, they don't work. If you get a dull as dishwater person on The Apprentice, it doesn't make good entertainment. So there is a bit of a catch-22 for them. They need it to be interesting to kind of get people to watch, but they also need it to be as business-focused and orientated as possible. And I, I hold nothing back. I, I believe that I was cast because I had business credentials, a good business idea, and a background in recruitment. But I believe I was cast as a character, not as necessarily this is the guy who will win The Apprentice.

Yeah, let's talk about his character because, mate, I watched your audition tape on YouTube. Wild, mate. So this is where, like, this— I just wanna— I have a specific question around this, but I understand, like you just said, you've got to play the game, right? Like, I've spoke to one or two people that apply for The Apprentice, and like, you have to go through rounds and rounds of interviews, right? Or like different assessment things. Um, so I understand that you have to give sound bites, you have to like, you know, do things in the moment. But your audition tape, mate, in 2012, where you said things like, I'm the reflection of perfection, other people look at me and want to be me, Like, I just thought that was wild. So the question that I had for you was— understand the context of where you're doing that— but my question is, you know, we hear this sort of fake it until you make it. You had a track record of being in recruitment for 5+ years for a reputable company. Um, but my question is, like, do you feel like you have to have that level of arrogance and self-belief before you have the track record and evidence to go, no, Ricky, you are what you're saying you are? Do you know what I mean? Like, because I feel like there's a fine balance there.

There is a balance and, you know, fake it till you make it is a saying that I've heard a lot and I've believed on occasions and not believed on occasions. But I guess in that environment they are trying to cast people that aren't going to melt in front of, I don't know, a pitch panel. They're not going to melt when all of a sudden we could have a conversation. Okay, yes, we are recording this, but all of a sudden you've got, I don't know, 15 cameras following you around, a camera crew, sound crew, runners, all these different people, people looking after your kind of personal affairs or whatever it might be running around with you. And in the back of your mind you know that's going to be televised, they need to make sure people can't melt at that point, because if they melt, they can't make a program. So I do think they need to see that level of confidence. And when I look at the process of the auditioning— and there's nothing wrong with this, but we need to remember there's two different people that are interviewing at different occasions. You've got business people interviewing you for what you want to do and what you can do and how commercially savvy you are. And you've got production people auditioning you for TV, if that makes sense. So I guess fake it till you make it. If anything, playing the game was probably the right thing from my side. I switched on whatever I needed to switch on based on who I was in the room with. And I do believe they cast this kind of over-the-top character that says things like the reflection of perfection. Like, look, don't get me wrong, I say it with a smile on my face because I find it hilarious, but if anyone, um, if anyone is into their kind of pro wrestling Um, they'll know that it was something I did in the past. And actually, reflection of the perfection is like a gimmick of a character called Superstar Billy Graham, who Hulk Hogan basically imitated, emulated. So he was like the original Hulk Hogan. It was one of his phrases. Um, and it goes on, reflection of the perfection, the number one selection, um, the tower of power. It goes on, there's a whole line of them. I just chose the bit that I'm like, do you know what, that works for me.

So let's talk about the wrestling then before we go into this business journey, because I, I absolutely loved wrestling when I was growing up. I thought it was absolutely mega. Um, I heard you say on an interview that whilst you was, um, interviewing or going for The Apprentice process, you also had a process with WWE.

Yeah, you're spot on. Your research is pretty bloody good. Um, yeah, so I, I guess to give you an idea, so I was in the pro wrestling circuit across the UK and Europe for about Probably in total, just over 10 years. Um, so I was doing it a lot up until— so I did it prior to, during my studies, all the way through my earlier recruitment career. And when I got the Apprentice audition, I had already had options to try out for the, what is now the WWE, the World Wrestling Entertainment. And that's— and they only do that twice a year. Um, so I already knew bookers across the country, and I'd already wrestled on their kind of independent shows. They're like, why don't you come over and try out? And I'm pretty sure it was in Liverpool at the time. And I remember looking at it thinking, well, this is something I've really wanted for a very long time. And to look at me now, you wouldn't think I wrestle, but at the time I was really into what I was doing.

You had a Mohican, all sorts, mate. I've seen these videos, it's wild.

Bleached Mohican with, um, not just that, I even put extensions on the bottom to have a big mullet on the back of it. So they did some televised stuff and I thought I'll put a mullet on, so I look like a hillbilly. Um, but I, I had the auditions. I remember at the time thinking, okay, I've really got a defining decision to make. What I did know is they normally audition you at least twice, um, or sorry, try out you twice when it comes to wrestling. So I was like, okay, they'll audition me in May and they'll be back again, I think it's like September, October, so that if I was any good, they liked it. And I backed myself, but I'm not 7 foot tall and like 25 stone, and that's what they cast at the time. I thought they'll ask me back in kind of September, October to try out a second time. And I'm like, do you know what, even if it falls apart on The Apprentice, it's a little bit of a USP that might give me a better shot next time for the wrestling. So I was like my day job is more serious now. I'm about to get married, and like the whole wrestling thing, I was like, if you got the gig back then, it was 300 days on the road throughout the world. I'd never have like time for a life, a wife, and all those things. So, um, yeah, I loved it, and I actually think it really, really helped me with the auditioning and getting on The Apprentice, and it's helped me in life. Not that people would think that, but, um, at that moment I was like, I know that I want to get this business going and I believe I can win it. So I kind of at that point mentally checked out of wrestling. That's kind of that, that part of me that's over. But that part of me that gave me a character and like a larger-than-life personality, I was able to use to, um, get the kind of the gig to be on The Apprentice. And I was able to use elements of being comfortable in the room pitching in front of people. I've been wrestling in front of several thousand people, like in in a pair of pants, basically. So if you can do that, you can talk to a bunch of business experts on summit, as far as I'm concerned.

What, what is your signature move?

Um, I was— I, I had about 1,000 names. It was actually a wrestler back in the '90s called D'Lo Brown. He did a move called, um, Sky High.

Okay.

Um, I called it the Flatliner, which basically is a sit-down powerbomb. That was my move. And I like to do a Swanton, although I never landed it. I always intentionally said it looks good, but I don't need to land the thing, so I miss it every time.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, uh, what are some of the things you've taken from the wrestling world into like your, yeah, you know, professional life, whatever. But I think you've answered it there. Like, I totally see the, the, um, the translation of like what you can take from that environment and being that, because yeah, courage, confidence, being out of your comfort zone, communicating like that. There's a lot of things you have to do to be a good wrestler.

Well, wrestling storytelling, it's good versus evil. There's always at the end of it, whether it's on a night or over a series, there's always a positive outcome. So every wrestler's part is to get the best story across, whether you're good, whether you're bad. And, um, it's about identifying how you work with other people that are very different to you to get a good outcome, and how to entertain a group of people watching it. And on occasions, if it was televised, trying to not work the room, work a camera so that you could position it in a way that it transcended TV. So I think it really, really helped that, that the ability to, to be thinking about storytelling, I think. And everything we do these days, marketing, everything is storytelling.

Yeah, totally.

I think wrestling, that's all it is, it's a story every every single time.

So let's just start then. I want to talk about the, the last decade. So how— what was like the, the setup with, uh, Alan Sugar then? So firstly, has he— has he— when he partnered with you, uh, had he ever invested in a recruitment business before? And then two, like, what was the actual setup? Was it you got the investment, then on a monthly basis you're having a board meeting? Was it on a quarterly basis on a board meeting? Like, yeah, what, what was the actual setup?

I'd say the setup— some people might think it's bigger and more dreamy than it could be, but the setup is no different than getting a third-party company to invest into your business. And then you think, sitting there thinking, I'm gonna go and work in a WeWork office. It's really no different to that. I got bank accounts, things were set up, we had to go for the legal side of shareholding. But once that was done, no different to setting up a company online and putting your legalities between you and a business partner. Um, the money was there in the bank, and it was really down to me that they, they have never— Lord Sugar and his associates around them. They'd never been in the services industry. They've always been product. The closest to services would have been property, um, which is where most of the wealth is these days, rather than product. But today, Lord Sugar's a product man. I was the first service industry he decided to get involved in. So for him, it was a bit alien. For me, it was like, well, actually, I've been doing this for a while. This is my kind of baby. I even studied in this area, so I kind of know what I'm doing. So really, it's no different to getting either a company that will give you money. And there's loads— I won't name them, but there's loads of them around that'll be like, well, we'll take a share of your business, but we'll give you the website, we'll give you the CRM, we'll give you the access to financing from an invoice discounting for whoever. It's almost no different to that. It's like going to one of those companies and they take a share of your business, but ultimately you're running it from that point. And, um, I had a choice where the hell I wanted to set it up, really as close as possible. And I was living on the south coast of the UK between Portsmouth and Southampton at the time, and I was like, well, do you know what, getting investment's one thing, but he also had some like spare space in one of his offices where he was based. And I'm like, actually, that's no different to getting a— I paid a service charge for the office, like per desk, and for the use of the facility, just like you would doing like a WeWork or something. So for me, I was like, yeah, the investment's one thing, but being around where that investor is, someone like Alan Sugar, there must be something there I can learn despite the services industry that would help me personally and professionally. So going into his offices gave me the ability to see him more often if needed. But don't get me wrong, he can't tell me how to win a job in recruitment, how to qualify a job, and how to take a candidate for a process and do ABC selling kind of thing in recruitment terms. But I did have his financial advisors around, and I, I used them as my accountancy, so I paid them for their service. So really, um, it's no different to just setting up on your own, be it— it's obviously got a big name behind you, which can sound impressive. So For me, it was good because it gave me a bit of financial credibility that when I was setting up and trying to put in supplier agreements, they were like, okay, you've got a billionaire backer. It's been quite— we know you've got the money, Ricky, so we will let you pay per month rather than you a lump sum now for the first 12 months, so I can manage my cash a bit better.

Yeah, because that was where I just wanted to just, uh, give him that first question on that, and you, you sort of answered a lot, to be fair, which I, I didn't want to assume, um, but I sort of did. In terms of like, do you feel like what's actually been more valuable besides getting the resources, infrastructure, it's actually been more around like the brand? I feel like, I don't know, that outside looking in it seems like you really do have done a good job of leveraging his brand, or like the, like that, the brand element, rather than, um, okay Ricky, we're going to really help you come up with a business development strategy that's going to help you sign 30 great life science companies.

They gave me none of that. They couldn't give me anything from a um, recruitment perspective. So I, I go to different recruitment membership and part of things that I like to network, I like to see how other people that are running businesses doing things, what the pains— they couldn't do any of that with me. I mean, brand, probably the brand of, um, I've got a serious backer means that we're a serious company, which means I don't know if we're trying to go drive up our contract side of the business, we know we've got the financial security that we could take a large project of contractors and if we payroll, we're going to be able to pay on to the end of the assignment rather than startup business. Just, you are such an anomaly But what the brand couldn't do is win me any business, not, not just show me how to win business. But he's got no background in the pharmaceutical life science sector, so there's no client sitting there thinking, hello Ricky, we've been waiting for you. So, and there's some very good players in what I do. So it was purely maybe the stigma. Where I think it probably helped at the front end is trying to acquire— when I say acquire, it's probably a bit harsh— trying to look for hiring good talent into the business that people are— they've got decent backing, let's give it a go. Um, so it gave us a bit of a USP versus being like one of the many recruitment companies in the ocean of London. Um, it gave us a bit of a— that could be an interesting firm. At the same time, speaking honestly, um, it also made it a bit of a headache because I got a lot of interest at the start of people saying I'd love to work with you, and everyone just wanted to be involved because of Lord Sugar or because of The Apprentice. And I'm like, do you know what, as much as I'll always talk about The Apprentice, and if I hadn't been on it, I'd have spoken to anyone was on it because I watched the show, I don't want to be known as Ricky from The Apprentice. It's never been my objective. So for me, as soon as people come into the business, oh, I love The Apprentice, blah blah, I want to work for you. I'm like, I don't know if that's the person I want to work with. Bit of a red flag. So I almost had to kind of filter out anyone who was like all over The Apprentice, like kind of like fanning The Apprentice a little bit, and almost be real to people saying, you do know Lord Sugar, obviously we've moved out of his staff, we're only there for a year until I've took my own premises and things. He's not in my office, he's an investor, he's not employed by the business, he is a shareholder who invested 10 years ago. So he's not going to be your best mate on Twitter and have a chat with you about Spurs every day. And I, I almost felt like I was bursting people's bubbles more than I wasn't.

Yeah. So final thing on this then, just curious if we can keep it real. Have you found yourself then thinking, do I regret giving 50% of my business? With that being the case, you know, the things you described, you've been really honest with us on where you saw the benefit, where maybe they didn't add as much value. So do you ever find yourself thinking, you know what, I could have done this on my own? Own 100% of this, this company?

I get asked it quite a lot. Um, I'll give you different parts of that answer. Front end, I could have done it without it. I was always going to do the business, and I think that's why they were quite interested in, in making the, um, the investment, because they knew I was serious. Whereas some people on The Apprentice, and probably more as the years have gone on, aren't as genuine about wanting to run a business. They're probably genuine about being on TV, and you're always going to get some of that for a TV production. But I was genuine about doing, and I was very clear to him, said, I'm doing this with or without you. So like not in a non-arrogant way, but this is what I'd built my career to do. Um, so I was going to do it anyway. It would have taken me longer, taken me a lot longer. Do I regret giving 50%? Absolutely not. No. Um, if I was doing it— if I sold HRS now and did it again tomorrow, no way on earth would I do it this way. Of course I wouldn't. I've now got 11, 12 years more experience than I did then. I wouldn't need that. But at the time, it was right for me. I was an employee of a business. I hadn't run an independent company. I hadn't set up an independent company. At the time, it was right for me. And as somebody who's invested into things myself, it's an investor's right to put the money in and take the gamble. If there's an upside, you're going to cream it at that point. But more often than not, there's a downside. So, um, I never sit here on a yearly basis thinking, oh, we've drawn some dividends this year and, God, he's got a lot of money out of that, and like, he's done nothing for that. Um, and people say to me all day long, you must resent it. I'm like, I don't, because he took the shot on me and he took the chance, and that's an investor's prerogative. Do I, um, have I given some serious money away to him as a result? Yeah, I have. But you know what, that was the, that was the deal that was brokered at the front end. Um, I wouldn't do— if I went back in time, I'd have made the same call. That probably says I don't regret it. But if I was making that call again today with the knowledge I've now got, I wouldn't need to do that.

Yeah, fair. No, I appreciate you being honest there. So, right, so let's go into this business journey, and I have just one personal question which I'm personally just really curious about. And then we'll get into scaling, what you've learned, challenges. So obviously, I, I think I heard you say, um, just off the cuff, like, oh, everyone wants to get into life sciences now, it's way more competitive, right? So just a personal question, this— where— wherever you stand, wherever your stance is on vaccine, no vaccine, or whatever, thing that I'm really curious about is just like, clearly, um, in history, some of the biggest lawsuits and settlements have been with pharma companies, from pharma companies, right? So I think where we've all experienced this, this crazy part of, um, you know, history together, where almost we had to put our trust in these big companies that historically may not have always been trustworthy, like coming out the other side of it, have, have they gained— have you found that people like want to get more into the industry? Has their credibility as an industry been tainted? I don't know, I'm just super curious on like life sciences outside, coming out the other side of COVID has their reputation stuff been really tainted? And has that ever— I don't know. Yeah, I'm just super curious on that.

I think there's two sides to it, the life science side. I think there's the dark side of it, which is the big corporate side of money-making. And let's, let's, let's not kind of hold anything back. These are commercial companies trying to make money. Yeah, they normally start with really passionate scientists with a great life-changing or saving kind of idea, whether it be a technology or a medicine. Eventually gets purchased by a big company because it costs over a billion pounds to get a drug to market. It takes nearly 15 years, and every 10,000 ideas that come up, only one get to the market. So it has to be a commercially cutthroat environment in order to get that drug to marketplace when it's hugely competitive. The big companies, it's always going to be what makes them the most money, despite them, in my opinion, telling you it's all about the patient. It is going to be a commercial thing. The small businesses, not. I think what's happened over the last kind of handful of years with COVID and the vaccine, it's probably put it more in the front of people's mind that, wow, do you know what? And what was really impressive is how a vaccine got out so quickly when you've already heard me saying it can take up to 15 years for a drug to be brought to market. So it was the first time that you really saw all of these big corporates and their supply chain. So people who contract manufacture, people who do certain parts of research, or they might make things that the drug goes in. It's the first time that you really saw such collaboration between all these businesses. It was almost like, forget the commercials— like, don't get me wrong, they still didn't forget it. This business has made a lot of money in that period, but it was more about how on earth do we save mankind, um, or humankind at this time. So you saw lots more open collaboration between businesses and not worrying about IP and bits and pieces. So, um, it's put at the forefront of people's minds. Is it still a difficult industry? Of course it is. You're going to have one side of it which is about patients, and it's kind of where I come from as a scientist who wanted to help the world but was rubbish at science. I'm good at talking to scientists about what they're doing, and I'm really passionate about it. So for me, if I get the right person to the right job, they can actually drive a medicine to a patient. It makes a difference. That's what gets me out of bed, and that's how I drive my business. Um, so there will always be those people in life sciences, but there's also the other people in life sciences who just want to make the big bucks, just want to kind of make as much as they can. And you know what, there's those companies that sometimes a new idea comes to the forefront, they'll buy it and mothball it because it competes with product that's already making the money. So, um, it is incredibly commercially savvy. And because it's in the front of our minds and there's been a fair amount of jobs in that field through COVID and thereafter, it's become more attractive for people to want to be a service provider to that industry.

No, yeah, for sure. I just think— I mean, a whole separate topic, but one of the things I always can't get my head around is, uh, the fact that like these companies can advertise their drugs in America. Like, that actually like baffles me.

Well, it's not just that when you see it, and I go to the US in a few weeks, when you see it, um, it's mad because at the end you see the disclaimer of health, like, risks. And that is the reality. Any drug has a risk, right? And if you think of, like, the vaccine, I remember there was all the uproar about a certain percentage of people having respiratory problems as a result of taking the vaccine drug. Um, ironically, the amount of people that had that percentage-wise is fewer than the amount of people that might have issues with the normal drug. It's just the world was running a clinical trial, so there was more of them. But the percentage of them was fewer. But you're right, going to America, I love the commercials in America. It's, it literally, if you, if you don't want to leave the house, you had a hard time, live in America because it won't let you out the house.

So let's talk about this, uh, growing this recruitment business. So where I wanted to start was obviously you're around 45 heads at the moment. What I picked up on when I was just watching some videos and, uh, stuff was the way that you described you hired people was through academies. Yeah, which I found really interesting. So obviously all I do is speak to recruitment owners, uh, that typically do want to grow, speak to them about training, getting the most out of their people. Um, and oftentimes I will hear companies aspire to— they'd love to run an academy or get to the point where they're running an academy. So I guess my first question was, obviously if we are all going to successfully scale our business, then we need to get good at hiring people and getting them up to speed quickly and getting the most out of people. And reducing our attrition rate. So I guess my first question is, how would you— what was your first version of an academy? And, and what, like, yeah, what did that actually look like? And where can people start, um, in having actually academies in their business that helps them get more out of their people?

Good question. And if I look at growth, I mean, we're 10 years old, so we haven't had meteoric growth in the grand scheme of— there's some businesses that started in the last 18 months that are probably already double, triple the size of us, but their way of growth is different. It's like throw a load of people in, don't worry about the bottom line, and then try and get a market share over a number of periods because they're run by probably VCs with a lot of cash, whereas I set up in a more organic way. Um, my first academy— so I started technically, I rocked up, um, and started day one was July 20, 2012. We didn't launch till October, but I ran my first academy in November, December. I'd only been running for 4 or 5 months. We hadn't even started really doing much work with clients because I was getting systems and whatever put in place. So I ran my first academies when I only had 3 employees in my workforce— me, my brother-in-law doing some data mining, helping me build some CRM stuff, and a recruiter that I had looked in the marketplace and reached out. And I thought, brilliant, he knows life science, I'll bring him in. So I ran my first one a couple of months into the business and hired my first academy. It was only 3 people in January 2013. So my business is only 6 months old, there are only 3 of us, and I hired an academy of 3 and doubled my headcount. I know it's small numbers, but Um, you don't need to be old, a mature business, or a big infrastructure to run an academy. I mean, for me it was the assessment days. I structured them in a way that I thought I could understand the type of character I'm looking for. And when I say academies, I'm talking about training academies in the organization as opposed to lots of experienced recruiters coming into an academy, if that makes sense, to getting people up and running. And really it was just building the map of how I want to develop them. I think if you're going to bring people in your business and you've got no idea how you're going to support and develop them, you're going to struggle. And if you— if your approach is going high load of experienced people who know stuff and they know what they're doing, you'll end up with a bit of a mismatch of a culture of people doing— you find a bunch of people that might be LinkedIn recruiters, then you find a bunch of people who are old school recruiting, you find a bunch of people who don't know what the hell they are but they like the sound of that but might want to do a bit of that, and you'll end up with loads of difference. So really for me it was map out what that first 12-month journey looks like, find a way that I can do it when actually my resource is me, only one other experienced con, and the other person's a data miner. How do we get those people up and running? Um, it was hard, but the business I worked for were quite structured with how they develop people. They were like milestones that will train you this at month 1, month 2. So I kind of built my own program of thinking, what's going to be important? I'm going to be winning a lot of business. I backed myself doing a lot of business first year. So to start with, the key skills for me were, how can I get them to help me service this business as quickly as they can and get them in that? And then within a few months, how do I show them to be more um, follow up their leads, look at where they've got a job, whatever, what other calls can you make from calls. So, um, it's just sitting down and looking at how you want your business to grow, maybe for the next 2 years, what that looks like, the people you need to get there and how many you might need, and then what support you need to give to get them there. But it's not rocket science, it just takes a little bit of sitting down and mapping out and planning. Just like every day of recruitment, you should come into a day knowing what the plan is for the day. Um, so I still believe in them, and I actually hosted an assessment day yesterday for this year's intake, and I'm still involved in those assessment days. The way we assess them hasn't actually changed that much. We now use technology to then remove unconscious bias, and we can all— the interview panel can put in information, and it will give like an algorithm to score them without us making— I can go for a beer with them, so I'll hire them, which is probably a bit more what it was like back in the day. So I don't think people need to overcomplicate it if you want to scale. Look to bring people in who believe in what you stand for, share the values you've got, and can recruit in a similar way or the way you want it to work. Because you might think the way of recruiting is different to what you did, therefore that's what you want to train. And make sure everybody is on— is kind of singing off the same hymn sheet, because if everyone does different things, you're never going to be a business.

Hey everyone, a real quick one from me. This podcast would not be possible without our amazing podcast partners Vincere and Sourcebreaker. Because you listen to this podcast, you're able to get your hands on exclusive savings on both of these award-winning products. If you're a growing recruitment business, you have to check out Vincere, who are an all-in-one operating system for your growing recruitment business. With Sourcebreaker, if you want to make sure that all of your recruiters have the best tools on the market to stand out and beat their competition, then you have to check out Sourcebreaker. Use the link in the show notes, in the comments below, and you'll be able to get yourself exclusive savings on these amazing products. So, okay, cool, right? So just specifically around the academy then, really quickly, um, I guess firstly, obviously from where I sit, the main positive, right, is that you've hired 3 people at the same time, which means you've got a really great opportunity to in 3 months' time have 3 people at the same sort of level.

Yeah.

Whereas as you know, um, if you've spoken to other founders and stuff, like a lot of companies, uh, if they hire in ones and twos or whatever, they have to do the exact same thing with someone 4 weeks, um, 4 weeks ago, and then do it again another 4 weeks, right? The major positive that I see is that you're making the most out of your time, you know, so you can get people up to speed. So specific question on the, uh, academy there is, what are the sort of core, um, things that you look at that you're keeping an eye on in those early days for you to go, you know what, this person is going to work out or not? Like, what are some of the early, early sort of, um, data points that you look at I'm sure this has evolved over time. What are the key things for you to go, you know what, not sure this person's right? Yeah, what are some of the key things you look for?

If we take the obvious, like, non-recruitment things that any employee should be looking at— punctuality, timekeeping, um, are they turning up at 8:29 for an 8:30 day and then going to get the breakfast or on their jacket on at 5:29 to get out the door at 5— other than those obvious things, which I think is really important at the front end because you want to see people are prepared to do it, not clock watching, get in and get out— for me, it was very quite clear. I'm going to show them how to interview candidates at the front end. I'm going to put them through some training, I'm going to run some role plays, I'm going to listen to what they're doing to try and see how they go. And just really, we, we spent— and it's not maybe as long as this, but not far off— the first full month was just completely open interviewing candidates. Um, not necessarily on behalf of a role, just open interviewing, firstly to refresh our system, but secondly to give them the confidence of the marketplace they're working in, to understand the terminology that the candidates speak. To turn themselves into a detective, which is what I say all the time, which is ask curious questions to your candidates. And if you don't know something, can you tell me a bit more about them? And, and we'd set them a parameter. We want you in that week to be speaking to X amount of people, have Y amount of phone time. And like, don't get me wrong, phone time is just an early stage precursor for me. It shows that people can be busy, but it certainly can have 20 hours a week of one rubbish call just to the talking clock and loads of like thousands of calls. So for me, it's very much at the front end. I need you to get through lots of quickly. I need you to learn very quickly, and I'm going to listen into the calls. I'm going to give real-time feedback. I'm going to look at the data you put in the system. So everything is audited. All the notes go into the system. I can look if they're— and I'll run a report each day to see, have they left messages they can get through to people? Have they sent texts to catch up on people? If they emailed them, I can look at that and say, I can see here that actually most of your work's outbound, which is correct at start, but no one's coming back to you. So let's listen to the quality of a left message. Let's look at the quality of the text messages. Let's just look at some basic things, which is really basic. I'm not even being advanced here, but what I can determine in that first month is if the person's got the commitment to achieve a volume target, because they don't know what good looks like in the first month. All you can judge them on is quantity, really. And then you change that quantity from— I don't need you loads of calls, it needs to be loads of the good, the right good calls. Um, so really, for me, quantity to begin with, to see if they can have commitment to a target. Can they hit that target? If they're behind that target, what are they going to do to make that work? Are they gonna go out the door at 5:30 at the end of the day, or are they going to put a little bit more in? To try and beat that target? Are they going to— going through the notes, is the quality of the notes looking good? So for me, what I'm looking for at the front end is the ability for them to strive to hit a target and go beyond, not stop when they get there, and the ability to keep going. I think that's really— if they can't do those things, they never work, never ever work, because you'll always be in a position of saying, oh, can you do a little bit more? I mean, I don't want to be speaking to anyone after the first 6 months really and ever saying you should be doing a bit more work than you are. People should have got it by then and they should be able to do that. And the first month is a real indicator of urgency and commitment to what they're doing. And if they can't achieve some of the basic parameters, I am quite fit. It's like, can I help you? And if I can, I'll give you more time. If I can't help because you're just lazy, then I'm not going to waste my time. And I've probably, as the years have gone on, made those decisions a lot quicker than I did at the front end.

So then, and then, just because I feel like this is quite fundamental to growing, like the fact that you're still doing them Yeah, so let's just talk then about the assessment side because I think people will be interested in that. So you said you had one yesterday, like what does that actually consist of? You have people in your head office come there, so I'm assuming you have someone try and get as many people as possible. There's certain parameters that, um, you want these people to have. They get invited to this assessment center, then are they going to get some sort of talk from a relevant person saying this is what we are, this is what we're about, this is what we're doing, and then what, they put— get put through a series of activities to then to a point where they're then going to get booked into a final interview? I don't know, talk to us a bit about how these assessments look.

So once they're there, so that I'll have a TA person who's taking the responsibility for sourcing, interviewing, asking to think about things, come back, almost do the first stage is done before them. But when they're there, I'll run them through, and it's yesterday, if I look at it, it was a group of 8 people that we had in. All this year's graduates, I think 2 weren't grads, don't have to be a grad but had relevant experience, all have worked while at uni outside of work either through summers or in the evenings. Because I've, I've done it a few times. I never want to be the first person other than someone's mum or dad to tell them what to do. So for me, doing— I don't care what your job is— doing a job that's not like for your parents, to me, is really important because I don't want to be like— it's not a parental relationship, and that's not what I'm looking to try and build. Um, so we'll have them doing some, like, we get them doing like a Dragon's Den exercise where they come together, come up with an idea as a group, and pitch it back to us as a panel so we can see how they communicate, how they structure, and how they think on their feet when we challenge them. Um, we used to— we don't anymore— get to prepare a presentation beforehand on what recruitment is and why. Um, being honest, um, the exercise was there to get a level of commitment. If they can't be bothered to do a presentation, why can I be bothered to interview them type mindset. But we were finding that, um, when some grads had a lot of opportunities, maybe the presentation was being a bit of a blocker. So, and they just presented the same thing every time. We get them doing a, um, almost a role play exercise where they're looking at CVs and they're trying to assess them, and then they will literally either go into a room based on the setup of the day, or they'll phone into an experienced consultant. Wow. And try and represent which candidate of the selection of 6 is the best candidate for the job. And we're honest to say, this is like the dirtiest side of recruitment, because actually you're looking for the personality in a culture. You can't do that today. You can look at words on a CV and words on a job description, but just to see how their brain works a little bit, we then will get them doing like an icebreaker as a room but they always start, with exception to pretty much maybe 2 of the assessment days in the 10 years, with me opening, talking about the business, talking about what we're looking for in our recruiters, just showing them that it's really important to me that— and being humble to them to say, our business can't grow unless we bring good people in training. You come with us in the journey because we're not going to hire loads of 20-year recruiting veterans. We're looking to hire the next generation of recruiters who can grow in my business and grow my business.

And final two things then, uh, what's the typical like conversion rate of like, you know, number of people that come in, number of people that you offer?

It's changed over the years. So, um, pre-pandemic I would say, um, short-term success for me is they get to the first 12 months, they get to the year milestone. Next success really is 2 years onwards. And if I went back in the past, we were probably looking at about a 60, probably more close to 70%, one-year pass rate, if that makes sense, of them. So if you hired 3, 2 would work out, um, and then if you'd hired 3, then if you get to the second year, you would probably find that 60% has probably come down to about 40%. So those numbers look crude, but I could have hired an academy— if I used my first ever academy on my first 3 that I hired, um, 2 got to the end of the first year, one got to the end of the second year, and that one who got to the end of the second year is still with me today. He's been there for 10 years, set up my Edinburgh office, and, um, it's been an incredible member of the workforce and did really well. When those academy numbers go a bit bigger, you get more than one through it. But I always look at it, if you bring in a trainee, not everyone— I mean, we all hear that no one chooses recruitment, like back in the day particularly. You still hear that now, I fell into it, as I did as well. Um, but you have to accept that there's a level of dropout because some people just won't like it, or they won't be able to get up to the standard, or actually life gets in the way. Um, that probably got worse during the pandemic because the first year we kind of said, well, we're not going to hire any right now because we're not quite sure what our headcount is. Then we kind of got back, but that 6— that kind of 2 out of 3 probably come 1 out of 3 in the first year as a result of the pandemic. Because actually, if you look at what I was then having to hire from pre-pandemic, I was trying to hire the best of the best anywhere in the country. And I'd get them to relocate to the area. They join an academy, so they've got a community of people to work with, so they become a bit stickier to the business. And there's friends that they can build and actually they can socialize with, and they don't have loads of other friends around. Pandemic come along, no one would move anymore. Um, it then become, actually, who can I hire that's within like 30-45 minutes of the office now? So that changed the, the pool of people we could hire. And what, what I found with that pool of talent is when it got a little bit difficult, because most of them were living at home with mum and dad, as soon as it got difficult, they just gave up. I found that, that would— but that— and I don't put that down to a generational thing. I put that down to we were only hiring from a local demographic because we had to evolve. And now we've gone back to hiring best of the best from wherever we can find them across the country. We're already seeing our last academy from last year has already got back to the numbers that we, we were at before. I think we hired, um, 6. We've got 5 of them still, um, almost a year on. So actually that's probably slightly better and And, um, so it has changed. Um, but for me, if you're hiring one expecting to work, you have to work on a level of probability that people won't work. They don't like it, you don't like what they're doing, or life gets in the way. So you have to— I'm not going to call it a numbers game, but you have to consider that, um, you're better to hire more than one at a time unless it's just one gap and you're absolutely confident in who they are and you have a good idea about them.

No, I really appreciate being honest there because I think again, obviously the huge pro of that approach, uh, just from the founder perspective, is you invest all that time and you have more chance of more people working out because you're just scaling your time, really. Do you know what I mean? The fact that you can spend— however much time that you spent yesterday, I'm sure that when you do these consistently, you don't do as much prep anymore. You know what you need to be saying, it's a bit more like clockwork. Um, but that means like you spend that time last night and you have the opportunity to hire, you know, a good cohort of people. Whereas obviously a lot of companies, they invest the exact time, and they might hire one person, you know, and then they might not work out, and then we're back hiring again. So I appreciate you being honest with that, and I think that would be really interesting and useful for, um, people listening who, who particularly want to grow their business.

Well, you've said it, it's optimizing time. If I did it again, in the front, you tell yourself, I haven't got the time to support 3 people. But actually, if you support 3 people at the same time, you're almost supporting one person, um, and you maximize your chance of success from it. This year we are still doing academies We, we went for a period of only doing enrollments for academies. Now we've kind of evolved, or actually we're doing key academies at the beginning of the year, and we were having to put on more academies to offset maybe dropout if we wanted growth. Now I'm saying, well, let's not do dropout academies— not that I ever worded it like that, that's what they were— um, and then we will plug in some ones and twos at a time, but we have the scale to do that now, whereas at the front end I wouldn't have had the scale to do that at all.

And then, yeah, obviously we've spoken about from the business owner perspective, but then also if you think about it I don't know the stats, but I'd be confident that if you start a new job with other people at the same time, there's hopefully more chance that you are going to be successful. But also you might enjoy it more because, like, you know, you're on the same learning journey at the same time. Like you said, there's more chance of building friends and those connections. So I, I think also— and also, look, let's be honest, I hire 3 people, I'm going to see very quickly who's fucking good out of that 3 because you can, you can compare. Yeah, you know, whereas if you have one person, you've got no one to fucking compare them to.

You haven't. And you know what I mean? Community is the word I use. We're bringing in the people to build their own community. And ideally, they all go into different— I might have someone go to Manchester, someone do whatever. Now we're starting to do the— someone could go to the— eventually those people will build the network of your business internally because they all know each other. They went on that journey. Positives of communities, I find they're stickier as a workforce because they want to fight for it for each other, and they'll prop each other up when it's difficult. Negatives are if you get a bit of toxicity in that, it then spoils the whole kind of dinner, if that makes sense. So we've seen both of it. Um, and we have had pockets of the wrong persons in there getting into the minds of the others. And when they're getting a tough time, they're basically telling the others, oh, you know, there's a problem here. And then they almost poison everyone else. So if you're doing it, just make sure if you're bringing academies in that you've tested as much as you can of the type of character you want in your business. And, um, if you see some of the negative traits, make a quick decision on them. Could be for the right reasons, challenges outside, or it could just be they've got a chip on their bloody shoulder. And you know what, that chip becomes your chip. Up and causes you problems with the rest of your academy. So do them, they are brilliant, they're the best thing that I've ever done in terms of hiring to grow a business, and I would do it again if I started tomorrow morning. Just be absolutely crucial that you're getting the right ones, or one bad apple ruins it all.

So 10 years in business, long time.

Yeah, too long.

I feel like, you know, we're with that long, I can only imagine that you, you just find yourself reinventing, you know, the business to go through different seasons of that business, but I guess, look, let's just start. You, you've, you've been really honest throughout this, so I wanted to just ask you, in the— if we were to take a bit of a step back, because it was 10, it was 10 years, like, you know, um, from when I looked, like, 7 or 8 months ago, you hit that 10-year mark.

Yeah.

What would you say were one or two of the biggest mistakes you made?

Um, biggest mistake I think I've made before, and I have repeated, and there's occasions where I could do it as well, is how would I put it in the, in the right possible way, is given too much benefit of doubt. There are the occasions where your kind of radar, your recruitment radar— I think someone in my workforce called it their Spidey senses— that you just get a feeling, and the feeling isn't sometimes great, and you're like, there's a problem, but I don't know what the problem is. And then I thought, oh, well, I can't see it. I don't want to make it look like there's a conspiracy theory going on. I don't look like I don't trust people. And I haven't acted on that. I think at the front end, when you're hiring people, you will everyone to work. It's my baby. I hire the right people. I only want them to work. I'm a recruitment company. How can I make wrong hires? We go through all of it, um, and I've willed people to work, and then I'm like, they've just taken my energy away from me, you know. They've been either— they've ended up being really boring, they've been mood hooving. I'm like, as soon as you take my energy from me, you ruin me. So take my energy at your peril, because I, I've got no interest in your you and my business. But given that will and willing them along and almost doing more for them than they do for themselves is a problem. Giving people too much benefit of the doubt— benefit of the doubt is fair. I think we've got to treat people like human beings and have a level of trust, even if it's not necessarily been built. You have to— you hired someone, you've trusted them, as far as I'm concerned. But the minute the trust is either jeopardized or you feel like, um, it's all one-sided, you have to make a call. And I've, I've kept hold of people on occasions for too long Um, and I've always said it, I would, I would remove or find a way to, to politely say it's come to an end, my best biller, if they were a problem. There have been occasions where I probably haven't got to that decision quick enough, and I'm sharper at doing that now, which can sometimes make me come across a little bit more mercenary than maybe 10 years ago. But that's because over the last few years when the pandemic's come along and I've had to manage a workforce that care, um, as we all have, we've had to look after ourselves during COVID And people have looked after themselves more than they've looked after maybe where they are. I've had to make decisions for the greater good and the benefit, and I've probably realized more in those years that, you know, people can waste time, but what they're actually doing is wasting my money and wasting my opportunity for growth. Or— and this is what I say with The Apprentice sometimes— and you get someone in the final who's a complete bloody joker, and I'm like, you've just taken someone else's opportunity to be in that final. That's what someone's doing in your business if they are not taking it seriously and giving it all. They are taking someone else's opportunity I'll help you to grow that. So I'm sharper at that now, but that mistake I've made again and again and again because I like to think I'm a decent guy. And I'm not saying I've become more— I know he's bitter and twisted, but I've become sharper at it. And I'd always say, you're hiring, hire, fail fast. Let people make mistakes, that's fine, as long as they learn from the mistakes. But if it's failing, fail fast. And it took me too long to realize that.

No, I appreciate you sharing that. I think a lot of people resonate with that. So last financial year, revenue is £15 million.

Yeah.

What do you think have been some of the, like, core principles that have enabled you guys to get to those sorts of levels? Like, what have been some of the things you really doubled down on, made good decisions on? Yeah, what are some of the principles to get into those sorts of performance levels?

I think first, I mean, as a number, it's— I mean, revenue is always vanity, right? It's profitable, um, and there are much bigger numbers because we've been more perm than contract, but that's changed and that's what's kind of got us going forward now. Um, some of the principles for me are always— it was, it was the reason I started the business. It's the reason why on occasions I've had to part companies with people in the business. But it's what I stand for. I stand for supporting an industry that changes lives. You heard it at the front end of this, and I'll always say it. Um, I work in a life-changing industry, and tongue-in-cheek, I've called my workforce life changers time and time again. Um, as soon as anything has almost jeopardized that, i.e., we're making this decision for commercial gain, not because of what we stand for. Someone in my business doesn't care about what I stand for, they just care about the commercials, um, is the reason your business become confused and have problems. So double down and always remaining true to what the business stands for, and making decisions with people who aren't aligned with the value of what you stand for, the vision, and being firm with them despite them being maybe profit generating. Um, I think that's really important because you cannot grow a business that doesn't have a purpose, and you cannot grow a business that doesn't have a really cohesive culture. Um, and I think there's been a few occasions I felt the culture getting a little bit contradicted because of, I don't know, other leaders, other individuals that didn't buy into it like they used to. And I'm like— and I've almost on occasion said to myself, well, like, have I changed? No. What the only message that's changed when people are confused is what they're hearing from other people, not from me. So I think double downing on what you stand for and staying true to that. And if what you stand for changes, being honest about that, telling people. So I think that thing, that the leadership of who you are what you're doing, I think, has to be absolutely on point, not challenged. And if it's challenged, find a way to understand or to change it. I think that's really, really important. And again, that just comes down to getting the right people in your business to keep understanding that and seeing that. And I've had challenges over the years where I started the business doing 100% of my time recruiting, um, and that percentage of time recruiting that I absolutely love doing has reduced as the business has got bigger. And I've almost— how do people realize I'm still a recruiter at what I'm doing. And there's occasions where I'll jump back in and do things and help people and listen to things and do— and I'm working a couple of projects at the moment. I can humbly say that I understand being in the business stops you being on the business, and therefore you can't grow the business. But there are occasions where you just need to— if you're a star player, you need to show people how, how, how, how the game can be done.

So just really remaining true to what you stand for. Okay, let me ask you this then. Speak to a lot of recruitment founders that struggle to get past the 15, 20 head mark most of the UK recruitment industry are sort of under 10 heads. So how different did your business look at 20 heads compared to, you know, 40, 45? Because often I speak to people where that can be like a real, you know, hard mountain to climb and get over. So what are some of the things that you've invested in, or how different— yeah, what are some of the things that are really different if we're to look in your business? Could be infrastructure, could be the way you set up the leadership team. I don't know how different It changes.

And I always heard this number, I think 12 is one of the milestones and 28 was the next one, that your business really does change quite a lot. Um, and I would always, I always say to people, if you're looking to absolutely maximize the bottom line for your lifestyle, you have your business at kind of 8 to 12 people. You don't need loads of sophistication and complication in, um, support service and things. We're kind of at that stage now where we're like, with that, I call it the small mid business where actually I now need to labor in tons of costs right now to give us the opportunity to grow in infrastructure, in talent acquisition, in finance and compliance and technology, in extra offices for scalability. Like, I'm just throwing costs in at the moment. I'm in that awkward place where I'm like, I was profitable and I was fewer people, but to get to what's next level, I have to do it. So, um, I think if you also look at it kind of almost sometimes between 45 and 30, sometimes the extra heads are the heads that aren't fee generating. So that's the bigger difference, is when we were smaller and younger, everybody was fee generating. As you get bigger, you start increasing the percentage of people that are non-fee generating, and as a result, those people work slightly differently to recruiters, having to understand how a marketeer works in your business, how someone in finance works, how your office managers work. They're very different types of characters, um, that have different expectations of the role. They're rewarded in different ways. Commission, like, recruiters were like, yeah, you want to— you don't want to put the hours, you don't earn the commission. It's quite simple, you're looking at it differently. So the biggest difference is that it's the infrastructure, it's the cost of the infrastructure. Um, of course the upsides are you get to bring in more technology and you can automate certain things and you can have better scalability and purchasing power and there's more people. But, um, we're at that complicated stage where I feel like when we kind of get to 60, 70, 80, say, it'll be easier because I'll then have more recruiters in that can get the benefit of the scalability. So, um, how does it change? It changes because you don't intimately know everything about everyone. And when we were 10, 12 people, I knew every process that was going on and every new client, every deal that could drop. I knew every candidate, I knew every runner, and I could speak to any client and be like, I knew what the— now I'm in a position where I might go out to certain clients and they're talking about process that I don't know as much about. So I— you become more reliant on others to have a deeper knowledge of it and trusting that what they say is actually fact and not just trying to make it look like a mistake's not been hidden.

Yeah, so I think people find it helpful if you can describe, um, a bit more on like what that actually infrastructure looks like or how it looks like today, because I'm assuming what you're saying there is you're, you're sort of creating a business that needs to look how it does today so you can thank yourself for in like, you know, and when you're 60, 70 people, or like, yeah, making those sort of decisions now so then, yeah, things become a lot more easier, as you said, as you get bigger. So Obviously out of the, so with this, let's just say 45 people, how many people would we put under the, you know, fee generating? And then how many people would we then put in? I don't know. You might have an operations person, office manager. I don't know. Talk to us a bit about that because I think that'd be useful.

Well, you're looking at about 20% of the business are just in non-fee generating roles or indirect fee generating. So marketing. So we are, of course, we're trying to generate more than digital marketing, more inbound leads that therefore we can feed, but not directly. I couldn't look at every pound that that person's billing for me. Money anymore. Um, to an extent, finance sits in there because they're trying to save you costs in certain areas to make it worthwhile. But 20% of the business will sit in non-fee generating. You then got probably at least 20%, slightly more, that are fee generating at a lower level. So they're now leading groups. Look at myself, I build a lot more personally, directly, 5 years ago to what I build today because I now got a workforce that's doing it. So you then end up with a management leadership group that based upon the size of their teams either are fee generating or some of them might be fee generating for a lower. So you start like typical recruitment, you start developing people into roles who can be great billers that don't bill as much anymore as long as they can bill through others. So you end up with lots— if you take the per pound person of the whole business, we make less per pound per person for everyone in the business, including support, than we would have kind of a while ago. So I think when you go 28 upwards which, that was the number that was always said to me. That's where sophistication gets a little— that's where you're laboring in more costs. So that would be— I mean, we've got technology to be, um, serving and looking at engagement within the workforce. We've got technology to support automation of marketing or different bits and pieces for the, for a social brand. So there's all these things we've been putting in that actually we've needed to, to help the business to get scale. Um, and it can be like, at the time as an owner, it's just like Well, I'm going to go on a journey the next few years where we could be making more money top line but maybe making less money bottom line. But you've got to accept the fact that you're rolling the dice for growth, just like you did at the front end of your business, and accept the fact that, um, and if you don't want to accept that, then admit the fact that you're just a lifestyle business now. That's not a problem, but that's what your business then becomes. So for me, it's building a business of legacy, a business that has scalability, and you are putting things in that have costs. And accept the fact that you get a more expensive work workforce. And trying to keep measures in per pound of NFI spent on staff costs, um, I think is really important. So how much of the total NFI— so the margin that's been generated, not the revenue that you're generating— are you giving back to the workforce? What's that percentage? How much— what percentage of that is basically being spent to run the business? So non-fee earners plus, um, office insurance and all the other bits and bits. And then what's left? And they always say you're looking at that conversion of NFI to kind EBIT or kind of profit before tax, PBT as it were. Everyone wants to get 30% plus. Reality, most people are 20-25. When you're investing, it could be worse than that. So it's, it's trying to now be a little bit more corporate with what you're looking at and looking at the numbers and setting some measures that are sensible for you and sticking to them. And when you're spending too much on, on, on the support staff of the business and your sales aren't making more, then looking at the reality of is it working? Are the support people working? Is what you planned working? Do you need to scale that back to go again?

What do you think has been— we don't need like a person, I don't want you to think about it like that, but on this conversation, what do you think, um, has been the best, um, most impactful on the business from a non-fee generating standpoint? What's been the most impactful hire you've made so far that you think has had the most impact on the business? Could be operations, could be marketing, could be finance. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Everything's— I think all of them have added in different ways. But if I go over the period of 10 years that we've been running, I'd say when I bought in essentially who my FD is today, who kind of heads up that whole kind of support operations, who was an FC at the time, made the biggest difference to probably how we looked at things. Because I was at that time outsourcing finance to my business partners, associates, and paid me a commercial. So no different, you go into an accountant's firm and giving it to them. Hiring him was really expensive at the time because it was cheaper to outsource it to them than it was for me to hire someone to do it myself. And I only had one person, not a whole team of people that are tax experts. That was really impactful because it enabled— it enabled me to probably— as a scientist, I love my data, so I'm very good at the numbers. I was always good with management accounts and things like that, even though I've never done a business course or finance course in my life. I've studied sales and science. Um, most impactful because it was someone else keeping a closer grip on those things, someone else generating new ways of looking at financial metrics to support me, somebody else who was able to help me to build some of the non-fee generating side of the business that could enable the business looking at ROI of that side of the— so that was a really big impact to me. Um, if you started tomorrow morning, you wouldn't necessarily go and hire an FCFD unless they're putting money in it and being a shareholder, right? They're expensive.

At what point did you hire person?

Um, we were probably about 5 years in, about halfway through the business that I bought that person in. And I'm like, well, I'm going over— not just bringing in an accountant, I bought a full-blown FC who was actually operating more at an FD level but was prepared to come on the journey with me and take a bit of a hit for a while.

So how many of you were there in the business around that time roughly?

Honestly, I cannot remember numbers. I really can't. If I was doing it tomorrow morning, if I hired one non-fee-generating person, it would be a marketer. It'd be a social marketer. It, um, because they're going to enable you to push your brand hard. They can enable you to build the brand in the right way, to be conscious of that, and actually generate a whole bunch of leads that maybe when I started I saw some good leads because I got a bit of a spotlight of, ah, this guy does science recruitment, he's been on like The Apprentice, Prince. Although it never got me a direct role, it showed more curiosity that you can't underestimate getting some really decent leads coming into your business that you can convert quite quickly just to get some money in the pot quickly.

No, I really like that finance, um, point there, just because, um, a lot of people start business on their own. Um, it'd be really interesting to see the percentages of how many people that start business on their own would say that finance, um, and managing money is like their strongest skill set, particularly in recruitment.

Most recruitment companies that I know that have been started up in the last few years and are a handful of people plus, the, the owner is absolutely clueless to the numbers. I mean, really clueless. I mean, the scientist in me meant I'm methodical, meant I like numbers and and data. So actually, I look at patterns and it worked for me, but there are a lot of very gifted salespeople that are not very good with the data and the numbers. So, um, there's more of them than not.

Yeah, so I really like that because I think, yeah, the more visibility that you can have on— like you said, the things like we spend X pound and we get this back— or like, I think that they're really important, particularly when you're, you're scaling and you're adding more courses. You're only going to have more confidence in doing that if you know what it should mean in another year's time or two years' time if that compounds and we have things right. So I think that's such a great share.

So look, as we, as we come to, um, well, also with that person, the right finance person, because I could sit here and say there's this bit of tech, it looks great, oh, it's going to revolutionize what we do, um, and there's loads of great bits of tech or ways of doing it, but, and I'll put it in as a leader, as an owner, and I think, oh, it's great, I've spent money on that, I believe in it, and I'm not really probably looking at the measure because I've made the call, right? My ego is saying it's the right call. What the finance person is going to be able to do, or the marketing manager will be able to do, is continue to look at the ROI, the value of what they're doing and how you're using it. And keeping you sharp on that's really important, um, be it at the front end of your business. You don't want to become so corporate and so data-heavy that you don't build heart and a flair of how your business works. So for me, it was the right stage to bring— so I'd established like the HRS way um, as opposed to it being Ricky's way when he started. So I'd establish what worked for us and then bringing that person that helped us to move on.

So what, what's, uh, what's next for you guys then?

Big one for us is, um, more markets. Um, so I think when you are— so doing life science, and for us life science is actually the medicines within life sciences, the companies who make medicines and take it to patients. What we're not is every type of science business, which is what some life sciences are. They'll do anything chemical, consumer good. We're just medicines on the medicine side. So when you are in a, in a tight space, the only way you can grow true scale is either generalize— not, no interest to me. Biochemist of me doesn't want to start doing admin recruitment to my clients. No interest. You either globalize, so you start going into more markets, take your same service proposition, then figure out a way to understand cultural difference in other countries and how they operate and how you build team there. Um, that's kind of your two real routes, or you build other service lines in there, or you just do everything. But really, for me, it's, it's— when I say globalize, I don't want this to sound ridiculous. The amount of recruitment companies have been going for 2 minutes, they're like, we're, we're global, we've got offices. And now you've got 4 or 5 virtual offices on websites that you pay for that sound great with different phone numbers. Um, so for us, it would be trying to do more international business, and the next step is the US. I don't hide any anything about it. It's the biggest, um, medicines country in the world, if that makes sense, in terms of the FDA and how they operate and the drugs that are coming out and the standard of those drugs. So that's what we're going to be looking at, um, which is the next step, which we're really starting to kick off shortly. Like, slow and steady to start with. I'm not going to sit here and say that our business is going to be 90% US within 12 months. Absolutely not. I've, I've hired 2 people that are joining me shortly. I back those people to help me to grow that and we're gonna, we're gonna build it in the right way and then find a route of scaling past that point.

Anything surprising so far?

Um, it's not a surprise because it should be human knowledge, just that the margins and the appetite in the US is unbelievable versus the UK, right? There's fewer recruitment companies in the US than there are in the UK, yet the economy is 8 times the size. So it's like, logic is it should be a nice industry, but a lot of people in the UK have already done it. They've already run over there to do it. I'm behind the game on that, that side of the fence, but my service proposition? Well, I mean, we're called Hyper, right? Sounds like an American business.

I love that. Look, Ricky, thank you so much. I appreciate the honesty. I think you kept it real. Thank you about everything we've spoken about. Um, yeah, I think it's been a really interesting journey for you. You know, I always respect people that have been doing the same thing for a long period of time because that is fucking hard to do. You know, it's hard in today's world. Like, you could easily, you know, you might have picked up the pro wrestling, uh, thing again, or you might have gone in this direction, but you've done— you focus on what you're great at, what you enjoy. For a decade. I'm sure more years to come, and I really respect that. So thanks for coming on the pod.

Thank you, mate. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it and got value from the conversation. If you did enjoy it, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the next episode.