Harry Wright & Henry Stevens - “in the beginning, we would have ran our CRM on a spreadsheet!”

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz, and in this week's episode, I was joined by Harry Wright and Henry Stevens, who both founded a recruitment business called Torque Consulting. They've been building their business for 3 and a half years, starting the business just before COVID So we talk about everything from the early days, some of the biggest setbacks that they had, how they overcome them, what they learned from them, you Enjoy the episode. Harry, Henry, welcome to the podcast.

Hello, thanks for having us.

As I was saying, we're, uh, in the, in the new, in the new spot. We're in the podcast studio, feel real professional.

It's very cool, it's very good.

Uh, thanks for making the trip down. Um, so I guess I'm gonna— I always like to start with the million-pound question, which I know you guys have definitely been on a journey to really think about when hiring for your own recruitment business. But just for everyone listening, just to give everyone a bit of context. So both, uh, Harry and Henry actually started recruitment on the same day. Yeah, worked in recruitment for 2 years before, uh, starting your own recruitment business, Talk Consulting, which you started, uh, 3 and a half or so years ago. Um, so your first year in business was 2019. Where you are today is you're around 9 people. Um, and we're going to talk a lot today about that business journey and the entrepreneurial journey that you boys have been on.

Cool.

Yeah, go for it. But, uh, Henry, let me come to you first with, with this question. So in your opinion, what characteristics and traits do you really think make up a highly successful recruitment consultant? And in today's market is the key part.

Yeah, so for me, this is something we've thought about highly when we've been recruiting recently, because going back to the old school way of thinking about it, you would always look for like someone in sport or someone who's, you know, highly competitive. Me and Harry have changed our opinion on this now. And for us, we just look for two things: how adaptable that person is in certain scenarios, and then secondly, in terms of their willingness to learn. They're the two things I think that fundamentally make a solid recruiter. If you can be adaptable in situations where adverse things happen to you and you've got a proven track record of that happening, then you can roll that over into recruitment quite easily. That's transferable. And then the learning part, that ability to be able to implement training is the most important thing in recruitment, because we can teach you, or you can teach, or anyone can teach anyone to do something. It's whether they can actually implement that into their work. If you can't do that, then you can't do recruitment.

Adaptability and willingness to learn.

Yeah.

Harry, you want to add anything to that?

Yeah, um, I don't want to go for the textbook, like resilience or anything like that, but it— you really start to see the personality traits on people when it starts going wrong. So I know, and we try and get an example of that in, in the interviews, don't we? Like, tell them something you're bad at, and if they give you a really like thought-out answer, you thought, that's not true. It's when people are honest and, and they kind of go into what they're really bad at, you think you're pretty self-aware, so you're going to be able to like think, like, if we set them a task, not done that very well, how can I tweak that and get better. And for me, that's, that's a big thing because like academic, like accolades, degrees and stuff like that, it's great, but if you freeze as soon as you pick up the phone or somewhere, it's great, nice one.

But yeah, do you, do you look for— just curious, I've been speaking to a lot of people about this recently. So you, in your example there, yeah, do you look out for people and it's a red flag if they go, this is really difficult time for me and it was because of this, or it was their fault, or it was that, rather than this is what I could have done, or—

Yeah, yeah, definitely. When, when we ask that question, or, you know, when someone kind of says, I've left here because of this, if you get a really honest answer, this is what I probably could have done better, this is what I did, you think, I like you.

Yeah.

When it's everyone else's fault, that's the red flag.

Big red flag.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I think there's this accountability, responsibility piece Yeah, I don't know. I think there's a real percentage of people, younger people, that may not necessarily have that in a boatload, you know what I mean?

And I think that's something in the, like, even now in the market, when say you're a recruit— recruitment consultant, you've been in the industry for 1, 2 years and you're trying to move, some of the, some of the posts you see now from like recruiters wanting new positions, yet, yeah, you've just got to take accountability for your situation. And if, and if you, if you doing really, really well in a company, they're gonna try and retain you. So don't like— don't try and make out the company's forcing you out if you're billing like quarter of a million quid a year, because it's just not going to happen.

So Henry, let me come to you to start this off. Like, what gave— what gave you guys confidence to start this business with 2 years experience? Like, I think some people may go, yeah, probably isn't enough, some people start with less. But what gave you boys confidence? Just because a lot of people say they're going to start their own recruitment business but don't. What gave you guys confidence to take that leap?

In complete honesty, we were so naive. There's no other way of saying it. We were so naive. We thought, cool, if being completely honest, we were going to do it. We first thought about doing recruitment on an Excel spreadsheet.

Yeah, we don't need a CRM.

This is serious. But for me and Harry, it was the fact that we knew that we had strengths that complemented each other. So when it comes down to recruitment, the business development client side I can cover, that's my strength. And Harry's side was before we built the business was candidate side. So we knew that we could tailor that together and make a success of something. We also noticed a gap in the market, didn't we? So we obviously, you don't know, but we worked solely contract and you did Northwest, I did Southeast, and there was a big gap of like the £40,000 to £90,000 perm jobs that all my clients were hiring for. For, but we wouldn't touch them, weren't allowed to touch them because we did contract. And they were crying out, they were like, but there's no recruitment companies that will work these jobs. Me and Harry were sat there thinking, okay, we know that contracts in terms of recurring revenue is a more valuable business, but as a foundation to get going, let's just hammer this market. And it was, it was buoyant, wasn't it? Like, the first year was, was unbelievably busy because we couldn't believe that so many companies don't tap into this market. We've got a few more competitors now, and a few new companies have popped up because I I think unless you're at the exec search level, then you're not touching jobs circa less than £100K and then all the other jobs below that, the only real way of making money before now in engineering was contract. So there was this market that was just left wide open and we were confident that with me on BD and Harry on delivery, we could nail it off. And thankfully, 3 and a half years later, we're still in it.

Yeah, we've limped there.

So to paint the picture then, so when did you start the business? What month in 2019?

We started in May 2019. We came like, obviously we came up with the idea of the business before that, um, but we'd left our previous business and covenants and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, of course. So May 2019, and it was just you two for the first year, right?

Yeah, yeah, me and Harry. We hired off— we hired our first employee at the back end of, uh, 2019, didn't we? Just before Christmas.

Yeah.

Um, and yeah, that was a— again, it was just a continuous— it's just been a continual learning curve.

Yeah.

Neither of us have ever like ran businesses before. We've done bits but not to this level, and I think every single thing we've done has been a massive learning curve.

Yeah, I'd love to have a conversation with myself 3 years ago because going back to your question, I think it was naivety, but we're pretty arrogant as well.

Really?

Yeah, we can do it. 2 years, I'll probably— well, I don't regret anything at all, but I would Probably do a bit more planning.

What was the plan for the first year then, Harry? Like, what was your, like, looking back that first year?

Oh, we just thought, oh yeah, we're just gonna buy 2 laptops, we'll get some phones, we'll just bill. That was it.

That was the business plan.

That was the business plan. We opened our laptop on day 1, loaded up Vintjeri because we bought, spent all the money on Vintjeri. Yeah. And we're like, right then, no candidates, just all zeros. I was like, right.

It was, it was.

We can't ring him, we can't ring him, we can't ring him, we can't ring him.

I, this is how, and this is the truth, like it is the truth, but the funniest bit was after 3 days Harry said, what have you been doing? And I said, well, I've been building the website, mate, we need a website.

So Henry has a thing.

He hasn't even been doing his job. He hasn't been bringing the clients back from BD.

He's got a thing, Henry, where he's great at BD and he'll smash out BD for a few hours and then he'll find a job that's got nothing to do with recruitment, like putting a shelf up, like cleaning the fridge. Like everyone I talk will vouch for me.

Yeah, they will.

And he was doing that day one, started building a website, said no one knows who we are, they're not gonna— I'm not gonna go on the website, let's get some money, we have no money.

Yeah, so we were— in terms of how we like— and that was the other thing, we'd self-funded the business, so the business has no backers, has no investment, it's just It was me and mine, Harry's money.

So how much runway did you give yourselves?

4 months.

4 months?

Yeah, I think we gave ourselves 4 months, which again was one of those things. I think if you'd gone back now in hindsight, 25 grand on it. Yeah, we would have said to ourselves, okay, let's save up a bit longer and do 6. There's what we do now. We run our business on like a lot longer longevity in terms of if everything hits the fan and that saved us in which we'll go on to, which saved us in 2020.

And so like, why, why is that the advice? Is that because it would— you'd put less pressure on yourself at the beginning? Is it just—

and I also think you can say no more. We, we had, we had to say yes at the start because it was, you know, you were in client negotiations. And when you're working for a big corporate, it's brilliant because you can just— it doesn't matter if they don't want to work with you, you know, realistically, if, if you're, you're setting your percentage at 20, 25%. And then we were in a situation where it was like, well, are we cutting our nose off to spite our face here? Yeah, if we don't agree lower rates because we need to get cash in the bank.

Yeah, we've had to do a bit of a clear out recently, haven't we? Bringing clients saying we can't work at this percentage anymore, do you want to go on our regular rates or not? Some have said yeah, that's fine, some haven't. But that's the, that's the problem, because without planning, you have— you think, right, oh, that's a 5 grand fee. 5 grand, that's another month. I'll do it, I'll take 12%. Then you think, right, well, I've got a— I've built up a bit of a bank account now. Don't know when he rings up, I need a project manager, and you sat there thinking, I should be getting about 15K for this job and about 3.

Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, no, I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate the honesty. So I guess let me just ask you this then, Harry, and then I want to definitely find out the biggest challenges. I think sometimes people can overplan. Obviously you probably underplanned, you're being honest, but like, what would you say in hindsight with what you've learned over the last, yeah, 2, 3 years or whatever, what would you say for people that are really considering taking that leap, what would you say would be the non-negotiables to at least think about, have a bit of a plan around? Yeah, rather than— I think some people can overplan and just overthink stuff. So like, what would you say, like, the absolutely crucial things that maybe people should plan that would give them a better chance of that first year just being less chaotic.

Yeah, so I would always be an inch wide and a mile deep. So pick a niche, 2 or 3 job titles on one area, and stick to it. Don't think like, oh well, let's say you're doing the Northwest or London, I've got a job in Cambridge, I'll take it. Just stick to what you're doing and you'll thank yourself kind of 6, 8 months down the line because you'll be able to get one candidate and send it out to 4 or 5 places. So definitely, definitely do that. Um, I'm massive on market mapping. So you can have all the CRMs and whatever you want, but Excel spreadsheet, like postcodes, company names, what they do, and you can literally just— it's just making patterns. If you spend 2 weeks just banging candidates and getting manager names, leads, and getting them on your market map. That is, that is your gold dust. That's live data. Data is just— that's something we neglected. That's big at the start, didn't we? But now we're kind of going back and teaching rookies to build their own markets. It's almost like building a business within a business, isn't it? So data, do not neglect the data. I would do it with somebody because it's very, very lonely. Like, we've had dark days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That dropout before Christmas, it's— I don't know why it's mentally affected me that he did it.

What, the first year?

First year he did it. I think it's about a 16 grand fee, which in our market is big. Yeah. And we were all— I've got a video on my phone. We're all jumping about. Yeah, get in. She accepts it, signs. Drops out, counts, gets like a 25K, um, that's still never counter-offered, doesn't it? So I'd do it with someone because there's been days where everything's gone wrong and just a phone call to each other, you feel 10 times better. I'll just come off it. So pick your partner, make sure you can be completely honest with that person. Yeah, if it's— you just need unfiltered honesty. And don't neglect your data.

Love that. And then, yeah, like you said, maybe give yourself a bit more of a financial runway.

Definitely.

And like, yeah, but the thing is, if you haven't got it in recruitment, if you have— because some people, obviously we know the models of, of some companies where they chuck 100 grand at their top biller and they go set up a company. Some people aren't that lucky. The money will always come. If you get on the phone, it will always come. It's not like retail or whatever, just hardware really.

So Henry, what was your— from your experience, what was your biggest challenge in that first year that you maybe least expected? Or like, looking back, what, what was like the big, the real, the real challenge in that first year?

Um, mine 100% was going from an employee to a business owner. I think the mindset of not having— you're having to be fully accountable for you, and there's, there's no one going to tell you to do anything. And that's the truth. We came from a company which, you know, we thoroughly enjoyed the time there, but it was very strict processes, very tight tolerances on KPIs, strict numbers to deliver every day. And then when those shackles are taken off and we're sat there, me and Harry together, you know, you can fall into a slip of going, well, we could go for lunch or we can go here or we can do this because we're free. But realistically, what that does is put you back even further. And, you know, and that's the truth. So for me, I think the biggest challenge was mentally getting myself into a situation where there's no one else who will hold me accountable apart from myself. I have to deliver these, otherwise I will be one out of a job, but also, you know, I'm not just affecting me now, I'm affecting Harry. And I also think having that mindset to be able to deal with challenges which are outside of recruitment, that are running, that are involved in running a business, which we hadn't done before, and it was setting that time apart outside of work. So I would say, if anything, we worked more. We work more now than we've ever worked. Um, and that would be like going on to a tip. I think if anyone's setting up a business, to think that they're going to have more time—

nice.

Yeah, that's just not true. You have, you have less time. Um, and I think that was probably my biggest challenge.

Just on what, what you— on that, just, just quickly, I know for me I, I can definitely relate to that. And it's just, for me, I feel like it's an ongoing thing. Like, I think the goal is to like 80, 90% of the time you do this shit that sometimes you don't really feel like you want to, do you know what I mean? Yeah, some days you're just gonna get up and you're like, I really can't be fucked with this today. But it's like, how can you make sure you reduce those days as much as possible? But like, I think people who are employed even struggle with that, if I'm honest, from my experience, hold themselves accountable, all that. So like, how have you got better at that? Like, how have you— because for me I found it's about just setting yourself up to have the best chance of just doing the things you know you need to do. Do you know what I mean? If that's starting with the hardest things in the morning, or like just doing the things outside of work that I know is going to help me. So if that's working out, going gym, getting good sleep in, it's just doing the things that's going to set me up to have a better chance of going, right, I'm going to smash this out. Even though sometimes you're not motivated, but you've got— there's no one else holding. So how have you got better at it?

Yeah, so I think, um, my biggest strength now is like planning. Okay. So I was awful at organization. Anyone, anyone you ever— yeah, I was. Anyone who would have met me 2, 3 years ago even would have said, no way he can run a business, because organization was, was everywhere. I now work really hard on ensuring the organization's in place, but then I've got a plan. So each day I come into work, I know exactly what I'm going to do, um, which takes me back to like my, like, full billing time. You know, you had to have a day plan before you come in, otherwise you'd fail. Um, the other thing is, is like you say, it's, it's enjoying the things that you can do. So For me, I work in like 2-hour blocks. Like Harry says, I'll do like work on BD or developing a client for 2 hours, and then I'll do something else. And if that means for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, I'm cleaning the fridge or I'm putting a shelf up, it's just my— it just resets my brain, and then I go again. And it's about having that like ruthless focus to do the job. And then, okay, I've literally— I've done 4 hours' work in 2 hours. So that's helped me massively.

I love that. Harry, what was your biggest challenge in that first year from your experience? Because oftentimes it could be different to probably me dealing with him, really.

Yeah, yeah. It's, for me, it's the feeling of it's all the pressure of it's all on us. That is sometimes you sit in bed at night looking up at the ceiling thinking, especially when you first get staff. You think, oh my God, like, I need to build this this month because this person's going on, this guy's bought a house. I'm thinking, I need to pull my finger out. Well, yeah, dealing with the pressure of this, this is it, I've put my savings into this, it can't go wrong. So that's almost like a fear of failure push, like pushing you forward. Um, And as you get better and better, you get more confident in your ability, and that, that goes away. Obviously, you're always in the back of your mind that something could go wrong, which I think is clever. But other than that, that's, that's the big one, because we, we've had a lot of fun, didn't we? We've had loads of fun. Yeah, year one, we had a lot of fun because it was just us two. Like we said, the shackles— what shackles? What we say that it was a good place to work before. We did enjoy it, but it was just polar opposite. Like, middle of the town, we're in Manchester going out for lunch. We do one bit, one, uh, one deal, it's above 15 degrees. Let's go and say, which did catch up with us, but we sorted it.

But this is why I wanted to come on here with you, and Harry did as well, because I just think, like, we are as transparent as it is. We've got a successful business now, and it— yeah, but Yeah, we've done some stupid things.

We're talking about the first year, aren't we? And I think it's such a— yeah, you're from the environment you've both been in for however long, employed, different environments, it's just entirely different.

Yeah, yeah.

But just on that, I can really relate to that. So I don't know, but I feel like, yeah, when it's your business, firstly, let's just be real, when you have your own business, even I feel like in recruitment, sales, or whatever, like your job is literally to just eat shit and deal with rejection like every single fucking week, basically.

Yeah.

But when it's your, your business, sometimes those rejections and those setbacks can make you feel like, what's the fucking point? Are we gonna do it? Are we just gonna fail? Is it not gonna work? So I can definitely relate to that. So like, for me personally, when I have those moments or weeks, the thing that I always have to do is basically just take action and just get back to the things that I can control. Yeah, because I know as soon as I have a good conversation with a new customer or whatever, like, that quickly goes away.

Yeah.

So what, what do you do to like make sure that— I know you said you got better because you've now got more evidence to go, no, no, we can get through this because this happened and now we'll get through. But I think some people that can really eat them up and it holds them back. How do you get better at not letting that overcome you?

So I like to, to be honest, I like to pride myself that I'm pretty good at handling when something bad's happened. Um, for an example, we were, um, a victim of some fraud, weren't we?

He was a victim of some fraud.

Yeah, that was really funny. Sorry, but basically we paid an invoice and they weren't real. It wasn't a real—

Oh, fuck, really?

Yeah, yeah, they had a real website for the company we were supposed to be paying. Whoever this person was had hacked their phone. So when you ring the number, you ring that real company. Oh, fuck. But the money just got intercepted. So anyway, I'm big on— well, number one, nobody's dead, right? Cool. Yeah, no one's dead. So we can sort it. And then it's everything I can control. Yeah, right. Well, I'll worry about that. I can't control this guy's not turned up, this has happened, the system's gone down, the fraud, it's gone. Nothing to do about it now. Let's move forward. So Henry's very like, his thing's like empathy and he's good at that sort of stuff. Whereas I'm what, right, let's just get shit done sort of thing. So dealing with it, it's literally very similar to what you said. I step back. Like, a lot of the time when me and Henry are in a situation, we're speaking, Henry does a lot of the talking and I sit back and kind of take it in. So assess it. Can we control this situation or control the outcome? Yes. Right, what do we need to do? I'm quite like pragmatic. Yeah, the word. Like, that's how I think about things, black and white. I don't really get emotional about stuff like with work. So if anyone was in the situation we're in, or we're in, starting your own business, just take the emotion out of every decision you make. Because when it comes to people, yes, these emotions are not robots, but decisions on clients, candidates, that sort of thing, it's black and white.

I think the best thing you can do, and I think— I don't know about you guys, but it's a constant journey as well, is like you can sometimes fall into like you almost feel like your business is you, if you get what I mean, like it's your identity.

Yeah, yeah.

So like if, if Talk Consulting have had an absolute mega month, you're absolutely score high, but then if you have a shit month, you feel shit.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And it's trying to get better at disassociating yourself with like, no, no, when talking to someone who's doing well, that doesn't mean like that's me doing really well. I don't know, just getting better at that. Do you know what I mean?

Something we've got a lot better at is like grounded, isn't it? So, and I think, you know, Harry's definitely helped me with this in terms of being, like you say, more pragmatic, probably more, more less emotional to situations because at times we've let outside situations affect us, and then all it does in the long run is just waste more time.

Yeah.

And that's really— you look back on it and you go, all right, we've just wasted loads of time on that, which we didn't need to do. So I think, like you say, having that ability just to take the emotion out of it and, okay, everything's going well, how do we make it better? Or how do we do that again?

It's like the first time a client didn't pay and we were so annoyed, angry, like it affected us. Low. We drove—

German— we, we went—

yeah, we drove there.

How long How long was it overdue?

Oh, like they just, no, it was overdue and then they refused to pay and I was like, you can't. Absolute rats. And they were like, we know you're not a big business, so, you know, good luck trying to sue us.

Really? Yeah, probably not the best idea. We got in a car and drove down there.

And what was the plan when you got there?

Well, it was like an hour and 20 minute drive. We just drove.

I don't know. We're just going to confront the MD. I don't know how that was going to go.

And you just said like, how would that go?

Yeah, you go. Here you go, boys.

Well, we rocked up. HR came and met us and intercepted us in the foyer. And then we got to speak to them and then we got escorted off site. He just hid in his room.

So we wasted roughly 4 hours, 2 hours driving there, maybe half an hour there.

Yeah. And then it affected the whole week because we were angry about it. But then now if that happens, pass it and it's got to go to the legal people.

Pass it on. Let me know when it's done. Yeah.

We'll move on. Yeah. You don't need to be driving down to people's houses to see where people work.

Is that sometimes people don't, people underestimate, I suppose a lot of people where how long it, because you guys now obviously did perm.

Yep.

So how long it can take for customers to pay their invoices.

Yeah, yeah, something where— that's something we're trying to drive into the team now, um, as well, um, is like payment terms really affect things much, much more widely than we have in here. We did contracts, I think we're on 7— most of our clients on contract were on 7-day payment terms in our old business, um, or 2 weeks, wasn't it? Whereas now with some of the larger companies, because, because Now permanent recruitment, a lot of the big companies run purchase orders. You're talking like 30, 60-day payment terms. Realistically, if they've got a month's notice period or a 3-month notice period and then 60-day payment terms, you're not getting money for 3 to 5 months. So that, going back to your question you said earlier actually, in terms of planning for the business, that's another thing in terms of having more money in the bank because you could do a deal on your first day, but it might not pay for 3 months.

What's ended up being the realistic average payment if you do a perm deal? What's ended up being like the average of like, obviously the best customers and the right customers will probably pay exactly when you want them to.

We've got a client who pays early and we love them.

To be fair, we're pretty good on payments.

What's ended up being like the average amount of time?

20, 21 days.

Yeah, that's good insight for people.

Yeah, we send all of our terms at 14-day payment terms. Most of our clients are brilliant. And yeah, our average payment term is 21 days. We obviously sometimes clients will ring and go, God, we've missed you on the pay run. Sorry, can we do it next Friday? Yeah, that's fine. But it's just about having that relationship with clients and, you know, understanding that, you know, it's not just the engineering director or the MD you deal with. You need to have a good relationship with finance as well so that when things are going wrong or they've missed something, you can just ring up and speak to them and you've spoke to them before.

Person on the front desk.

Yeah.

You've got to have a good relationship. Whoever that is, you've got to know their name, be nice to them because they'll sort it out for you.

So let's talk about this second year then and then we'll get into the most recent, the year just gone. Uh, because the second year was COVID. So what I wrote down, yeah, preparing for this, obviously ended up, uh, 4 of you by the end of 2021. Yeah, I've got here. And then I think, why don't we just start with— so let's just, um, frame up and then you can add any more context. But obviously, so you did manufacturing and engineering.

Yeah.

And basically for you guys, that, like you, you said to me, Harry, on the call, like you had what, like 10, 14 jobs or whatever, and then it was like, yep, rubbing— literally just rubbed everyone off the board.

Literally.

And then you, um, you guys basically had a certain time period where you had like 18 grand or something, um, and in that time, back to like what you were saying, what can I control, you basically ended up focusing on a new market that ended up sort of, yeah, being absolutely crucial. Yeah, tell us a bit about that story because I think that just showcases like the journey of having your own business and what it takes and, and what you have to— yeah, the type of mindset you have to have.

Yeah, so I think everyone now that is gonna— that will listen to this and think I'll start a recruitment company— things like COVID can happen. Like, 2 years ago, we'd never thought a pandemic shuts down the world and you gotta stay in your house.

Like, remember we were in the— we were in that shared office, weren't we? And everyone was like, oh, the country's gonna go into lockdown. I remember stood up, there's been like 40 people there, and I was just like, can everyone stop panicking? It's physically, financially not viable for the country to shut down. The following day I was sat at home and And Boris was on TV and said that we can't leave the house, and I was like, oh God.

But the thing is, you can't really prepare for that. There's nothing you can do. If we weren't in a position where we'd done well in year one and not been like frivolous with the money or anything, it would have gone tits up. There's nothing you could do about it, because especially in our market, manufacturing, you can't manufacture anything from home, I mean. So with that, again, it was a case of that day, it was the day after Boris did the announcement, so it was the Tuesday, I think. We were in the off— we, we're still going in, we went to the office and we just rubbing all the, all the jobs off. They're ringing up, what, like we're closing down? Yep, sorry, whatever. And then yeah, we went home, got a bit sad for a few days, and then we just said, right, because again, we couldn't get any of the grants, we couldn't get any of the help. No one's going to come to help us. Like, no one— there isn't a white horse coming over the hill, is there, to help us? We've just got to— who is open? What can't shut? So we're like, uh, FMCG, food production, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. They can't show up. I'm like, so what we're going to go for? Everyone was going for food production, so you literally like— that was saturated. So it's like, let's try pharmaceuticals, let's have a go. We have no idea about it, never worked a pharmaceutical job, but if you stick to your like your training recruitment, so good qualifications, like confident phone manner and stuff like that, you can kind of wing your way through it. So no, it's not the best advice, but It's more, again, we took the emotion out of it. We thought if we don't make X amount of money in the next few months, that'll be it. The bank— because we didn't get— I'm not even— we got nothing.

Yeah, because you only like a year in.

Yeah, a year in.

You don't qualify for anything.

Yeah, we're in a shared office. We didn't qualify for the grant. We didn't get the self-assessment one because we hadn't done a self-assessment at this point. There was a bursary grant at Manchester City Council. We didn't, they obviously only could give it to like 400 companies. We didn't get it. So I said to Harry, we were like, there is nothing. And to be fair, we could have, you know, we'd built up a decent buffer where we had two options, didn't we? We said to ourselves, we either shut down, we go and just, and we just don't do anything for a few months. We reduce all the bills to the best we can. And I think we said we could get through like if it was going to go on for like 10 months. So I said, right, we're sorted then, or we use this as an opportunity because I always, I'm a big believer in adverse situations, opportunity arises. And we tapped into a market which now is like 40 to 45% of the business is revenue comes from a market which started in COVID.

That's my girl.

And it's one of my favourite markets to work as well because I like the pharmaceutical medical device industry is super interesting. For like, I'm a bit of a geek anyway, so it's super interesting for like nerdy people who want to know about stuff. But also there isn't a low fee. It doesn't matter whether you work entry-level stuff, all the fees are really, really good and you're well respected. And that's something that we've found at times in engineering doesn't necessarily happen.

Yeah, I think what we learned in COVID, like the mindset shift, um, has shaped us for the next— like, I don't think we'd be the same company.

No.

If that hadn't have happened, because everything was going too well. We didn't know how to deal with, like, adversity, really, did we? Because we'd do a deal, get a job, do a deal, get a job, do a deal.

We didn't—

it was going too well.

We didn't have—

was it—

we don't have dropout until 2 years. We didn't have a— so we didn't have a single dropout. In 2 years, which is just— like, we were— I remember we were sat there going, like, we were looking on, on Mincheri and all the placements were still all running. And we were like, ha, like, that's, like, that's an impressive stat. We were like, this is— this shows that we, we are doing the right thing. Obviously, as the business grows and you employ people and, and things happen, and obviously now that isn't the case. But I think, um, yeah, the second year was the best year of Talk Consulting, not necessarily from financials and growth, etc., but it was in terms of how the business is going to go forward. And like you say, we are a much more structured business. We have a much more clear vision in terms of where we want to go, but we're also much better directors.

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 just, just, I think this would be practical for people, and then let's go into— yeah, I think then let's start talking about that, how, how you feel about the business now, the things that you've integrated in the business and all that. But I guess looking back, maybe, Harry, I'll ask you, like, a lot of people— and you'll be helping your team now build new markets, start new markets— I know it was very much like, well, we've got to do it, otherwise this is an opportunity. But like, looking back, what, what do you think you did well to like then that become like 40, 50% of your business? Like, if we're thinking of building markets, yeah, I don't know, principles to doing that well, do you think that that could be helpful for people?

Yeah, so stick to the basics. Um, Henry's, as he said on that call to you, he's obsessed with Elon Musk. So yeah, we have a big thing of the best part is no part. So you stick to your basics in terms of Get a good MMC, marketable candidate, take it to market. Keep it simple. Don't— you don't need to be doing— well, I know recruitment's evolving and changing, but there's people who will spend however long on a LinkedIn post or, I don't know, a video on, um, what's that software called? Yeah, Interview, or one of them. Um, doing all that. If you're building a market that's like the sexy stuff that comes later. Stick to the basics, the foundations, good qualifications. Make sure you're asking that extra question, um, questions that you might not really like the answer to. Make sure they're asked. Retain all the information. Take them to market. That, that's my best advice. I know it's not like too groundbreaking, but that's, that's the, that is—

yeah, but we—

that's how we work. That's how we won in, in the, the life sciences division. And obviously we're not saying We own the life sciences division market, but we got into one of the most prestigious companies in the UK through Harry filling a position that they had open for 9 months. Harry filled it in 2 weeks. And we told you about this on the call. They physically couldn't understand how their 7 other recruitment agencies they were working with at the time, they now only work with us, couldn't fill this position. Harry filled it in 2 weeks. They gave us another vacancy 3 days later. We filled that again inside 2 weeks. They're now, their process now in-house is that every vacancy has to be filled inside 4 weeks. Before that, they gave themselves 6 months to fill a vacancy.

Wow.

So we came in, we set a process with them. We've now identified all of the recruit, you know, the recruitment process and how we do it and how we can integrate into their business. They now see the value of that because their managers are spending so much less time off the job recruiting than they were before. So they're, you know, they're making more money even though they're spending more money. Which, you know, in a roundabout way is, is what, what recruitment is about. It's about improving, increasing their, the capacity of what the managers can do in terms of their day-to-day job while reducing time off it, and then like balancing the cost. And that's what we do.

You need to understand the value that you add. Yeah, because if you don't understand it as a recruiter, you're not going to be able to put like, give the message over to your client. Um, like I still get calls from recruiters that haven't looked at LinkedIn trying to get me jobs in call centres and stuff. So, and I think that's great, but this was, this is a shocking phone call. I'm going to be nice to you because I understand the position you're in, but you've got to understand where your value is. We know that when Torque Consulting or our consultants call a client and get a meeting and speak with the hiring manager, what we offer, what we're good at, they might say, can you do X, Y, and Z? No, can't do that because that's not what we do. This is what we do. This is what we're good at. This is how it's going to save you time, money, anything like that. And it's crystal clear then. And there's no muddying the water. Everyone's happy.

It's crazy how many consultants actually don't know the answer to that question.

Yeah.

Or at least they don't get told it a lot. I think looking like, and if you think about it, A lot of people are shit scared of doing BD. I think that is part of it.

Yeah, definitely.

Put clients on a pedestal.

100%.

Don't realise actually the value that they're given. If you can actually help people really truly understand that, they're going to be more confident going into those conversations.

100%. Clients, clients are— BD is the best part of recruitment. And I don't care whether you're a delivery consultant or you do candidates only. If you go on a good client meeting, and you win the client over and you come back, there isn't a better feeling. I don't think— like, we went, we took one of our consultants who's transitioning from delivery to 360, booked a first meeting, big engineering company. I couldn't believe she booked the meeting. They were like, no, we want you to come on site. What do you see this? I was like, wow, George, you've done that really— this is impressive work. Went on site yesterday, she loved it. Yeah, she's like, now she's like, oh, I just want to do BD. I'm like, Yeah, because it's addictive, isn't it? Like it's because it's different to candidates because you're turning a situation where you might not win or shouldn't always win into a situation where you win. And that inner, like competitive nature, entrepreneurial spirit, whatever you want to call it, is the thing that keeps us all alive, isn't it? Where you go into a situation where you're up against it, you've never met these people, they might not like you, you've got to negotiate and you come out the other end and everything's agreed.

It's like That's good. So let's talk about the third year and then like more recent, right? So I guess let's just, with you guys being honest today, just I guess what we could say that when you've really grown up as business owners maybe and like taking the things that you've learned. So you shared with me, again correct me if I'm wrong here, but yeah, showed you end of third year you did just under 800K revenue and you had, and then you're all about 9 people today.

Yeah, yeah.

Obviously, and then I know you have goals to break the million this year, right?

Yeah. So we're 10 heads now, aren't we? So yeah, we're just—

Oh, sorry, dropped that in there. There's 10 of you now, yeah.

First time been in double figures, innit?

Yeah, yeah. I think for us this year was like an investment year, wasn't it? We sat down and we do every year, we sit down and we plan now for the future year, we do. And we set time aside for that. And I think we said that we wanted to invest a significant amount of time into the staff that we have. And I think sometimes companies get, what's it like, pride gets in the way sometimes and you think, oh, I need to, we need to grow and we need to grow and we need to grow and we need to hire more people because that looks good. Forget what other people think. What you need to do, what we said to ourselves, didn't we, is we want to invest our time into the staff we have so that we get them to a point where they're billing consistently, but not only consistently, they're achieving the targets that they want to achieve. People are motivated via different things, and especially in recruitment now, it's definitely modernised a lot more in terms of it's not just commission, lunch clubs, and holidays anymore. There's so many other incentives that people want that you can give to people. So we sat all of our guys down at the start of the year, didn't we? And we did like a financial planning with them and what they want to achieve and what they want to buy and how we're going to do that. And we implemented that into the business. And me and Harry were very conscious that we were not going to grow the team. Until we got that core group to where they wanted to be because we believe in the group that we have. And that's something that over the third year in the business we worked really hard on, which, yes, stifled growth in terms of headcount, but the company in terms of efficiency now is much better. And then we have redundancy in the business where we can come away to London today and we know that the office is going to be run and there's going to be, you know, no one's, no one's not gonna know what to do or have someone to speak to or, you know, are gonna get lost. And that, that for us is like now where we're next year going to be able to really sort of drive forward the growth because we have that foundation.

So because my question was going to be, and you sort of answered it, definitely one of the ways in terms of financial planning with the team, really understand what they want, decide that you're going to reinvest in the team. But my question was going to be like, what, what else do you feel like the decisions you made that have made you more grown up now in business or things you've integrated. So that's— I don't know if you want to add anything, Harry, in terms of you think that maybe, yeah, things that you've really decided to do that you think, you know what, that was a good decision, or I'm really pleased that we've then ended up doing that.

Yeah, so it kind of links in with what Henry said, but I'll go into a bit more detail. So we used— and we can admit, me and Henry can admit that we get a lot of stuff wrong. Um, we used to set goals and incentives and achievements that we like. And then, yeah, yeah. And then, and then I think, well, we've got two 21-year-old girls in the team. They don't want to go do what I want to do. So that, that meeting that we have, it's— we literally plan to the penny. How much money do you want to earn a year to be happy? Almost obviously money shouldn't be— no, no, don't say to me 100 grand. Okay, why? But if you're happy with earning 80 grand, let's see what we've got to do. And we've, we've always been big on ratios, but we really pushed it this year, haven't we? Like, everyone fills out their, um, ratios for the month and we get an average. So once we— let's, for example, Ben says I want to earn X a month. Okay, cool, we can sit and literally break it down. You need to send 23 CVs to job and you will achieve that. Like, data, our data, um, like management has just gone through the roof. But, um, I think I'm pleased that we did the kind of surveys and the financial planning meeting with the team because it's not like a dictatorship of me and me and Henry sit there and go Bill, Bill, Bill. Yeah, we want to go to a beef or something when the guys, I don't know, want to save up for a house with a boyfriend or, I mean, something like that. So yeah, knowing, knowing the team on a really personal level, they're not just kind of a number on a spreadsheet. I know we're a small team, but it's like a little family, isn't it? Almost like they can talk to us about everything. So really, really focusing on the people. You know, is what was done this year. So year 1 was just get cash in the bank. Year 2 was survive COVID, wasn't it? Get through the other side. And year 3 has been foundational. Yeah, building the core.

Yeah, you've really committed to processes. Like, what I love about what you just said, it may sound like really boring or like, I don't know, I don't know, people almost like make people scared of the word KPI now and stuff, don't they? But because of the world that I'm in, one of the biggest challenges that I always hear from recruiters when we're sort of onboarding them, talking about their learning and stuff, is like time management. And actually what that means, what they're actually saying is like, I've— there's a lot of stuff that I need to manage and I don't know what to prioritize. But when you make it— when you sit down with your manager and you know, one, what your big goal is and why that's important to you, and then you really make it really simple, like from how you're performing at the moment, if you do these each month, it should mean that you hit your goal. And then you've just made it really easy and simple and understand— for them to understand.

Yeah.

And in recruitment you can end up just getting lost in all this different stuff. So that's what I love about that. A lot of— sometimes recruiters actually need that. Like if they just have complete clarity on this is what I'm aiming for, if I do this, then I should be in a good position. But a lot of people don't have that. Do you know what I mean? So I think that's a great insight.

Like we do that, we do that in our recruitment as well, don't we? Like in our process, we say to people like, just make each of the processes as simple as possible and therefore you can— you're going to have better results. We were saying this on the call to you, I think. You know, something that happens is people overcomplicate things further down the line because they feel like they have to in order to be more senior or to have done anything for longer. You need to make the process more complicated. And that's why, like, our mantra is like, not different, just better. And that's true. Just do all those sections better and you will have better results.

I love that. I've got two more things before we finish on, actually. Definitely want to talk to you about the journey with the US so far this year, because I think a lot of people have taken on that journey. But I guess Let me just ask you, uh, just quickly. I know, like we said about some of the— you touched on it, but I know that one of your biggest challenges— we just spoke about some of the great things you've ended up implementing, but it has been hiring.

Yeah.

And it's just obviously just always— it's just ironic in that, that, yeah, do recruitment and it's hard for yourself. But like, what have we got to share on this for people? Like, what have— I think what you shared with me on the call was you've now really ended up committing to people that don't have recruitment experience, or maybe not loads of recruitment experience. So I don't know what you want to share on this, on like the real pains you've had to go through on hiring for your business and why that's been difficult.

Yeah. So I think we took to hiring like anyone would take to hiring. Let's look for someone who's done this job before, integrate them into our team, show them our processes and they're going to succeed. That is not the case. And naive again. Yeah, really naive. One, that, you know, necessarily, I think experienced recruiters can be quite, you know, are notoriously more difficult because, you know, they have their own way of doing things and, you know, you don't want to teach them to suck eggs and you want to give them that respect, but also integrate them into your business. So we made a conscious decision maybe 18, no, 14 months ago-ish. We are only going to hire people now who, unless we personally know them who have got no experience. And we look for, we look only as well on now for people with like that, that attitude and willingness to learn in an interview. And, and that, that like the, the personality traits of ability to adapt, don't we? The same thing that I said at the start. Yeah, because you can't, you cannot, um, unfortunately, if they're a grad or have never done recruitment before, what can you ask them in an interview which is going to tell you that they can do recruitment? There is nothing. So you're hiring 100% based on do I believe this person can do the job? Do I want to invest money in them? That's all you can hire on. So we've made our recruitment process dead simple. Our interviews probably last, the actual interview probably lasts 20 minutes. We then get them to sit with a team for a bit and see what the team think of them because that's massive, like the cultural impact of people. And yeah, hiring has been very difficult, but you have to understand with that way of hiring, you are going to hire people that are not going to work out. And I think something that we struggle with at times, isn't it, is, is cutting people early enough because they're saying we spend a lot of time with people. We're a smaller company. It's then difficult to go, right, well, this person isn't working out, but let's invest a bit more time into them. Even though, you know, 6 weeks before you sack them that they, they couldn't do the job. You should have. So I think hiring is, is the most difficult thing in recruitment. in terms of running a recruitment business and retain and like and finding good, good candidates to come. But when you do, we retain them like, and you will, and you have to, you know, you have to retain good, good talent.

Yeah, invest in them.

All right, what would say you're, from your perspective and your experiences, were some of the biggest hiring mistakes you've made like internally?

Um, we used to try and, I think, because I can admit we were pretty bad at interviewing at the start. Um, we almost tried to make it like a lads' club, didn't we? We were trying to get that typical recruiter personality, even with some of the girls we, we hired. And it— we're all there for the wrong reasons. Um, I think everyone we've got now, their personalities are completely different, but they're all friends. So I think we've nailed it with these guys. But the challenges for me is because it's, because it is grad recruitment and like Henry said, they can't, they can't tell you anything of substance really. Like I can do this, I can do this. You are just rolling a dice and you need to separate from do I like this person or is this person going to be good for my business? Like I think we've sat in interviews before and we've told the guy like, mate, we really like you and everything, but we're not— don't think it's going to work. But 12 months ago, we'd have been scared, like probably more than 12 months, 18 months ago, 2 years ago, we'd have been worried about offending them, like thinking I actually just would go for a pint with this guy. I don't actually want in, in the business sort of thing, but it's— it comes with reps. Doing loads of interviews. Um, and the big thing since we introduced the team, um, like meeting them at the end, we literally get them all in at the same time. Literally everyone crams into the boardroom. That has been a big insight because we've gone, oh, we really like this guy, I really like this guy. Then he meets the team and they've all gone, he didn't ask us anything, they have no questions to ask us. So it's like, that's, that's your team.

So that's a red flag.

Yeah, are you going to work with them sort of thing? And Yeah, I can admit we, we've got it wrong big time a few times, but we're much more, um, kind of self-aware of this ain't working. And to be fair, there's only— there haven't been that many people that we've had to part ways with who've been annoyed about it. No, like, people normally— it's like pretty amicable, like, yeah, it's probably the right decision. So they respect it. So I feel like we've built a nice kind of, we're just on environment. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's all just built on honesty. So honest with yourself that like I knew Henry is better at interviewing than me because I can just sit there a bit monotone staring at them across the desk and probably not that welcoming. But I've got better. I used to just sit back and stare at them and like watch and that used to put people off.

I love that.

But yeah. Um, it's just reps. Gotta keep doing it. Um, it's hard, but if you're hiring for a position, just book out a day, get a full day of interviews in. By the last few interviews, you're, uh, you're a monster.

I think people like— some, some recruiting companies sometimes, and managers are afraid of like giving like hiring responsibility away or taking other people's opinion. Like, we really value the opinion that the team has, and we've, we've had— we've sat with people that were like, wow, they could be a really good recruiter. And then the team will come in and the team, like you say, don't get the right feeling or they don't ask the right questions or they say something stupid because they all of a sudden, the interview, whatever it is, the interview suit or whatever you want to put, mask comes off because they're speaking to the team like, well, he's not going to make the decision. And it's one of the best things I've ever done.

Yeah, fair. So who's been heading up US then?

Haz.

Haz. All right. Let's, I think it's definitely, let's sort of wrap this up here on your journey and we'll talk about what you guys are excited about. But but it's definitely been a real trend I've found over the last like year, 2 years. A lot of UK recruitment companies that I know and speak to have, yeah, committed to just doing the US or start to build out in the US. So I guess— so I wrote down that you've been doing it from June. Yeah, this year.

Yeah, we've gone kind of full-time with it now. I, I've neglected it in terms of I pass over my UK patch to one of the guys. Thought, right, let's do this. And then we needed to be back on UK, so I've been flicking in and out, but we're on it now. It's been a culture shock.

What's been the main differences that you picked up on?

So the— what shocked me a little bit is like the Americans, like loyalty to their employer. Like everybody's open to work, everyone will speak to recruiter, which is good for me. Um, no one's ever had a bad interview. They're unbelievably polite. Um, so then you can't really gauge, oh, has it gone well? Do you like this?

Right?

Not— so that's a bit of the culture shock because everything's super positive all the time. I'm like, yeah, but is there anything that you would want to be different? No, it's amazing, it's all good. And then don't hear from them again. So there obviously was something there. Like that, that was, that was wrong. Um, yeah, that, that's the main one. They, from a client perspective, I'm finding that it's almost like a lot of companies don't really understand what we do. So it's like, what, so I'm paying you to post a job advert and you're gonna just forward me the people? Like, no, no, I've got a network of people that I can find and reduce the time and all this, and Once you explain it to them, they love it. Well, it's just been the cultural difference. I think some people are just sometimes just speaking to me because they've heard an English voice.

Really? They think, oh, I'll sit on the phone for 20 minutes with this guy.

And I'm off the phone to Henry like, we're 20% exclusive, balls in, get the terms out. Never heard from the guy again.

Yeah, I've definitely heard this from other people. Yeah.

They also sell, don't they? They like, they're unbelievable. Like, they're great at selling themselves as well. 'cause we do engineering in the US, the same markets we do in the UK, they sell themselves like hard to you. Like that I think is when I've helped you on a couple of jobs by identifying like their key skills and then their like key achievements under those skills is impossible to at times because they will tell you everything you wanna hear. Whereas in England, it's all, or not in England, should I say, but in the UK recruitment market in engineering, it's a lot easier to weed the ones out that are telling you complete rubbish to the ones that aren't.

Yeah, yeah.

How quickly did it take you to like sign terms with a client, or like what was the, what was the strategy, what was the approach?

Did you focus on a particular state, or, uh, yeah, so we, we focused on Texas, like, so Austin, uh, San Antonio, and Houston are kind of in like a, almost like a triangle. It's like 300-mile triangle or something. So we tried there first, um, Got a few bites in terms of terms out the door. That's another thing that I noticed. They'll agree terms with you all day, whereas someone in the UK or Europe or Asia wouldn't. If they didn't need it, they wouldn't. These guys will agree terms all day, but there's nothing— there's not a lot, always some follow-up. So yeah, so we started with Austin. Obviously, it's one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, isn't it? Um, obviously got Tesla, SpaceX, all that. Everyone seems to want to get out of there, which I know is not good for you, you know, upsets you, that, don't it? But yeah, um, yeah, so we wanted to do a lot of renewables. So again, another new market within Torque. I thought we need recession-proof industries in case— because I know there's, there's all the news about— yeah, it's on its arse, isn't it? Everything's on its arse, but we've not really been affected yet. But, um, we're always just conscious now because of COVID So we wanted recession-proof, um, market. So we've gone, we've gone for renewables. It's been a slow burner, um, and then we've hopped on our bread and butter of manufacturing as well. So we've got, we've got some bits on, um, I actually got an exclusive design engineer the other day, so I've got to run into work. That when I get back.

Have you done a deal yet or not? No, not yet, not yet.

How long are you going to give it?

Because I think sometimes people are like, how long should I give it?

To be honest, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, we say, yeah, Talk Consulting US started in June, properly working it this month.

Yeah, yeah, it was that—

it was last 2 weeks. Like, I've actually like worked the jobs. All right, yeah. So, um, we'll do a placement this month. We'll get, we'll get, we'll get it done this one. The average fee over there is kind of It's much higher. Yeah, north.

What were we saying? Because I think that's good insight for people. So what average deal size in the UK for you guys in manufacturing is what?

Oh, that's difficult.

Um, white collar, white collar engineering, you're going to be anywhere from £6,000 to £9,000.

And what we're saying in the US, it's $20,000 to $40,000. Right, okay. Yeah, that's mad, isn't it? But what keeps you like dollar to a pound, pretty much?

And the exchange rate them in, like, that's what I'm saying.

Come on, son.

I would say to, um, if anyone like is starting a recruiting company is going to jump onto the US, their notice periods are 2 weeks, 1 week and 2 weeks. So people move quick. So it's, it's a short sales cycle for a lot of gain, but just be prepared if it goes the other way for you. Yeah, you just got to be resilient and move on with it sort of thing, because I think you put your head in a pillow for a little bit for a 25K drop.

Yeah, I've spoken to a lot of people about this, and I think sometimes there's this perception online that The people share that, like, are people making out like the US market is easy?

No.

Like, my view on that is like everything you just said there, it's just there's still challenges, it's hard, but the reward is just higher. Yeah. And that's as simple as it. Like, no one's saying it's easier. It is challenging, there's nuances, it's hard, but actually the reward is just higher.

But it's super saturated. The US market is super saturated.

What, the US or UK?

The US. You think UK is saturated? The US market is saturated.

Everyone you speak to Oh, I'm speaking to XYZ. I think they're in London.

Oh, I've heard the opposite. Oh no, maybe, I don't know, maybe just because of how big the US is.

Yeah, but compared to when you look at, when you look at the map of the US, you've got obviously your East Coast with New York and, um, things like that. That's a lot of construction. Yeah, have you there? Florida's a lot of construction. Then there's Texas, this sort of middle bit. Obviously Chicago, which is, um, Detroit, sorry, it's, um, automotive and stuff, isn't it? And then it's— then there's a big desert, and then, then it's like California and that. So it's massive, but some of the states are pretty quiet, like there's not much industry in the United States, but it's very concentrated. Yeah, but if you're, if you're in tech, if you're a tech recruiter, then America's just going off, I would have thought.

So let's wrap this up then, boys. Henry, what are we excited about, mate? Because I feel like you guys have been real ones today, been on a real journey, but I feel like, yeah, I definitely feel really excited for the future. What are we excited about?

Yeah, I'm just excited to like continue learning. For me, I think it's been the best thing that I've ever done. And I would never tell anyone not to do it. It's been unbelievable. But in terms of what we're really excited about for the future, I'm excited for the development of the US. One of the guys in the team already wants to transition into the US, so we're going to let him do that with Harry. Really excited to see how that comes. Obviously, from a growth perspective, we've got big plans for 2023 in terms of what we want to achieve. And yeah, it's just that, it's that like ruthlessness now and focus and drive to make it happen, which I'm laser focused on. And this time next year excites me a lot in terms of where the company can be and and where everyone will be.

Yeah.

Harry, what are you excited about, mate?

Breaking that million pounds.

Feels like a big one, doesn't it? That one million pounds. That sounds good, doesn't it? With the family and friends.

Yeah.

Done a million last year.

We've done that, haven't we? We were like, oh, we'll have our first like 10K month and then we'll have our first 50K month. You know, and you have these little like revenue things, but that, yeah, 7-figure business.

Yeah, we've got some branding, a decanter waiting for that. Yeah, do doing that. And the team, the teammate, the team we've got right now, I'm really, I really, really love them all. Like, it's like I can actually see them all being top billers. Like, for example, one of the lads, Ryan, he's just steadily just going like that. Georgia, on this meeting the other day, this is a girl who the first day she chucked her headset off because she's so scared And when someone answered the phone, she booked a meeting with a multimillion pound company. And the others are just all rockets as well. So I can just see them all being a bit of a lion pit by this time next year. And then it's the standard for everyone then.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. So going to be a good one.

Harry Henry, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you for having us.

Cheers. Thank you.

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