How To Stand Out in Today's Market: Business Development Strategies with Oliver Legg

If you're not doing something that stands out and gives hiring managers a reason to talk to you and genuinely sets you apart from other recruiters that are probably just as good as you, then they're not going to talk to you. And there's very few people that actually have something that's a genuinely unique talking point.

Welcome back to another episode of the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. I'm your host, Hishem Azzouz. On this week's episode, I was joined by Oliver Legg. He's one of the co-founders of a recruitment business called Aspirin Search. So first year he did $1.2 million income, second year was $1.35 million, and you end the second year around like 5 people around that. They specialize in the cybersecurity space, and I've known Oliver for a little while. I've really respected the journey that they've been on over the last 2 years, and in those 2 years, this is what they've been able to achieve so far. They entirely focus on the US market and have done that from the very beginning. So go into the details on how they've gone about that. So we talk about their BD strategy that has really enabled them to hit those sorts of numbers, which has really paid off for them. And Oliver gives some really good examples in this conversation as well. What characteristics and traits do you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in today's market?

All the reasons that people always give on here are like 100% right, but like what we were really trying to do now is find people that have the—

let's get into this week's episode. Oli, welcome to the Podcast.

All right, good to be here, especially the, the week of your rebrand as well.

Yeah, it's exciting. Um, thanks for making the trip, I appreciate it. Yeah, obviously we've spoken a few times. Um, obviously spoken to, uh, Joe as well, so I've enjoyed seeing, you know, the journey that you guys have gone on. Um, I'm really excited to talk today about this 2-year entrepreneurial journey that you and Joe been on and building your recruitment business together. So I guess just to give everyone listening some immediate context of, you know, where you're at, because what we're going to focus on today is very much the last 2 years, um, although you've been in recruitment for, uh, you know, over 6 years. So first year, which would have been, um, yeah, so first year in business— or you do it in dollars, don't you? Because you only do everything in the market, everything in dollars. Uh, so first year you did $1.2 million in net fee income, um, and it was all like you said, like 99% perm, right?

Yep.

And then second year, uh, was $1.35 million net fee income, um, and you end the second year around like 5 people, um, around that, uh, 6 people. Yeah, yeah, um, and yeah, that was, uh, that in terms of net income. And then I guess the other thing, so is it's all still very much perm We did our second contract placement this week. Okay, so okay, starting to build up.

Yeah, yeah, massive contract book.

Um, you've, you've always and only do the American market? Yep. And that's not like just the East Coast, it's like you do everything US?

Yeah.

Um, and yeah, all PAM as I said, and your, you know, niche is cybersecurity?

Yeah.

All right, well, let's have some fun then. Let's, um, let's first start with like, you know, what you really would have had to think about when hiring for your business. Like, what, what characteristics, characteristics and traits do you believe make up a highly successful recruiter in today's market?

So all, all the reasons that people always give on here are like 100% right. So the, the biggest one's always what? Resilience, work ethic, intelligence, um, like emotional intellect. And it's all, all 100% right, but Like, what we were really trying to do now is find people that have the underlying drive and mission focus that enables them to come back day after day doing this job. Because yeah, like, recruitment can be shit sometimes. There's a lot of hours in the day, even the good days, where it's hard. And if you're not driven to really do, like, big things, then there's much easier ways to make, like, £50,000-£60,000, right? Whereas if you're mission-focused on— it could be anything. It could be some people just want to be dripping in like designer gear, some people want to have nice cars, nice houses, um, some people just want to make sure they're providing for their family, their wives never have to work so they can look after their kids. Like, that's my personal goal for my wife, to be able to always look after my, my children, and that's what she's fully on board with as well. Um, and some people just want to retire early, and like, recruitment's that job where it can make all that happen in a really short time frame. But only if you've got the underlying goal to have resilience and to have that, that, the, that, that intellect to be able to do it. So I think it's, uh, everything else can be taught as long as people have the underlying drive to, to make it happen.

And what sort of questions do you ask to get to find out if people have that?

We've got to go deep because everyone say, yeah, you say, oh, what, what are you doing it for? And everyone's like, oh, I want to have loads of money, I want to not worry, like I want to buy a house. That's like the de facto answer. And I think it's about going it's just going that level deeper and understanding, okay, but why and what, and have you actually thought through what you need in order to do that? Whereas if it's just, oh yeah, I want to buy a house, it's just, it's that easy answer, right? Whereas if they're like, yeah, I want to do this, I need this amount of money, this is how long I want to do, want, need until I do it, it's like, okay, this person's like, they're, they've properly thought it through. Yeah, it's like a genuine answer rather than a just easy answer to give.

So let's get into this business journey then. So correct me if I'm wrong, so you and Joe worked with each other in the previous company?

Yes, yeah, so Joe hired me as a little green-faced recruiter, resourcer.

So Joe hired you, you progressed to sales director, and then did Joe progress in that business as well, right?

Yeah, so it was, um, it was another really early stage. So Joe was the first employee of that business. Um, I joined a year later. Um, yeah, small firm, um, purely focused on the UK, uh, like technical cybersecurity market. Um, but yeah, Joe and I were kind of key parts of helping that business grow. Um, and then we just thought, you know what, we want to, want to do things our way and have our own mark on things.

And then, so why don't we just start with like how— because, because you just said that, that like what was the initial, you know, strategy for ultimately acquiring clients? Because, you know, that's going to be how you're going to be able to, um, you know, start, um, making money, working jobs, having vacancies that you can fill. So what was yours and Joe's initial plan on one, the strategy on, you know, how are we going to go about acquiring clients, what's our, you know, go-to-market strategy you know, talk to us a bit about that on like version 1 of what, what that looks like. Did you always know you was going to focus on the American market? Like, talk to us a bit about, you know, how you crafted that and what that initially looks like.

Um, so our, our initial strategy was it was always going to be US, um, because we didn't, we didn't want to get in the way of our restrictions like at all. So we were like, well, the easiest way to do that is focus on a market we've, we've never even looked at. And Joe managed to close a, a, a 5-roll retainer of— it was just shy of $140,000 $100,000 the week before our business actually was incorporated on Companies House. So we were having to hold off actually signing the contract until our business was officially a business. So yeah, like he just, yeah, incredible start in having that in literally the day one there was Roles2Work. We set out to do the same thing as before, just in the US. So kind of technical security roles. And we did that for the first kind of 6 months, well, no, 7, 8 months or so. And then We— I can't remember exactly how it happened, but it was all, it was all Joe, and he, he, he managed to build a relationship with Sequoia Capital. So like one of the biggest, most prominent VCs. Um, and then they introduced us to one of, uh, one of their, their security vendor clients, um, who were hiring for go-to-market talent. So sales, sales engineering, uh, to build their, their Northern American team. And from that point we kind of had like a, almost like a eureka moment. We were like, right, our pure BD strategy now is going to be focused around building the underlying relationships, um, that all of the hiring managers and the co-founders of these vendors, uh, the, the people they actually listen to and the people that are advising. So if we can get in and build relationships with the advisors of these vendors, then we're almost going to be the the kind of default partner. And that's the strategy we've been doubling down on ever since.

Super interesting. So it sort of happened organically?

Yeah, yeah, kind of unplanned. Never intended to have a— our business is now kind of 80-85% go-to-market focused.

Oh wow.

That was never the intention.

I thought it was all more technical roles.

Yeah, so we do a few. So we still do some like security engineering and what we call enterprise security. Which we want to build that out. But we're, yeah, we've kind of accidentally built a business around the go-to-market side. So we're just investing a lot into that.

Well, let's go into that then, because if that's been pretty pivotal and being the strategy that you double down on. So like, just for everyone listening, just to make sure that this sort of resonates and people understand. So you said there, you know, vendors, What does that mean?

So a vendor is a business that builds and then sells a technology like a tool. So they have normally a software product, often a SaaS product, and then in our world it's very specifically a cybersecurity product which they would then sell to companies.

Yeah.

Or government.

Yeah.

Given its security, we do quite a lot in the like federal, federal government space.

So what you're saying is instead of going directly to them, because you had that introduction and that success in an advisor or a, you know, a PE firm or, you know, um, that type of community, uh, introduced you to the vendor, that like— why was that, why was that such an aha moment? Was it like because you got introduced by them, they were, they like trusted you straight away was a lot more easier to negotiate, you know, good quality terms, was a lot more committed? Like, what is it that you experienced which made you go, yeah, we should only be, we should only be really trying to break into accounts this way?

So I'll talk you through the project. It was a, it was a 4, 4-headcount project, um, so 3 enterprise salespeople, uh, and then 1 enterprise sales director, um, to build out their Northern American sales team. And bearing in mind it was a, like, it was pretty high-value project, um, all retained with cancellation clauses and like a fully locked-in retain project, um, you'd expect you'd need to jump through quite a few internal hoops to get that kind of project signed off. And it was, I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was kind of a case of, oh, like, we trust you already because you've come through this recommendation.

Right.

So the VC route has been huge for us.

So is it the trust element you guys have experienced then?

That underlying trust. So we— I spoke to a CRO of one of our— it was a new— we didn't place him, but it was a new CRO of one of our clients a couple of months ago. He— we spoke to him about 10 days after he joined the firm and he said his first week he'd had— he reckoned it was about 40 to 50 different bits of outreach purely from recruiters. Wow. So you've got emails, phones, texts, WhatsApps, inmails that these guys are getting absolutely spammed by. And like, how the fuck are they going to choose someone? Like, they're probably just not. They're just going to ignore people. But who are they going to listen to? They're going to listen to their advisor, their investor, the person that's integral into their business. So if they come in and they say, oh, well, look, you need to hire salespeople, this is the firm you need to use. They're going to trust that. Um, so yeah, we've, we've— especially in the market at the moment, there's, there's so much noise. Like, all the— a lot of the 180 recruiters are now being told, well, you've got a BD target on your head, you've got to go out and do your own outreach. They may or may not have been taught how to do that properly. So what you've got is you've got a huge amount more people trying to win the roles and speak to managers than ever before. Um, and if you aren't doing anything differently, and if you haven't got like a genuine differentiator, then like how on earth are you going to shine through the noise? So I think that's really important. I think it's important businesses provide the— provide those tools to their consultants.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. So why don't we Would you mind if we just focused on the VC piece? Because that's clearly been pivotal. And then we can talk about, you know, the tools that you guys have really worked on developing in your business that you found to be really effective as you've, um, you know, um, been on this journey for the last 2 years. So you had that great experience and you're like, we have to, you know, like, this would be great if we had more introductions, more companies we could work with because they trusted us immediately. What— how did you then go about increasing the number of VCs that viewed you as their, you know, one of their recommendations or one of their trusted partners when it comes to hiring and talent and people? Like, how did you initially think about how are we going to get more VCs like that to be on board with us and introduce us? Like, what was the initial approach?

Uh, a massive slog of outreach and a massive slog of trying to get our name in front of these people, um, utilizing any, any existing relationships that we, we had. And so we, we work— I say we again, it's so, so Joe does most of the, the, the BD, um, so he focuses very, very heavily between him and I. He, he does most of the, the sales aspect. Um, he has been doing that flat out for probably a year year and a half now, um, just, just under a year and a half. And I'd say at the start of this year is when it really started paying dividends. So there was a long, long slog of just not really getting much for it and almost, almost starting to, to doubt it and, and being like, is— because they're not quick wins, um, it's not a case of I'm going to call this hiring manager and I might actually pick up a role off the back of one phone call. So it's been a lot more time investment, but just doing it remotely, I don't think would be effective. So we invest a huge amount of time and money into getting in front of these businesses. So we do multiple trips to the US, to Tel Aviv. We hold roundtable dinners with founders, with VCs. And it's, it's a case of just setting yourself aside from just cold email or phone outreach. Um, like, cold calling absolutely has its place and it's still really, really effective, but you gotta, you gotta kind of supplement it with other initiatives as well.

So what, what was Joe finding so difficult then? So are you saying there, sorry, like, you know, was he struggling to get more introductions into other vendors or You know, I was curious on like how we— like, how have you— how many other more VCs have you managed to build good relationships with?

So I'd say that now we are— we're the— in, in the cybersecurity space for go-to-market positions, I'd say we're the go-to of probably about 7 or 8 VCs now.

So what did you find most difficult to be in those rooms with those people to get the chance of being seen as the recommendation?

So it's track record, and obviously it's hard to build a track record without a track record. So it's finding one that will give you, uh, almost give you a shot. And then once you've got that, got that case study, you, you double down on it. And you, I mean, you like Crunchbase is amazing, right? Because you can go on Crunchbase and, and our Angelica, our operations lady, she's, she's building out like a Google Sheet market map, um, that literally enables us to see, well, right, we've worked with this vendor or this, this end user, whatever, whatever kind of client it is, um, who invests in them? Because normally if it's a VC-funded firm, there's— I mean, let's say they're Series B or C, like there's going to be like potentially over 10 different investors, potentially even more than that over the years that have been involved in that company. And you can then see, well, what other companies has this individual investor then been involved in. So you're then taking one, one successful project and you're able to use that as an in to potentially like multiple, multiple firms, all from one ultimate relationship that's, that's really credible because it's been involved with, with the, with the VC.

So it was the track record of Joe having like the case studies that he's done this with these other go-to-market teams, which is why you should trust us. So just had to work really hard to get a shot.

Yeah.

And then when you got a shot, you guys had to really deliver.

Absolutely. If you— so especially where now we're doing a lot more work in Tel Aviv, in Israel. So there's a huge tech and in particular a huge cybersecurity community in Israel. But it's an awesome area to work because everyone knows everyone and everyone has an underlying trust of each other because they've all come out of the military together. But the moment you do something wrong or the moment you fail on a project, it also spreads throughout that community. So we had a project that in hindsight we shouldn't have taken. So we had a DevOps security company that was, I think it was a director of marketing search. French, and they refused to give us manager contacts. They refused to give us a proper briefing call. Um, and I'm not— I really can't remember why we even said, oh yeah, we'll, we'll get you some resumes, but we didn't put proper effort into it. So the feedback then— and we, um, we, we tried to reference the— well, we tried to win another company, and they said, oh, what other Israeli firms have you worked with?

Oh shit.

We gave these names, said, oh well, I'll call the founder of this firm. And what does he say? He's like, oh yeah, we worked with that one, they didn't deliver. So we've now ruined— well, I wouldn't say ruined, but we've made it harder for you. We've made it so much harder to break into this other client because of a project that we didn't even put proper time into. And that then stems down to having like really, really high standards with what roles you decide to work, whether you're an individual recruiter or whether you're a business owner. And especially at the moment where like roles are not as easy to come by, like don't lower your standards in terms of what you're willing to put time into.

Yeah, and being like, they're definitely like with you, like being willing to say, well, unfortunately won't be able to work on this if we aren't able to do that. This is part of the process, an important part of it. Yeah, if they're not willing to listen to you or take your advice, then chances of filling that are going to be— it's just going to be really difficult, right? So I've sat down with, um, just final bit on the, the VC piece. So sat down with, um, a guy called Jamie Weeks, who also does similar market, and spoke about this. What he found was— I don't know if you've seen this through Joe, you and Joe spoken about it— but what he found was when he did, um, you know, get an agreement in place that they were one of the, um, companies that they would recommend from a hiring talent acquisition standpoint he thought the floodgates would be opened. It wasn't. So there's one thing, you know, being in the room and, you know, right, we're gonna— yeah, we're happy to recommend you. And then I'm assuming you guys are like, you know, you are absolutely buzzing. Guys, we just got a really big VC, you know, last year they invested in 30 different cybersecurity vendors. Like, this, this could be huge for us. And then there's just tumbleweed in terms of, you know, the the emails going, hey Joe, we've just invested in this company, or this, uh, one of our, um, you know, part of our portfolio really needs support with this. So what then had to happen to maximize relationships? Like, one, did you guys experience that? And two, you know, what has— what have you— what have Joe had to be really good at in terms of like, okay, we've worked really fucking hard to be in the room, to be recommended, now what are we doing to really maximize the opportunity that we've been given?

So then it's cultivating the relationship. So literally making sure that you're in really regular conversations with them. Again, it really ties into the events and actually seeing these people in person. So we, in Tel Aviv, we held two lunches. We did a founders lunch and then we also did a VC lunch. And we had, I think it was about 13 or 14 individual VCs from different and very high-profile cybersecurity investors. And these are companies that Joe has been in contact with for, for a long time, um, and now things are starting to happen. So this is far from a, like, get-rich-quick in recruitment BD scheme. It's not. But when it does pay off, and as I say, it's been starting to pay off the beginning of this year, it, it's, it's going to be massive. Um, so we recently got on to the— and this was off the back of two successful projects with the end vendors that we did actually win directly with the vendors themselves. So the VC wasn't involved. And we're now on what they call the platform or like the value creation platform that one of the largest corporate VCs provide to their vendors. So now when you go onto that platform because a vendor needs a service, you've got Aspron's name on there. Well, so if you need recruitment, then if you need go-to-market recruitment, these are the guys you go and speak to. So, but it takes time. We've still not had any, any, any, any value come— well, any benefit or roles come off the back of being on that platform yet, but we will. So I think the main thing is just investing in these, these longer-term strategies and just having the belief that no, they are going to pay off whilst you're also trying to do your, your kind of normal outreach and and generate, uh, direct wins as well.

That's what I was going to say, like, this— I think it's great that you've had this overarching long-term strategy which hopefully is— can you— can continue building. But what have you and Joe had to really double down on in the short term to make sure you've got cash flow and all those things going as well?

Yeah, so, um, good email sequencing. Um, so this is where just the, the, the really good sales strategies come through. So really good email sequencing Definitely heavy on the cold calling still. Like, I'm a true believer that, like, those old school sales tactics, they still work. Like, anyone that says cold calling's dead, so don't believe them in the slightest. So big, big believer in that. We are still able to have very good wins in terms of just getting directly through to founders, CROs, CMOs, and picking up roles that way. But they're more likely to have a lot more competition. So it's then whistling it down again and being like, right, well, I've won this role, but do I actually want to put time into it, or is it more worth my time to carry on searching for a better quality role that I'm more, more likely to fill? What—

so on that, like, America is so big, like, what, you know, how How did you initially have a bit of a focus or target, or did you not? Because, you know, that's why a lot of companies initially start in certain parts of the US or certain states, or, you know, like, how did you approach that? Because there is so much you can go for, like, work. Like, that surely could have been overwhelming.

Well, we were in this really fortunate and probably fairly unusual position where we had like a massive project on day one, right? So we, we already had a big focus. It was in, um, It was a company called Nuro. They have these driverless robots that drive around like Texas and California delivering like Domino's Pizza and like Kruger. So it's really, really cool. So we had a focus there straight away. So we were building their automotive security team and we then built a client base around that project.

Right. Okay.

So they were looking for remote people. I mean, they could have been in California, but they were also looking for remote people. So it gave the opportunity of, right, we're speaking to candidates from day one, so we've got people to flip on day one, right? Um, and we managed to build a decent client base off the back of that. And like, these really, uh, just, just like original recruitment strategies, they're still some of the best ways, like candidate flipping. Um, like, those are—

what, what does that mean?

So being able to speak to us, not even a senior level candidate, any candidate, and be thinking, what else can I get from this call? So what can you get? You can get referrals or you can get leads. So every candidate knows someone for some form of role that you have, whether they're actually any good or not is different, but they, they do know someone that they could recommend to you for something, and they will be able to give you a level of intel into their company, what's going on hiring, who does the hiring when they are hiring. And it's just thinking like, I can, I can get that information from every single candidate, every single conversation, and, and just, just making sure you get it. Um, and I think especially now there's so many like automation tools and so many like amazing things that recruiters have that never used to have, it's easy to get away from actually there's some really core activities that are probably the most effective ones. That a lot of people then forget to do on a, on a consistent basis.

Is there anything else that you think a lot of people forget to do?

Update the database.

Um, I mean, that— I know we laugh, right? But when you're building out, you know, a new market, you know, a new company, that's— you should be excited about that and take that seriously, right?

Absolutely. One of the, one of the biggest things, and it's become a lot more important this year, is, is just having regimentally high standards. And the database is one of those things. And, um, I think it's especially, especially new recruiters that are new to the industry, they can come say, be like, why are you on my back for updating the database? And It's a case of having, having really clear and actually accurate data. 6 months, a year down the line, you'll benefit from that. So when you need to get a manager's number instantly because you've just seen they've got a role and actually you can't because you didn't put that number on the database and now you need to search through your whole Outlook email box, your LinkedIn email box, and something that should have taken you 20 seconds has taken you minutes. And it's, yeah, it's just a case of those, those real basics. You can't build a really successful recruitment desk unless you're doing those basic things right every day.

It's a few, just a few bits on the, on the US then. Then keen to talk to you a bit about, you know, you being a business owner and how you've had to adapt there and how you've approached, you know, growing and building your, your business. Like, you've always—

so previously you'd always done the UK market We did a tiny bit of the US at the very end. Um, I think I did like 3 placements into the States. But so yeah, Joe did a few more, but very, very few.

And as I'm sure you've seen, like, there's definitely— it's definitely been really popular for over the last couple of years of UK companies doing more in the US. But what's been your experience? You've spoken a lot about, you know, BD strategies, um, you know, the experiences that you guys have had But like, what, what have you found to be different over there, if anything? Like, you just said, you know, just doing really good quality recruitment basics and these things are still so, so effective and really important. So like, what have you and Joe found to be different over there, if anything?

I, I don't think it's that different. So when you, when, when you look at people talking about it on LinkedIn, like, sometimes there's— I feel there's this misconception that, oh, I'm going to instantly start doing the US market, it's going to be way easier. I'm going to win loads more clients and I'm going to triple my fee. And like, yeah, you can triple your fee with each placement you do, but it's still hard.

It's hard.

Yeah, it's no easier, and I don't think it's any harder. It's, it's still recruitment, it's just into a brand new market. So yeah, I'm— I, I, I, I, I, I stand by it not being any different. Um, but you need— and again, this just comes back to the the current climate and the current market. Like, if you're not doing something that stands out and gives hiring managers— not so much candidates, but gives hiring managers a reason to talk to you and genuinely sets you apart from other recruiters that are probably just as good as you at delivering and finding candidates and representing people, then they're not going to talk to you. And there's very few people that actually have something that's a genuinely unique talking point. Um, but one of the tools that we, we give to, to all of our consultants is we've got a nonprofit initiative. So we're giving, um, well, we've got a mentorship and then like almost like a scholarship program, um, that's no fee attached at any, any stage of it. It's completely funded by, by us. Um, and we have cohorts of, of candidates that are trying to break into the security industry. and then we're also, uh, paying for their like 3 core, uh, cybersecurity certifications. So instantly we're able to say to— when someone asks you the question of, okay, but why are you different? I bet that most recruiters don't have a genuinely unique answer to that that doesn't rely on our database or our ability to find candidates or our work ethic. Whereas what we're able to say is, well, if you work with us, then you're actually directly funding early-stage cybersecurity careers. And you can actually, especially if you're in person when you're talking about that, you can see like a noticeable like change in people. They're like, oh, okay, wow. And it allows you that conversation. So I think the most important thing in, in today's market is making sure that you've got a, you've got something that allows you to get foot in the door. Um, because if all you're doing is sending cold calls and all you're sending cold emails and all you're doing is doing cold calls, just MPCing or just speccing in candidates, there's probably 20 other people doing the same with candidates that are just as good as yours. So you need something that allows you to stand out and allows you to get on the phone and give them— give you that time to talk about your services.

And what the other tools that you guys have found work then, besides the nonprofit mentoring? I love that initiative, that's great because it's sort of all self-serving, isn't it? It's in line with what you guys are doing, trying to get more people into the industry. I just really— it goes in line with the mission and the industry that you're serving. But obviously, what, what are the other tools that you found to be effective?

So they're the main ones, that and the VC route, um, and being able to leverage some, some really, really high-profile recommendations within the cybersecurity ecosystem. They're the biggest things.

I thought you were going to say the podcast. Completely forgot the podcast.

Yeah, I forgot about the podcast as well. Yeah, I'm sitting here in this room and I've forgotten about the podcast. Because I know you guys have put a lot of effort into that. Yeah, no, you're right. How did I miss the podcast? So yeah, the podcast has been huge. So we haven't even been doing it that long. So it was this year. I think we're at, in terms of published, I think we're like episode 30 or something. So it's not, it's not been going that long, but we've got it to the stage where we've got the PR companies that represent big security vendors, well-known security vendors reaching out to us asking to get their clients on. So we're actually getting like proactive requests for people to come on it because there's underlying business value to these people coming on our podcast. So like, we didn't expect that to happen. Like, we started it as almost like a bit of fun and to be able to have those conversations. And we're— so we're out in— I mean, we might have just got back from Vegas by the time this episode goes live, but we're out at a big security conference in Vegas at the beginning of August. And we've got something planned around the podcast for, for that week. No, but again, I won't say what it is just in case this goes out before, uh, before they go out. But we've got some, some things that just we haven't seen being done by other people because there's a lot of recruitment podcasts out there, there's a lot of really good ones. Um, so again, it's trying to think, well, what, what do I do to elevate that part? I think it's just trying to stand out at every single thing you do.

So how does that help you guys? Is it that you can reach out to people and say, hey, we've got this, would you be interested? And like, how does it work in practice? Are you making sure that, you know, every time you have maybe a prep call, you speak to them as like, this is what we do as a business, this is what we have? Like, what— how does it, how does it turn into business?

So we, we don't— so directly, we don't use the podcast as a, as a BD pitch opportunity, um, because I'm sure a lot of people do. And I think the moment you do that, it almost becomes false and it becomes, okay, so you just had an underlying agenda of having me here. It's like if after this you— I mean, maybe you're going to, but if after this you pull me into a room, you're like, right, here's a 10-minute demo on recruitment mentors, on Hexa now, sorry. But all right, so this was purely just so you can have an opportunity to pitch me to get my business. And it It almost like makes the relationship and the whole recording seem a bit false, right, if that were to happen. So that's not how we use it, but it's relationships. It's been able to know that actually I can now call you and we've done this thing together where I reckon you'll now answer a call to me and we can have a conversation where at a time it makes sense. Like we can then talk about the business side of this and we can talk about how we can have a commercial agreement. But I don't, I don't think doing it in an intake call or before or after the podcast is the right, the right thing to do.

This podcast is proudly partnered with Vincere, the all-in-one recruitment agency software that over 20,000 recruiters trust daily. We're also partnered with the award-winning 1UP Sales, the sales and motivation platform that enables you to maximize the potential of your teams. We love partnering with both of these organizations because they share our mission in helping you get the most out of your people and your business. You can get exclusive offers because you listen to this podcast and get up to 10% off the usage price forever. Use the link in the show notes to get your hands on that. Let's get back to the episode. Okay, so we've, we've, we've covered a lot of the details on like, assuming all of these types of things have equated to why you were able to do, you know, a million back to back in terms of net fee income, right? So let's just talk about how have you had to grow up as a business owner in these past 2 years, do you know what I mean? Because being an employee, you know, growing someone else's business is different to you and Joe running your own business. So I think something that you said to me on the prep call, which is quite interesting, so you said by the second year, there's like 6 of you, you said, didn't you? Right, yeah. So, so I think you said to me on the prep call, uh, you've— you, you— it was like the opposite of what I normally hear, which was— I think you said, correct me if I'm wrong— you said, I felt like I tried to get away from being in the business too quickly, and you was so set on only working on the business, whereas a lot of recruitment owners that I speak to feel like they're too much in it and want more time on it. But you sort of have had— I don't know how recent this has been, but like you were saying to me that, yeah, I think we actually went too far that way.

Yeah.

So why don't, why don't we start there? Like, what's been— yeah, like, where, where did that come from? And, you know, what, what were you trying to do, which maybe now you're actually having a bit of a different approach to?

So, so towards, well, probably middle towards, yeah, like Q3, Q4 last year, so 2022, um, we'd built a really, really strong client base. The market was absolutely flying, um, and it was a consistent client base. Um, Joe and I were very much focused on the vast majority of business we were able to pick up and we were able to win. Let's pass it straight down, right? So let's give it to our consultants, let's spread it out, and let's build the, let's build the business that way. Um, and so we, we've got a, we, um, I'm sure you know Mike Wattman, um, from, um, I can't remember the name of his, uh, what's from South. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's got a name for it though, but I can't, he'll shoot me for, for not remembering. But anyway, we've got a recruitment coach with Mike Wattman, brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Um, but I think we probably took one things he said a little bit too, too literally. Um, and in terms of the world, as a business owner, you want to concentrate on working on rather than in. And I think we just took— we took a bit too much of a step away. And the goal of being able to kind of really feed and, and, and fuel the growth by passing the roles down, I think that what that— what that probably did is, bearing in mind we've technically hired 3 people as 360 consultants is it might have created slightly the wrong mindset in terms of, oh, like, now we should be expecting these positions. Um, and we've still been able to— so, so, um, give, give a couple of examples. So, like, um, uh, so, so Tanya, one of our senior consultants, she was able to win $100,000— it was about $155,000 worth of retained work, which she successfully filled. Off the back of a trip to the US, a trip to San Francisco, um, completely new business. And, um, one of our other, other senior consultants, Brodie, like, he, he's on track for target this year, which is a very good thing to say given this market, I think, for a lot of, for a lot of recruiters. Um, and about 80% of that is independently 360. So I think it was just then that kind of shift in the mindset of actually Joe and Ollie are going to come back onto working in the business. Um, not completely. I wouldn't call myself like a 100% full-time recruiter. You can't be. But I think it was important to, to kind of get back to, to being hands-on. Um, also from the, like, the enjoyment perspective, like, missed recruiting, miss speaking to candidates and, and closing candidates and that buzz of like, I've just like, close an absolute belter. Um, so I think it was important for, for everyone, um, that Joe and I just become like, right, we've probably stepped a bit further than we should have done. Let's, let's get, let's get, let's get back to, to really driving it from, from the, from the front rather than trying to, trying to kind of feed it from, from the back.

How did you go about changing that mindset? Because I literally spoke to a recruitment company the other day that felt the exact same, where you've— they've got a team of people who have got used to being given roles, have earned good money, uh, but now trying to drive them to, you know, pick up their own business or be motivated to do that, and they're struggling to do that, or just aren't that motivated because they're like, oh no, Ollie will sort me out, he'll put roll through, or Joe's gonna, Joe's gonna pull roll, Joe can just do more BD. How did you go about starting to change that?

Getting closer to like KPIs, really getting closer to metrics. Um, and like, we're far from a, like, I don't know, your, your traditional like boiler room KPI shop where it's like, right, you have to do 3 hours of call times before you go home, or you have to send 10 CVs if you want to leave on a Friday. Like, we're far from that. Um, but we do have a, we do have a big emphasis now on these are the metrics that you should be hitting if you're going to be building a successful 360 desk. And I think it's just having the— so we, we have one of the other things that we've learned over the, over the last 18 months of actually having a team, um, is what kind of meeting structure do we want and what kind of management structure do we want? And it's, it's taken quite a long time and quite a lot of like chopping and changing to, to settle on where we're at now. But we're pretty confident now that we've like locked it down and it's, it's, it's working. So we have like weekly pledges at the start of the week.

So yeah, so everyone's— yeah, we do key objectives, but I actually don't really like that word. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So on a Monday, on a Monday And the pledges are separate from the KPIs because the pledge— the KPI is, well, this is what I kind of need to be doing.

This is what good looks like.

Yeah. Whereas the pledge is like, this is what I'm actually aiming to do. And this is the meaning and this is the context behind the KPI. So for example, when I'm going to deliver X number of CVs to this specific role, I'm going to try and convert this specific, uh, a prospect that I've been speaking to, um, and then I'm going to do out this type of specific outlet. Let's say you're doing a MPC, so most, uh, spec out. I'm specifically sending this candidate to X number of this type of business.

Yeah.

And then it's really easy to then be like, okay, well, halfway through the week, right, where are we at? What else? Yep. So another, another meeting on Wednesday where we're just kind of taking stock on, right, where are we at? And things change. Like you might have had a new role coming. So it also enables you to kind of recalibrate on what the priorities are for the week. And then on a Friday, it's then a case of there's 20% left of the week, right? Like still a, still an important day. It's right. What have we got left to do? So let's make sure we drive that forward. And we literally, since we've kind of locked in on that structure, there's been such a difference in the team. Um, and also in terms of them feeling, feeling a bit more ownership and a bit more responsibility over the pledges, which in turn help achieve the KPIs.

I really love that. We do something similar, it's taken from this podcast to be fair. Weekly key objectives on the Monday, a Wednesday pit stop session are we on track with things? And then Friday, don't have a meeting, but very much sort of communicate in the morning. When, when do you do like the more management stuff as well, in terms of one-on-ones, these types of things? You do that weekly, or—

so we do one-on-ones. So I, I tend to do, um, the one-on-ones, which is straight after the morning kickoff, the Monday kickoff meeting. Yeah, uh, we always do a, a, a one-to-one So that's then much more around, well, what, what do you actually— because we don't— you don't want to be sitting on a team meeting listening to someone else's incredibly detailed, granular plan, which if you like, if you've got a reasonable-sized team, like you're sitting there for an hour and only like 10% of the meeting's relevant to you. So you've switched off. So we try and keep the, the team kickoffs like very much short, to the point. Um, and then the one-on-ones go into much more detail of, right, like, what do you need to do, and what, what do you need from me, and what do you need from Joe to enable you to do that. Um, so we found that works as well. But there's definitely been a lot of— it's been a lot of chopping and changing, and it's, it's definitely created some— up until the last, last couple of months, it's definitely created some kind of inconsistency because it's probably like Oh, fuck, Joe and Ollie have another great idea on how to do our weekly structure.

Um, but they're so impactful when you get those right.

Yeah, and I feel we're there now. Um, it's just, it's taken a bit of time, but we came from a business where there was nothing. Like, there was a Monday meeting, like 8 AM on a Monday, um, where we talk about activity, um, and that was it. So we we, we learn all— we've been learning all of this as we go. Like, we're not late. I mean, was it Sam? Sam Perry from, from Salt or Soda? Um, you had him on?

Oh, Ollie Perry.

Ollie Perry, yeah, yeah, that's, that's it. Um, so like, their structure is great, and we took a lot from that in terms of actually, do you know what, the structure that we're now creating actually seems aligned with what a really successful business— yeah, is doing. So it gave a bit of confidence in terms of, actually, I think we're— I think, I think, I think we've got it. I think we've got it right now.

It's just about, like, like we said, we're talking about driving performance, right? And there's got to be that element of people having autonomy and wanting to, you know, achieve the performance. And then from a leadership management perspective, holding people account, or having ways of holding them accountable, whilst also then having systems in place in the business to help these people to perform better, right? And one of them is getting people set up for the week, helping them understand what their priorities are. These things. On the— just, just to round this out then, what, what are like the important KPIs in your business then? Like, you know, what have they ended up being? I don't know if they've evolved. Like, what, what's like the dashboard, you know, what's on those metrics of the dashboard that you look like in terms of— that you look at which, you know, identify what good looks like? Out of interest, I'm just curious.

So the, the most important things that we care about is first interviews, yeah, uh, per week, and then BD engagements per week. BD engagements, which is defined by 3 things. Okay, so we define a BD engagement as either a new pitch, so you've actually had a sit-down like pitch call with a prospect, um, you have either won a new qualified role, or you have signed the terms of business. So what that means, and the reason we've done it as 2, is really you should always be aiming to have 1 pitch per week. But if you're sitting there on a Thursday or a Friday and you're like, oh, I've not, I've not been able to do any successful BD, you can still go back through and you can chase all of the people that have outstanding terms that for whatever reason haven't got back to you. So you've got an opportunity to still achieve it there, but you've also got an opportunity to go back through all of your existing managers, all of your existing client base, and potentially pick up a role. So we thought it's, it's unrealistic to have just 2 pitches per week because if it's the end of the week, you probably can't immediately get a proper BD pitch, but you can spend an hour calling all of your existing clients and you can win a role. So we're still making it achievable towards the end of the week with minimal time left.

So BD engagements and first interviews.

And then we measure loads of other stuff, obviously, but the ones that you're like, they're the ones that, they're the ones that really matter.

You see those as like the lead domino to getting towards the outcomes?

If you're doing, if, if you're consistently doing, I mean, uh, well, we, we target it as a minimum of 3 in our market. That's, that's, that's fine for us. A minimum of 3 first interviews on qualified roles per week that you're you're doing deals.

How else have you had to evolve as a business owner and have evolved that mindset? What else have you really had to learn on the job or get better at or improve on? You know, we've spoken about, you know, BD strategies, how you've gone about that. We've spoken about driving performance, managing people. What else have you and Joe really had to that maybe you've been surprised by, or, you know, how have you— how else have you had to, like, yeah, like, quote-unquote, grow up as a business owner?

So all the back office bits that, like, you have zero exposure to as a recruiter. You have absolutely no idea what or how much goes on in the background. Um, and we launched our business through RecruitHub, so Edmund and the team, and they've Like, they're fantastic. So they provide all of like the technology, all of the tech stack and all of the tech support behind that. And then they also provide these— we didn't take investment from them, but they provide the platform and the, like the back office support. So all of that being in one place is a massive help. But there's still so much you have to do. So like, just like payroll, like looking through finance, like the tax side of things, like making configuration changes to Vincere or Sourcewire or Sourcebreaker, like all of these things that they take ages, like calling the bank. I, yeah, we spent an hour and a half on the phone to Wise trying to sort out an issue with our USD card for our trip to San Francisco a couple of months ago. And it's like, I've just lost an hour and a half of my time to sort out a bank card. And it's all those little things that that add up. And if we were to launch again, I'd probably— I'd make this one of our very first hires, and that's operations.

Really?

So the single most impactful hire to the whole business and to Joe and I has been Angelica, our operations lady. So what she does and what she's able to do like in terms of the podcast and in terms of a lot of the stuff that was bogging Joe and I down is, is huge. So I, I definitely make that as like beyond like your first two actual recruiters, I'd be hiring operations and I'd be building that underlying infrastructure that enables you to scale.

What does that look like then?

So playbooks, training, um, Uh, like, I still need to do a lot of this, but like flowcharts of, um, exact processes that enable you to not have to do one-on-one training for every single step of the process. So there's loads of stuff that should be done in person, like the sales aspect and the actual like candidate and the, the talent and the, the client management. That should all be done by by person. But then there's loads of stuff like the, the tools and the process and the, like, the sequencing that, that you can just— you can almost automate the training of that just by spending the time to build it out in the first place.

It's just doing all the upfront work that then you can use multiple times until it's a bit outdated.

You don't truly realize that until you've done it manually 6, 7 times and you're like, I could have just done this once.

So what else do you— what else do you put? I was just, I was just curious on like what you view makes up the infrastructure to help you guys grow, whatever that looks like. So you've said playbooks, systems and processes, how we do things, training.

Yeah.

What else do you view in that journey of like, these are the things that we need to, you know, invest time in and get done that we're going to thank ourselves for in a year, 2 years, 3 years' time?

I mean, what everything you said are the main ones. It's just, it's doing them properly.

Right.

So like a lot of the things like we, we did, but we did them half-assed and they weren't actually usable. So they were or they weren't, they weren't complete. So when we tried to use them, it was then actually there's still loads of gaps missing. So now I need to go back and redo it manually.

Yeah.

And then I also need to redo the, the actual like the playbook. So I think it's just that, that upfront time, especially as you're growing and like you're still trying to generate revenue to keep the lights on, it's really hard to set aside a few days to do something that's not generating you revenue, like, in the remote immediate future. Um, but if you are looking to scale and hire a lot, then it will— you'll, you'll, you'll thank yourself, like, a few months down the line.

You use the word playbook there. Obviously, I feel like because of the world that you guys are in, that, that's fairly normal language. So, so like for me, you know, when I think of the word playbook and how I've used that in my business, we've got a sales playbook, we've got a customer success playbook, we're building a marketing playbook. So from a sales standpoint, if you go into our sales playbook, you're going to be able to see our sales process, you're going to be able to see our talking tracks and scripts for the different parts of the sales process, you're going to be able to see our case studies, our testimonials, etc., etc. What does playbook mean for you? Because you sort of chucked that in there and not everyone will be aware of that. So like when you say playbook, what does that consist of?

So, so first of all, we've got— so the playbooks is part of this, but we've got, uh, like an internal like intranet. So we've got— and we call it our knowledge base. So we've got a— it's on New Clio, so really good tool.

We use Notion.

Notion, yeah, yeah. Um, So within that, we've got— it's designed to be whatever you need as a consultant, you can go and find it.

Yeah.

So it's everything from case studies, um, from, uh, like search strings— well, to be fair, you don't need them now because we've got Sourcebreaker, um, so that, that one's null and void. But, um, there's also like every form of like document. So rather than, uh, us like shouting out to the office, oh, has anyone got like a candidate call sheet, or has anyone got a qualification sheet, whatever it might be, like everyone just knows it's in one place.

Yeah.

And that, that's, that's a huge help. Um, but then within that is, is the playbook. So we have, um, I mean, you could call it training, right? It's playbooks, a training. But I think it's, it's more, it's, it's more specific because the way I view a playbook is I could hand this to you and say, go and read this and action it, and you should be able to do it. Yeah.

It's like how we do things.

Yeah.

Start like, what's been working, like what's working and how will you do things. So like, yeah, that's why I was interested in how you do that.

Um, so we, we have them for like one of them, one of the main ones we have is the like the cold email outreach and well, not, not just email, the cold outreach for, for sales and the, the process and the structure and then kind of bringing in Sourcewell on exactly this, this is how you should be structuring your, your outreach. Um, and that's what we're getting the good responses from. So yeah, it, it It works, but it takes, it takes time and takes time to build, but you can—

it quickly builds. Yeah, it's just, it honestly is crazy to me that, uh, like so many recruitment teams and smaller grown recruitment businesses won't have anything like that.

We didn't have anything. Like, we had, we had a phone and a LinkedIn Recruiter license and email and like some job boards, and beyond that there was, there was no we didn't come from an environment where there was any form of training, there was any form of structure. It literally was a case of like, there's your target, go and do it. Like, there was, there was— we could, we could— our bosses were great in terms of if you go and ask them something, they'd always give you the advice, but there was no like set, this is, this is how we do things. Um, and especially as we, as we grow and as we continue to build, I think it's so important.

Yes, like, it's crazy just because I speak to— like, so, like, for me, I don't know what you think about this, but like, if you're listening to this right now and you have nothing like that, that, that's fine. What we're saying is like, use the people around you. This is what I think is such a missed opportunity. Like, if I think of when I was in the business I was in, there was 8 people, uh, you know, the, the top performer that sat next to me, like, I didn't know what was working for Like, they could be speccing out a candidate in a certain way, using a certain subject line, using certain personalization that could help me fucking open up doors. And I have no clue about it. I have no idea about it. So I think for me, when I speak to companies, they do, you know, they have nothing like that. Like, I say, one, I think that's a missed opportunity because, you know, have you ever, have you ever, have you and your team ever asked your top performers like what's working for them and why they think it's working for them? And is that knowledge being passed around the office? Because if it isn't like, why would you not use that information that's in your four walls? And like, if you want to just try and get better at bringing that out, a good just first step— you don't have to build a playbook or anything— a good first step is get time in the diary with the team and let's all go around the, the, as a group, and just share what one thing is really working for me right now on the sales side or on, you know, qualifying, whatever it may be.

So we each of us within go-to-market, there's, there's a few different areas, and each of our team have a— they're not, they're not set to it, but they, they have their areas that they gravitate towards, um, and they're quite different. Like, if you're qualifying a marketing role and you're doing it well, you need to know, you need to get different information to if you're qualifying a sales role. Um, so we build out and we, we ask the team, we ask their, their input, because I don't know that much about marketing, um, whereas People in the business know huge amounts about it, and we then build out, well, these are the things that are important to a hiring manager, these are the things that are important to a candidate when hiring for salespeople, when hiring for sales engineering people, when hiring for marketing people. So now if you like, we could give you the qualification sheet for sales, and even if you'd never qualified a sales role before, you would be able to qualify someone to the absolute max just by asking the questions that are on the playbook.

So that's so valuable, right? Um, so what, what's on the horizon then as we round this out? What's on the horizon for you guys?

We're moving to, uh, to Bournemouth. We're, uh, yeah, we've had a big, big change in the business the last, uh, the last 2 months. Um, so we've, we've made the decision to, to shut the Crawley office. Um, I'm— so Joe's always lived down there, um, And I think we realized that actually the two founders only seeing each other once a week in an office-based firm originally didn't— just, just there, it just wasn't quite— it wasn't quite clicking. Um, there was never major issues, but it was just like, we're not as effective as we could be. So we now very much have a remote and flexible-first environment. Um, so, um, the, the, we've still got the office in Crawley at the moment. Um, when that shuts, it will be a case of the, the team can very much work remote. Um, we just ask them to come down and everyone be together a few, few, few days out of the month. Um, and yeah, we're, uh, we're, we're going to be growing significantly down there. Um, it was kind of all, all part of, I think, when it's difficult to get blinded by it, but when, when you realize that something's not necessarily clicking as it should, and when you realize that there's a way to be more effective even if it has some element of like business impacts, like positive or negative, you just got to do it. And even if there's— because we, we had a, as expected, we had a bit of fallout from that decision. Of course we did. We've just told people we're shutting the local office and we're moving 100 miles down on the South Coast. Um, but I think it's that bigger picture of Joe and I know that for him and I being back together is going to transform and make us so, so, so much more effective. And the people that are on board with that, they realize that it's going to make things so much better for them as well in terms of what opportunity we'll be able to provide them.

I wonder if this was Joe's grand plan all along.

Yeah, maybe he's just been, uh, get you down there, waiting to drag me down.

So what, what are you guys, what, what are you guys doubling down on then over the next, you know, to make— as like a lot of people said, it's been a difficult start what are you and Joe really focusing on and doubling down on, making sure you have really high standards around to end this year on a positive?

So yeah, I mean, where you mentioned standards, huge emphasis on high standards in every aspect of the business, um, huge aspects of, uh, of, of, of accountability to those standards as well. Um, we're, as we have been, doubling down on the, the nonprofit initiative. We're doubling down on the trips, um, Yeah, we'll get people on planes as often as they can be effective getting on planes to the US or to Israel or to APAC if they wanted to build an APAC desk. And very much focusing on hiring experienced remote talent across the UK and then trainee talent or experienced talent down on the South Coast. Yeah.

Ole, it's been a pleasure.

Likewise, mate. Thank you very much.